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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/44607-0.txt b/44607-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..950ef55 --- /dev/null +++ b/44607-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2733 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44607 *** + + BUDDHISM IN THE MODERN WORLD + + + BY + K. J. SAUNDERS + + AUTHOR OF + "THE STORY OF BUDDHISM," "GOTAMA BUDDHA," ETC. + + PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF RELIGION, BERKELEY + AND LECTURER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA + + + LONDON + SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE + NEW YORK AND TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + 1922 + + + + + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY + WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, + LONDON AND BECCLES. + + + + + PREFACE + + + +There are many books on Buddhism, and to produce a new one almost +demands an apology. Yet most of them deal with the dead past, and +Buddhism is a living religion which is showing remarkable powers of +revival and adaptation. This is a movement of so great significance +that I hope this small volume may prove of value, not only to +missionaries but to all sympathetic students of a religion which has +played an immense part in the world's history, and which is still a +dominant influence in the lives of scores of millions. During twelve +years of somewhat intimate study of Buddhist countries I have found +that while there is much that is degenerate there is much that is very +noble, and the object of this little book is to estimate the living +forces of the religion rather than to emphasise its weaknesses. It is +at once more scientific and more worth while to look at the strong +than at the weak points of a religion, and there is an increasing +school of missionary thought which believes in building the Christian +Church of Asia upon the great foundations laid through so many +centuries. Not only is it true that God has not left Himself without a +witness amongst these peoples; it is even truer that during the long +and on the whole noble history of the expansion of Buddhism His Spirit +has been at work. I am convinced that any who really study this +remarkable chapter in human history will come to this conclusion, if +they have any belief whatsoever in a meaning in history and in a +Divine Providence. + +The missionary amongst Buddhist peoples should aim at studying all +that is noble and of good repute, whilst of course he will not shut +his eyes to what is degenerate and unworthy, and inasmuch as an +increasing number of missionary teachers are doing me the honour to +consult me as to the method of approach to their Buddhist friends, I +venture to dedicate this small volume to them as a token of hearty +sympathy in the noble work that they are doing in seeking to fulfil +the age-long purposes of God. I think that many of them agree with me +that already a nobler form of Christianity is being produced on +Asiatic soil than that which we have brought thither, and it may well +be in the providence of God that a new and splendid era of Church +History is opening up as these responsive and religious peoples of the +Orient are captured by the Gospel of Christ. In spite of the failures +of Christendom and of our divided Christianity the whole of Asia +reverences the historic Jesus, and from her contact with His Spirit is +at once reforming and revivifying her ancient faiths. This process is +of immense significance and her best spirits, even when they do not +call themselves Christian, are frank to confess how much they owe to +Him and how much there is in their old faiths which will need to die +in order that they may live again, purified and deepened. That Asia is +increasingly becoming Christian in its standards of thought and +conduct is evident to any unbiased observer, and one of the most +remarkable proofs of the authenticity and originality of our faith is +this--that it is at once reforming and fulfilling the ancient faiths +of Asia. What it did with the religions of Rome and Greece it is +already doing with the nobler religions of the Orient; and true +missionaries of Christ are at work upon a task of incomparable dignity +and significance. + +These brief sketches are based upon ten years of intimate association +with Buddhists in Southern and Eastern Asia. + +Inasmuch as I have only been on the borders of Tibet I have not +written here of Tibetan Buddhism. It is very degenerate and so mixed +with Tantric Hinduism as to demand separate and different handling: it +is very clear that missionary work is urgently needed to free the +people of Tibet from a tyranny which is unworthy of the great name of +the Buddha. + + K. J. S. + + BERKELEY, + _January, 1922._ + + + + + TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + PREFACE + + I. BUDDHISM IN SOUTHERN ASIA + + I. BUDDHISM IN BURMA + + 1. AT THE GREAT PAGODA IN RANGOON + (a) A Monastic School + (b) Its Moral Teaching + (c) Its Religious Instruction + (d) The Importance of the Monks as a Class + (e) Women at Worship + + 2. THE RELIGIOUS VALUES OF EVERYDAY BUDDHISM + (a) What Buddhism means for Burmese Women + (b) What it means for Burmese Men + (c) What it means for Burmese Children + (d) The Attitude of Burmese Students + (e) The Better Side of Burmese Buddhism + + 3. CHRISTIANITY'S OPPORTUNITY IN BURMA + (a) The Burmese are truly Religious in Temperament + (b) They tend to view Gotama as a Saviour + (c) The Christian Heaven is more attractive than _Nibbāna_ + (d) Moral Conditions demand a Vital Christianity + (e) Loving Social Service finds its own Way to the Heart + (f) Christianity can dispel the Fear of the Demon World + + II. BUDDHISM IN CEYLON + + 1. ON A HILLSIDE NEAR KANDY + (a) The Dullness and Superstition of Village Life in Southern Ceylon + (b) The Themes of the Hillside Preacher + (c) The Stolidity of his Audience + + 2. THE HOLD OF BUDDHISM UPON THE SINGHALESE + (a) The Appeal of its Traditions + (b) Its Work of Reformation + (c) Its Leadership of Public Opinion + (d) Yet Ceylon needs Christianity + + 3. TWO SHARPLY MARKED ATTITUDES AMONG MODERN BUDDHISTS + + III. BUDDHISM IN SIAM + + 1. SIAM A BUDDHIST KINGDOM + 2. THE _THOT KRATHIN_ FESTIVAL + 3. THE KING AND PĀLI LEARNING + 4. BUDDHIST EDUCATION + 5. THE TEMPLES OR _WATS_ + + IV. CONTRASTED TYPES OF BUDDHIST RELIGIOUS LIFE IN SOUTHERN ASIA + + 1. THE CREMATION OF A SINGHALESE ABBOT + 2. THE FUNERAL RITES OF A BURMESE MONK + 3. THOSE OF A SIAMESE PRINCE + 4. THE SECRET OF BUDDHISM'S INFLUENCE + + V. BUDDHISM AS A LIVING WORLD RELIGION + + 1. IT ATTRACTS THOSE WHOSE FAITH IN CHRISTIANITY HAS CEASED + 2. IT DEALS WITH HUMAN SUFFERING + 3. IT OFFERS A WAY OF ESCAPE FROM PESSIMISM + 4. ITS GREAT FOUNDER CALLED HIMSELF A "PHYSICIAN OF SICK SOULS" + 5. IT CULTIVATES A SENSE OF THE WORTHLESSNESS OF TEMPORAL THINGS + 6. ITS CONCEPTION OF BLISS IS REALISABLE IN THIS LIFE + 7. IT IS A RELIGION OF ANALYSIS + 8. IT HAS FINE ETHICAL TEACHINGS, _e.g._ + (a) The Four Noble Truths + (b) The Eight-fold Path + 9. IT NOW PRACTISES PRAYER + 10. YET IT TEACHES STOICAL SELF-MASTERY RATHER THAN DEPENDENCE ON +GOD + 11. IT HAS TWO STANDARDS OF MORALITY: ONE FOR MONKS, ANOTHER FOR +LAY FOLK + 12. IT GIVES WOMEN A LOWER PLACE THAN MEN + 13. SUMMARY + + VI. THE MISSIONARY APPROACH TO MODERN BUDDHISM IN SOUTHERN ASIA + + 1. MODERN BUDDHISM DIFFERS FROM THE THEORETICAL BUDDHISM OF GOTAMA + 2. THE CENTRAL EMPHASIS OF BUDDHISM VARIES IN THE THREE SOUTHERN +COUNTRIES + 3. SOME QUALITIES DESIRABLE IN MISSIONARIES TO BUDDHISTS + (a) A Genuine Sympathy + (b) A Sense of Beauty and of Humour + (c) Strong Christian Convictions + (d) A Desire to appreciate Fresh Truth + 4. A GREAT OPPORTUNITY + + II. BUDDHISM IN EASTERN ASIA + + I. BUDDHISM IN JAPAN + + KŌYA SAN + HIEISAN AND ITS SECTS + A SHINSHU TEMPLE + A REVIVAL OF BUDDHISM + CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE + + II. BUDDHISM IN CHINA + + A CHINESE TEMPLE + + APPENDIX I. + APPENDIX II. + + + + + BUDDHISM IN THE MODERN WORLD + + + + + I. BUDDHISM IN SOUTHERN ASIA + + + I. BUDDHISM IN BURMA + + +1. At the great Pagoda in Rangoon. + +Let us visit the great _Shwe Dagon_ pagoda in Rangoon, one of the +living centres of the Buddhist world, where amidst a splendid grove of +palms and forest trees the golden spire rises high above a vast +platform crowded with shrines and images of the Buddha. Far below is +the teeming city bathed in golden light, and humming with life; here +all is still save for the rustle of leaves and the tinkling of +innumerable bells upon the great pagoda pinnacle, and the shouting of +a class of boys in the monastery school near by. + +(a) _A Monastic School_.--Some two score of them are seated round a +kindly old monk in his faded yellow robe. And all are shouting at the +top of their voices repeating in unison certain words, of whose +meaning they do not seem to think! + +(b) _Its Moral Teaching_.--As we draw near we realise that these are +phrases from a popular Buddhist book known as _Mingala Thot_, a +summary of the Buddhist beatitudes, which describe the happy life of +the Buddhist layman. First they shout a word of Pāli[1] and then a +word of Burmese, and lastly the whole phrase. There are twelve verses, +of which the following is typical:-- + + "Tend parents, cherish wife and child, + Pursue a blameless life and mild: + Do good, shun ill and still beware + Of the red wine's insidious snare; + Be humble, with thy lot content, + Grateful and ever reverent." + +Many times must these phrases be droned through before they are +learned by heart, but gradually their meanings sink in and simple +explanations and grammatical notes by the teacher help his class to +understand as well as to learn. These moral maxims still exert a +powerful influence for good. + +(c) _Its Religious Instruction_.--Another favourite lesson is a short +summary of the excellent qualities of the "Three Jewels" of +Buddhism--the Buddha, his Order of Monks, and his Law or teaching; and +another celebrates eight victories of the Buddha over enemies temporal +and spiritual. Having mastered these preliminary books, the boys will +learn the chief _Jātakas_, a strange medley of folklore dressed up in +Buddhist guise, and purporting to be stories of the various +sacrificial existences of the founder of Buddhism, Sākyamuni, before +he became a Buddha. Buddhism is not only a body of moral teachings, +but a religion with an elaborate system of beliefs, which makes very +great demands upon the faith of its worshippers, and some of these +beliefs are embodied in these stories of the former lives of the +Buddha. Others are conveyed in legends and hymns, in popular summaries +and proverbial sayings universally known and used by the people. + +(d) _The Importance of the Monks_.--This class of boys around the old +monk represents an educational system which covers all Burma and has +unbounded influence. It is an amazing fact that there are almost two +monasteries to every village. While this constitutes an enormous drain +upon the resources of the country, since all the monks retire from its +active industrial life, and live upon the alms of the laity, it has, +on the other hand, made Burma one of the most literate of all the +lands of the East, with a larger percentage of men who can read and +write than modern Italy. So great is the power of the monks that all +boys, before they can be regarded as human beings, must undergo a form +of ordination. It is not strange that some of them are caught by the +lure of the monastic life and the glamour of the yellow robe: yet most +of them, after a short experience, go back to the world. + +The young _shin_ or novice, who chooses to stay in a monastery, may in +due course be admitted to ordination. At that time, dressed in +princely robes, he celebrates the sacrifice of the founder of +Buddhism, Sākyamuni, in leaving his royal state to become a +mendicant. His head is shaved, his gorgeous clothes are taken away, +and henceforward he is clad only in the yellow robe of the Buddhist +monks, an order older, more widespread, and more picturesque than any +other religious order in the world. He has "taken refuge in the Three +Jewels," and now takes up the regular life of the monk. He goes out +daily with a group of others to collect food for the monastery; he +attends to the various needs of the older monks and carries on the +simple household tasks assigned to him. A large portion of his time +must be given to studies, until he has a good working knowledge of the +three "Baskets,"[2] _i.e._ the Discipline, the Narratives or +Dialogues, and the Higher Religion, which make up the Buddhist canon. +In course of time he may himself become a teacher. + +Let us turn again to the shrine. The great sun is going down and the +pagoda, splendid in the sunset as it changes from gold to purple and +from purple to gray, and then to silver as the glorious moon rises, is +thronged with devout worshippers. The monk prostrates himself before +the jewelled alabaster image of Buddha. He seems unaware of the people +around him, who honour him as a being of a superior order; or, if +conscious of them, it is with a sense of his own aloofness. "Sabbā +Dukkhā" (all is sorrow) he is murmuring: "Sabbā Anattā" (all is +without abiding entity). Mechanically the lay-folk repeat with him the +words which have been for twenty-five centuries the Buddhist challenge +to the world, calling it away from the lure of the senses and the ties +of family and home. + +Do the people really believe it? Let us look at this group of women +before one of the many shrines on the spacious pagoda platform. Are +they intent on giving up the world or on making the most of it? Are +they persuaded that it is all sad and transient? Here kneels a young +wife offering strands of her hair, and praying that her child may have +hair as long and beautiful. Near by is an unhappy wife who prays that +her husband may become as pure as the flower which she lays at the +feet of the Buddha. Not far away is one very old and trembling woman +who, after bowing to the impassive image and lighting her little +candle before it, has turned back to pat a great old tree lest the +_nat_, or spirit, which lives within, be offended. "The spirits are +always malignant and have to be propitiated. The world-renowned one, +is he not benign?" She must not risk offending this tree-spirit, in +her desire to please the Buddha. "The Burman tries to keep both in +mind and to serve them faithfully, for both may help to make this life +pleasant; but he is most anxious concerning the demons. Whilst in +every village in the country there is at least one pagoda and +monastery, there is sure to be a spirit-shrine in every home, where +the spirits are consulted and appeased before homes are built, +marriages arranged, purchases made, or journeys undertaken." It is +these things, after all, that make up life for most of us. + + + + +2. The Religious Values of Everyday Buddhism. + + +(a) _What Buddhism means for Burmese Women_.--It will be interesting +to consider what Buddhism has to offer to such groups of women. Four +sorts of appeal may be mentioned. In the first place Buddhism is a +great social force, providing many festivals and giving much colour to +everyday life. In theory it may be sad; in practice it is very +cheerful. Even in Christian lands some women go to church to see the +latest fashions; can we wonder that Burmese Buddhist women delight to +gather on the platform of the beautiful pagoda for friendly +intercourse and gossip? Again, they think of the order of monks as +giving them the best chance to gain "merit." They recall that the +Master taught that generous offerings to them are potent in bringing +all kinds of benefits in this world, and even in helping the dead in +the dim life of the underworld. The monks confer a favour by accepting +alms; it is the donor who says "Thank you." + +Another great source of enjoyment and instruction is the well-known +Buddhist stories, told over and over again, often miraculous, always +with a moral. They also reflect on the lives, which they know by +heart, of certain great _Bodhisattvas_, or Buddhas in the making, +"buds of the lotus," which later on burst into full bloom. One of the +pictures in which they delight is that of Gotama[3] when he was a hare +and jumped into the fire to feed a hungry Brahmin. Another picture +more familiar and more poignant still, depicts his appearance as +Prince Vessantara, giving away his wife and beloved children to a +hunchback beggar. These stories exert an immense influence. + +And finally, Buddhism influences Burmese women by appealing to their +imagination and their love of mystery, with its solemn chanting, its +myriad shrines, with their innumerable candles twinkling in the dusk, +and the sexless sanctity of its monks. How wise and good they seem to +be! Are they not custodians of the truth? Here one little woman is +lifting a heavy stone weighing forty pounds; a monk has told her that +if it seems heavy her prayer will surely be answered. To make +assurance doubly sure, she may go and consult the soothsayer, whose +little booth is near the shrine--a cheerful rogue, not without insight +and a sense of humour--but she gives to the monk the supreme place, +and pays him more generously! + +A Burman acquaintance of mine, who was converted to Christianity, was +asked by an old lady why he had deserted the "custom" of his people. +"I am sick," he began, "of all this bowing down to the monks, and of +all these offerings." "Stop, stop!" she cried, aghast. "You are +destroying the whole religion of our nation!" + +(b) _What it means for Burmese Men_.--Laymen in Burma are much like +men elsewhere. Here is one who between prostrations before the image +of Buddha keeps his long cheroot alive, and enjoys an occasional puff. +He is like many men one meets, "making the best of both worlds." Yet +to him too Buddhism makes a strong appeal, primarily because it is his +heritage or, as he says, "the custom of Burma." The national feeling, +which is alive in Burma as well as in all other parts of the East, +resents Western influences, of which Christianity seems a part. +Moreover, Buddhism strongly appeals to his habit of mind. He thinks he +understands why there is inequality in human lot, why some are rich +and some poor, some healthy and some diseased. He explains it as the +working out of the law of _Kamma_.[4] Men suffer now because they have +sinned in a former birth. Listen to this conversation: Old U Hpay is +telling a neighbour about a foolish old sister of his who has adopted +a calf, and is petting it because its voice is so like that of her +dead husband! While the old men chuckle at this quaint expression of +her faith, yet they do believe that this is the law of life. Should +you kill a mosquito it may be your mother-in-law in a new body, and +still going strong! But Buddhism puts forth its greatest appeal at +those times when there comes over its votaries a wistful yearning for +something which this world has not given them. At these quiet moments, +especially in the evening of life, when they are no longer concerned +with making money or with the raising of a family, the appeal of +_Nibbāna_[5] and its peace comes home to many. They do not feel sure +of reaching it, nor do they fully understand what it means. Some of +their monkish teachers tell them it will be annihilation, while others +describe it as the extinction of all passion or a great calm. In +either way _Nibbāna_[5] has its lure, especially to the world-weary. +I have even known a Christian missionary who was tempted to long for +the quiet and relief from the staleness and hurry of life which +annihilation would bring. But he was weary and needed a holiday! +Missionaries often do. + +(c) _Buddhism and Children_.--Playing around, while the old people +talk or pray, are always some children. Here a fat, naked baby takes a +puff at his grandfather's cigar; there a little girl, devoutly +imitating what she sees her parents doing before the great image of +Buddha, also lights her candle and offers her marigolds. The older +children quickly begin to take their share in the religious life about +them. In some of them is dawning a hero-worship of the great Buddha +who has done so much for the world. This little girl thinks wistfully +of her brother, so recently her playmate, but now a Buddhist novice, +with shaven head and yellow robe, as remote from her and aloof as if +he belonged to another world. Not much is taught to her and her +girl-playmates: "they are only girls!" But she is learning by what she +sees, and she too is becoming a staunch Buddhist. There are some +stalwart champions of Buddhism amongst the children, and the girls +grow up, less instructed but not less devout than the boys. + +(d) _The Attitude of Burmese Students_.--Every mother desires that one +of her sons shall take and keep the yellow robe, yet the younger among +the educated Burmese are frank in calling the order of monks a "yellow +peril," not because they are bad men, for public opinion in Burma +rarely tolerates immorality in these religious leaders, but because +there are so many of them, over seventy-five thousand in the whole +country. To feed such a horde of mendicants is a costly business, and +the rebuilding and gilding of a pagoda may mean that the inheritance +of every one belonging to its village will be decimated. "The pagoda +is built and the village ruined," they ruefully repeat. Thus there is +growing up among those who are in the government schools in contact +with the liberal thinking of the West a disposition to question the +values of the present religious system. Possibly not more than ten per +cent. of the students who have Western training can be called orthodox +Buddhists. Thus the old people to whom Buddhism means so much are +anxious, and the young are restive. Burma, like many other countries, +is going through a period of transition, the outcome of which is +uncertain. Yet undoubtedly it is still a strongly Buddhist country, +and the masses of its people are not much affected by this spirit of +scepticism. As, however, Western education is the key to preferment +the official classes are apt to sit loose to much that their fathers +held sacred. And some few are busy re-thinking their faith and seeking +to adapt it to modern needs. + +(e) _The Better Side of Burmese Buddhism_.--Buddhism is often +described as a pessimistic religion. As one sees it in Burma, however, +it seems to make the people happy and contented. Possibly this is due +to their naturally cheerful temperament. Whatever the reason, there is +a remarkable joyousness about the gay-robed crowds of happy, smiling +people. + +Again, while Buddhism does not give to womanhood nearly so high a +place as does the religion of Jesus, yet it has granted her a far +better standing than she has in any part of India under Hinduism or +Islam. Woman is the "better half" in Burma and knows it, even though +she may pray to be born next as a man. + +Caste, moreover, the great bane of India, is almost unknown to +Buddhist Burma: it is a cheerful democratic land. Buddhism believes in +the education of the masses, and its schools and monasteries are open +to all. It is also very tolerant and kindly. It has not led on any +large scale either to religious persecution or to war. These are no +small services. Moreover, Buddhism has in the past been a great bond +of union between the peoples of Asia, and it is to-day again playing +some part in the movement, "Asia for the Asiatics"--a movement +deserving our sympathetic attention. In the great awakening of +Nationalism the Buddhist Revival has its share both as cause and as +effect. + + + + +3. Prospects of Christianity in Burma. + + +There are only some twenty thousand Burmese Christians as yet, +although, within the confines of Burma there is a far larger number of +Christians, and the Karens are already a great church. What, then, are +the reasons for confidence that Burma will at some time be a Christian +country, albeit with a Christianity whose type will differ very +greatly from the prevailing types of the West? + +(a) _The Burmese are truly Religious in Temperament_.--The natural +instinct of the Burmese for religion is strong. They are not content +with mere ritual and with offerings, lavish as these are. Gratitude to +Gotama, the great Teacher and lord of life, is a real motive to many. +Not uncommonly are Christian hymns adapted by modern educated +Buddhists and sung in honour of the Buddha: + + "Glory, laud and honour + To our Lord and King, + This through countless ages, + Men and Devas sing." + +These Buddhists have organised Buddhist Sunday Schools. In these the +children not only closely imitate Protestant Sunday Schools but sing +to a small portable harmonium: + + "Buddha loves me, this I know; + For the Scriptures tell me so," + +or more usually Burmese hymns and "carols." + +(b) _They tend to view Gotama as a Saviour_.--Again many look upon +Gotama as a loving saviour. So strong is this attitude toward him that +when a father blesses his child, he says to him: "May you be reborn +when the Loving One, _Metteya_[6] comes." Gotama is reported as having +promised the coming of such a redeemer. Even in Southern Asia, +therefore, Buddhism is changing from a way of merit and self-mastery +into a way of salvation by faith. May we not reckon this transition as +a preparation for the message of Christianity? Buddhism everywhere is +to-day almost more like Christianity than it is like the Buddhism of +Gotama and the Elders. The Buddhism of Burma is more of a religion and +less of a philosophy than that of the Books. + +(c) _The Christian Heaven is more Attractive than _Nibbāna_.--It is +clear again that Buddhists to-day are much more ready than before to +accept the idea of a Christian heaven. This heaven, preached as a +state of progress, a meeting-place of friends, and the beatific vision +of God, is very attractive to them. The appeal of _Nibbāna_ is dying: +"_Nibbāna_," said a monk in Burma, "is a fearsome thought. I have no +hope of attaining it." "We are walking in darkness," said another +leader, "without seeing a light, a person, or a hope." + +Missionaries both in Burma and Ceylon are agreed that the teaching of +Buddhism has changed very greatly during the last few decades, among +those who have come directly or indirectly in touch with Christianity. +Formerly Buddhists preached that there was no supreme god, that +_Nibbāna_ meant total quiescence, almost total annihilation, that man +is his own saviour, and that there is no possible escape from the +penalty of sin; now many admit that there must be a God, declare that +Gotama is a saviour, that sin is forgiven and that there is a heaven +in place of _Nibbāna_. + +On the other hand, there is still much work for the Christian +missionary. Buddhism in many parts of Burma seems to be making one +great last stand against the gospel of Christ. Its own standard is in +many respects so high that our Christianity is as a whole not loving +or sacrificial enough to win its adherents. The Christianity which is +to be an overpowering argument for the efficacy and truth of the +Christian faith is too rare. The Buddhist Revival is largely a +reaction from our Western pseudo-Christianity, and from the shameless +aggression of Christendom. + +(d) _Moral Conditions Demand a Vital Christianity_.--The moral +situation in Burma clearly demands that either a revivified Buddhism +or Christianity in its most vital form should come to the rescue. The +need is grave. Burma is at once the most literate and the most +criminal portion of the Indian Empire. A government report for 1912 +reads: "The moral sense of the people is diminishing with a slackening +of religious observances. With the decay of ancient beliefs the +Buddhist religion is losing its moral sanction as an inspiring force +in the lives of its adherents. Drunkenness, gambling, drug-taking and +vicious habits, increasing as they all are, tend to produce a +weakening of self-control and a loss of self-respect which in +favouring circumstances easily create the criminal." A fair-minded +missionary would agree that these deplorable conditions are in large +measure chargeable to the impact of Western "civilisation." It is +incumbent upon us, in ordinary justice and fair play, to see that the +West is represented by our very best men in missionary service, in +commerce and in government posts. On the other hand, these deplorable +moral conditions are also due to the fact that Buddhism has not +succeeded in its task of building character. A genuine and vital +Christianity has a large and hopeful task in Burma. These very +attractive people need a dynamic and a bond of union in great +enterprises. They are seeking such a religion. + +(e) _Loving Social Service finds its own Way to the Heart_.--When +Christianity is expressed in deeds of loving social service, such as +work for lepers, for the deaf and the blind, or for any other needy +class in the community, it touches a responsive chord in every +Buddhist heart. They subscribe to our Christian mission work for the +afflicted. The social appeal of Christianity will go far toward +breaking down all forms of prejudice: and it is significant that the +young Burmese are organising their own Y.M.B.A.'s and their own social +service clubs, though at present these movements do not exhibit much +staying-power. + +(f) _Christianity dispels the Fear of the Demon World_.--Christianity +reveals its power by dispelling the terrors of demon-haunted villages, +and lessening the horrors of the slums of the great cities. A country +like Burma is not interested in a new system of ethics. It is wholly +satisfied with the admirable system it already possesses. But it does +welcome the sense of spiritual freedom and power which Christianity +can impart. "The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." May we +not say that Christ can give strength to follow the Noble Path of +which Gotama spoke? + + +[1] The ancient and still the classic language of S. Buddhism in which +its scriptures are preserved. It is used religiously, much as Latin is +used in the Roman Catholic services. + +[2] The Tipitaka (Sanskrit, Tripitika) (1) _Vinaya_; (2) _Sutta_; (3) +_Abhidhamma_. The Pāli scriptures were originally written on palm +leaves and preserved, layer upon layer, in the three "baskets." This, +at least, is one explanation of the use of this term. + +[3] Gotama is the Pāli form (common in S. Asia) of the Sanskrit +Gautama, more familiar to Western readers. + +[4] Sanskrit, _Karma_. + +[5] Sanskrit, _Nirvāna_. + +[6] Sanskrit, _Maitri_. + + + + + II. BUDDHISM IN CEYLON + + +1. On a Hillside near Kandy. + + +Over against this sketch of Buddhism as it appears in Burma let us +consider a scene in a neighbouring land, the island of Ceylon, where +for twenty-five hundred years, the religion of the yellow robe has +held almost undisputed sway. Here it has a supreme opportunity, and +has often used it nobly, building a great civilisation for a thousand +years. + +It is early spring. The rains are over, and in the brilliant +moonlight, the Singhalese peasants have gathered from their little +malarial villages to listen to _bana_, the preaching of the Buddhist +Law. + +(a) _The Dullness and Superstition of Village Life in Southern +Ceylon_.--Life is dull in these villages, and any incident and any +teaching will be welcome. It is a strange world in which these people +live, "a world of bare and brutal facts; of superstition, of grotesque +imagination; a world of hunger and fear and devils, where a man is +helpless before the unseen, unintelligible forces surrounding him." As +in Burma, so in Ceylon, demonism is inextricably interwoven with the +Buddhism of the people. In Ceylon, however, it is a darker and more +sinister demonism, blending with a far more sombre and pessimistic +Buddhism. Devils and anti-devils, exorcists and monks, incantations +and prayers to Buddha mingle in the dim confused minds of these poor +Kandyan villagers. It is not very long since human sacrifices were +made to the "demons" of disease. + +(b) _The Themes of the Hillside Preacher_.--This darker pessimism +speaks through the monotonous sing-song of the yellow-robed monk on +the hillside, as he speaks to the villagers, urging upon them that +life is transient and full of sorrow, that none the less their chief +duty is to avoid taking the life of the meanest animal, not even +killing the malarial mosquito or the plague-bringing rat against which +government edicts have gone out. Here religion is in conflict with +science and with family love: which is to die, my child or the rat? +There can in the end of the day be but one answer. + +(c) _The Stolidity of his Audience_.--The men listen dully, chewing +their betel-nut. They have not much use for the monks, who own +one-third of the arable land of the country and are a heavy drain upon +its resources. Except fitfully, they are not schoolmasters like those +of Burma, but tend to be drones in the hive. When they do teach the +children they only emphasise the doctrines of rebirth and of +not-killing; yet some are kind and teach reading and writing to the +little ones. And occasionally one leads a life of such real piety as +to justify this division of labour--"the people to work, the monk to +meditate." But saints are rare in all lands. + + + + +2. The Hold of Buddhism upon the Singhalese. + + +Even in this village audience, crude as the preaching and dull as the +response to it may be, there is a certain sense of religious peace, of +an otherworldly calm. The _Dharma_ has not lost its power. What are +the deep roots which the great tree of Buddhism has put out in the +island of Ceylon? Of these the more intelligent Buddhist laity will +speak. Let us question this young lawyer, dressed in Western style, +who stands looking on with some contempt. + +(a) _Appeal of its Traditions_.--Such men are impressed by what they +see of a very ancient and very real civilisation, which Buddhism +undoubtedly built. In the jungles everywhere are the remains of the +days when Buddhism taught the people to irrigate their fields, to +build strong cities, to write remarkable books, and to develop a +genuine culture. The ruined cities of Anuradhapura and Pollanaruwa, in +spite of the incursions of the jungle and of the neglect of centuries, +are still magnificent and eloquent monuments of what was a really +great civilisation when Europe was still barbarian. Here the patriot +sees the melancholy remnants of a great Buddhist nation, great not +only in the beauty of its art, but great in the tanks and irrigation +systems now almost hidden by rank undergrowth, but remaining to prove +that the whole of this vast deserted area was once under cultivation. +Great, too, was the spirit of some of these rulers. Imagine the +emotions which surge in the young patriot's heart as he thinks of all +the devastation caused by the great European war and then stands +before the calm statue of the noble Dutu Gemunu who to save his people +from war, sought out the invader and slew him in single combat, and +then in the greatness of his heart put up a splendid monument in his +honour! It is on account of such things as these that the young modern +Singhalese is convinced that Buddhism has still a place in the world. + +Wave after wave of European aggression has swept over Ceylon, arousing +a resentment which leads the Singhalese even to exaggerate the glories +of ancient Buddhism. It is not strange that they do so. Moreover, +although it is fashionable in Ceylon to despise the mendicants of the +yellow robe, the fact that there are still about eight thousand monks +shows that in these days of disillusionment there are many world-weary +men, to whom the traditional attraction of the monastic life is +over-poweringly strong and who find under it protection and peace. I +have seen strong and true boys being drawn under its spell, and have +known some noble characters among the monks. + +(b) _Its work of Reformation_.--The intelligent Buddhist layman +emphasises not merely the sense of peace and quiet satisfaction which +Buddhism affords; he also claims that it has done away with caste and +has purified religion. He will often compare the dignity, the stately +beauty, and the harmlessness of the Buddhist temple and its +surroundings with the incredibly gross indecencies of a Saivite shrine +in Southern India. Men must worship something: in Buddhism they +worship a good and great man deified. In Saivite Hinduism they mingle +the base passions of a perverted sexuality with their worship. + +(c) _Its Leadership of Public Opinion_.--This apologist argues, too, +that Buddhism still retains the power of moulding public opinion. He +instances the strenuous appeals which the Buddhists have made to the +Ceylon government to suppress instead of encourage the liquor traffic: +and points to some of their good schools, where young Ceylon is being +taught the great moral lessons of their Faith. And though Theosophists +from the West have been most responsible for starting these, the +Buddhists keep them up and are adding new buildings and improving +their quality. + +(d) _Yet Ceylon needs Christianity_.--It is clear that much as +Buddhism has done for this lovely land, it does need Jesus Christ as +indeed all lands, not least our own, need Him in increasing measure as +they face the complexities of the modern world. + +He is needed in jungle village and in teeming city, to cast out fear +and sin, and to enable His people to live nearer to their ideals. +They, too, have gifts for Him! And we and they are partners in a +glorious enterprise: to establish His Kingdom of Love and Truth in all +the world. Their devotion to their Buddha, no less than their need and +helplessness to-day, is an inspiring motive to the Christian +missionary to win them to Christ. + + + + +3. Two Sharply Marked Attitudes among Buddhists. + + +Let us return to the hillside preacher. A change has come over his +audience. All are now alert and eager. Seated around his platform, +they are holding a cord which seems to bind them in some mystic +circle. It is "_Pirit_": a kind of magic incantation. The preacher is +reciting the ancient runes by which evil is averted and demon armies +kept at bay. He is telling how the bandit, Angulimāla, who had killed +nine hundred and ninety-nine victims and wore their fingers as a +chaplet, tried to kill the Buddha so as to make the full tale of a +thousand, but was converted on the spot. "May the merit of this be +yours," he says, and they all cry, "_Sadhu_, Amen." + +"All humbug," grunts the layman. "Come, let us go to the Young Men's +Buddhist Association, where a Singhalese advocate, newly returned from +England, is going to read a paper on 'Buddhism, a Gospel for Europe.'" +Leaving the palms and fragrant trees of the jungle silhouetted against +the brilliant sky, and passing the white buildings of the Buddhist +High School and of the precious and venerated Temple of the Tooth, he +talks of this possibility. It seems that a movement is on foot to send +a mission to Europe. We agree that, if Christians were real followers +of Jesus of Nazareth, such missions would be futile: and that the +spirit of Gotama is akin to that of Jesus. "We see your Christ," he +says; "in His beauty, because we have first seen the beauty of our +Buddha." Here is a preparation for the gospel indeed. And may not all +idealists--Christians, Buddhists, and others--cooperate much more +freely than they do in great causes? In a League of Nations, for +example, and in social programmes? In Ceylon, as in Burma, Buddhism is +in some degree adapting itself to the new world-environment. Its old +cry of pain, "All is fleeting, transient, sorrowful," is giving place +to attempts at social service and positive living. Yet as compared +with Burma or with Christian lands, the predominating note among +Buddhists in Ceylon is one of world-weariness and despair. + + + + + III. BUDDHISM IN SIAM + + +1. Siam a Buddhist Kingdom. + + +Ceylon and Burma were for many centuries Buddhist kingdoms with a +sovereign as patron and supporter of the monks and very often with +members of the royal family amongst the great abbots. Buddhism has +indeed depended much upon royal patronage, and in these days when +kings are rare it is of special interest to get a glimpse of a modern +Buddhist kingdom which is not unlike those of the past. Let us study a +great festival in Siam where the king's own brother is Head of the +Order and where he himself is a staunch patron of Buddhism. + + + + +2. The Thot Krathin Festival. + + +Some time between the eleventh and twelfth moons his majesty visits +the temples round Bangkok which are under his royal patronage. For +weeks past every household in Siam, from that of the King to that of +the poorest peasant, has been busy "laying down holy cloth" or making +patchwork robes for the monks, that the letter of the old commandment +"be ye clothed in rags" may be observed, and the monks be supplied +with their year's clothing. At the same time offerings of bedding, +furniture, and food are made and great merit is acquired by the +faithful. The King in his splendid barge of state, with its prows +shaped like dragons, its sixty oarsmen, its canopy of cloth of gold, +sets out for one of the great _Wats_ or temples; he is seated on his +throne, and wears a golden crown, and about him are numerous little +princes. Arrived at the shrine his retainers carry the bales of cloth +and other offerings into the temple, and then the King himself with +due ceremony and amidst barbaric music and military salutes, comes +down from the barge and lights five candles which stand upon the table +prepared for his offering. Then, burning incense, he bows to the image +of the Buddha, to the sacred books written on strips of palm-leaf, and +to the Order of Monks; he is "taking refuge" in the Buddhist Jewels. +He then reverently asks the abbot to accept him as a lay-adherent, and +to allow him to keep the Five Precepts, not to kill, not to steal, not +to commit sexual sin, not to lie nor to drink strong drink. And if it +be a holy day he will also take the vows of a monk, not to eat after +midday, not to watch theatrical shows, nor use perfumes, nor sleep on +a high luxurious bed. Then as he offers his gifts the monks accept +them, crying "_Sadhu_" (Amen or well done), and distribution is made +according to their rank. So amidst their blessings he bows again to +the Three Jewels and makes a solemn departure to another shrine. + + + + +3. The King and Pāli Learning. + + +The present King, whom we may call for short King Mahamongkut (he has +more names than the Hohenzollerns), is a graduate of Oxford, a man of +the world, and a great patron of Buddhist scholarship. This has been a +tradition of his house for centuries and in no small degree the +present interest in Pāli learning in Western countries is due to the +enthusiasm of the ruling house of Siam, which has presented splendid +libraries of the sacred books to many universities and temples. The +King summons the monkish candidates for degrees in Pāli learning to +undergo examinations every three years; and for nine days in the +comparatively cool weather of the early part of the year makes a royal +festival in their honour, during which they are undergoing an +examination which increases every day in stiffness. Those who survive +to the end are given the degree _Pareean ek_, or "first-class +honours," and with it goes a small pension; those who drop out before +the end are given second-, third-, or fourth-class degrees. So the +knowledge of the sacred books is kept alive and some of these Siamese +scholars reach a remarkable degree of proficiency. Their influence has +been potent in a renaissance of Pāli learning in Burma and Ceylon. + + + + +4. Buddhist Education. + + +In Siam as in Burma the monks are the elementary schoolmasters. The +boys all spend some time as novices, during which they not only learn +the rudiments of the religion but reading, writing, and arithmetic. As +in Burma, very little is done for the education of the girls, though +this is steadily improving owing to the splendid work done by mission +schools. + + + + +5. The Temples or Wats. + + +These Siamese pagodas, fantastic and gay with gold and sky-blue tiles, +are of four grades, those built by the King and dedicated to him, +those built by the princes, those built by the nobles, and lastly +those built by the common people, usually by subscription organised by +the monks or by some enthusiastic laymen. Merit gained in this and +similar ways has been called "The Sum and Substance of Siamese +Buddhism": there is some truth in these generalisations as regards the +whole of Southern Asia. But in Siam as elsewhere there is genuine +devotion to the religion of Buddha, and the human heart is not as +calculating as this sentence implies. Moreover, there is considerable +attempt to modernise the religion to fit the new age, and many of the +people follow the King in believing that it can be made the basis for +a modern state, and can unify and uplift the peoples. All that helps +to build up a nation is welcomed in Siam, and Christianity therefore +has an open door here as in Ceylon and Burma. Burma is tolerant, but +Siam desires the friendship of Western peoples, and being independent +is freer to develop along its own lines. Let us now attempt to +summarise our impressions of the Buddhism of these lands of Southern +Asia by describing other typical scenes in each. + + + + + + IV. SOME TYPES OF BUDDHIST RELIGIOUS LIFE + + +1. The Cremation of a Singhalese Abbot. + + +A great Singhalese abbot has passed away. It is a national event. The +hillside near Kandy is thronged with great companies of monks in every +shade of yellow and brown, while around them surges a sombre sea of +the faithful laity. In the centre of the huge assemblage is the +funeral-pyre, draped in white and red. Standing beside it, a monk is +telling in solemn and mournful tones of the greatness and goodness of +the departed, who, though he had not become worthy of _Nibbāna_, had +his feet surely set upon the upward path leading to a good rebirth in +_so-wan_, a heaven. Then amidst solemn chanting and the wailing of +flutes and throbbing of drums he applies a torch to the pyre. While +the people bow their heads and cry "_sadhu_" (Amen), the body turns to +ashes. Then solemnly and silently the great throng disperses, the lay +people to take up the ordinary duties of life, the monks to meditate +upon its transient character and unreality. And here a young novice, +to whom the dead man has been very dear, stays weeping, until the last +embers die down and night comes swiftly on. + + + + +2. The Funeral Rites of a Burmese Monk. + + +Another funeral scene. It is that of a Buddhist monk in Burma--a +_Hpongyi_. The whole countryside is present. In clothing of exquisite +silk, resembling a brilliant swarm of butterflies, the people surround +the great catafalque, blazing with tinsel and gold leaf, on which lies +the embalmed body of the monk. After a time the coffin is taken down +and a programme of merry-making begins. The young bloods of the +village to which the monk has belonged, range themselves in two +carefully picked teams on either side of it. Then begins a tug-of-war +with the body in its coffin, the victorious team treating the defeated +to drinks, and to side shows at the little booths which cluster round, +awaiting custom. These and other contests make a glad and joyful scene +at which all the people rejoice, for has not the good man been +released from this transient life (which, nevertheless, is good and +satisfying while blood is hot and youth endures)? Has he not returned +to a life of glory, and won much merit for his own folk and for all +the faithful? + +In due time the body is restored to its resting place on the funeral +pyre, the fire is lighted, and the whole mass flares up in flame and +smoke, consuming not only the body, but along with it the decorations, +including paintings of numerous demons, among whom may be an +Englishman with a gun! Only demons could kill for sport! When it is +consumed, the crowd disperses with shouts of merriment, well content, +not least among the others the relatives of the departed. A good show +has been staged, the dead has been honoured, the family name has been +distinguished, and everybody is satisfied. If for the next year or +more the family exchequer has been sorely depleted, still "it is the +custom," and every one expects to follow it. Some one has well said +that Buddhism in Burma is a cheery and social affair, "from festive +marriages to no less festive funerals." I confess to an admiration for +this cheerful view of death, even if some of its expressions are +bizarre! It is less pagan than our "blacks, and funeral obsequies." + + + + +3. A Similar Scene in Siam. + + +_The Funeral of a Siamese Prince_.--A nephew of the King has died, and +his funeral sermon is being preached by another royal Prince, who is +also a monk, and who is true to type and to the orthodox Buddhism of +his race. "As kinsmen welcome kinsmen returning after long sojourn in +far countries, so do good deeds welcome the good as they enter the +other world. And what are good deeds, but the unselfish effort to +advance the good of others? All must be left behind as we enter the +Gate of Death; but as a shadow follows the body so do purity and +simplicity of heart and deed steal after us, and minister to us in +that world beyond. As a flame is our mortal life, and if there be no +fuel it burns no more. We know not when it may die down, for all that +has a beginning has also an end, and transient are all things. And as +we may take with us only virtue, shall we not cherish and ensue it?" + +We are reminded of the picture by G. F. Watts, "_Sic Transit Gloria +Mundi_," in which another prince is seen upon the bier, his crown, his +books, his winecup laid aside; and over his bier are the words, "What +I spent I had, what I had I lost, what I gave I have." It is sound +Buddhism, and every word of this sermon of the royal monk is drawn +from the _Dhammapada_, accepted in all Buddhist lands as the very +words of the Buddha, himself the prototype of a long line of kings and +princes in many lands, who have been proud to wear the Yellow Robe. + + + + +4. The Secret of Buddhism's Influence. + + +Which of these funeral scenes (chosen because Buddhism plays almost +its chief part at such times) is most true to type? It is a perplexing +question. Buddhism has from the very beginning been chiefly a religion +for monks, calling men and women to leave the world. It was never +exactly optimistic, and yet another permanent root of its remarkable +power over humankind has been that often men and women who obeyed +possessed a sense of discovery, of hopefulness, of sheer joy; +especially strong in its golden age, the first five centuries of its +existence. There was something vernal in the air. "In joy we live, +hating none; let us live in the midst of those who hate, unhating; in +the midst of those who ail, let us live in perfect health; having +nothing, yet we possess great riches." Such is the spirit of the early +_sangha_ (monastic community). And when we turn to the Buddhism of +to-day we find that it retains these two dominant characteristics: +this blending of sadness and quiet joy. Even in sunny Burma the old +people and the monks seem sad at times, and even in Ceylon and Siam +the ordinary folk are fairly cheerful as they go on pilgrimages or +make their offerings to monk or image. + + + + + V. BUDDHISM AS A LIVING RELIGION + + +Buddhism stands in a different relation to Christianity from any other +world religion, because it has unquestionably done for Eastern peoples +something of the intellectual, moral, and spiritual service which +Christianity has done for Europe and America. Moreover, it is showing +a strange power of revival. It also seems to make a real appeal to +certain types of mind in the West. Little groups of Westerners in +Burma and in Ceylon, the former Scotch, the latter German, have for +some years been promoting the propagation of Buddhism in Western +lands. They feel convinced that it is "the religion of mature minds." +One of their number, a Scot, known as _Bhikkhu Silācāra_,[7] wrote +in 1913: "This seems to be the place of honour which Burma is called +upon to fill in the family of the nations of the world--that of being +_Dhammadāyaka_ to the world, giver of the _dhamma_[8] of the Blessed +One to all the nations of the earth. What prouder, what more glorious, +what more merit-bringing position could any people ask for than to be +chosen as the bearer of the sublime teaching of the Blessed One?" +There is a considerable amount of publication of Buddhist propaganda +to-day in Europe and America, even if few Eastern Buddhists are found +with the courage to preach Buddhism in person in Western cities. In +Germany, where there are said to be scores of thousands of Buddhists, +a publishing house has been set up at Breslau; and the _Buddhist +Review_ is published in London. In North America Buddhism has numerous +missions, especially on the Pacific Coast, where it aims at converting +Americans as well as at ministering to the Japanese. It is the only +non-Christian religion which has this appeal. What gives it this hold, +not only upon great sections of the East, but also upon those who have +been born within the range of Christianity, is a question which needs +a thoughtful answer. It is a question of vital importance to us all. + + + + +1. It takes hold where Faith in Christianity has ceased. + + +Buddhism makes a strong appeal to minds dissatisfied with +Christianity, or unwilling to accept the claims of Christ. It is not +difficult to draw analogies between the acts and sayings of Jesus and +those of Gotama. It is easy to be enthusiastic over the ethical +teachings of Buddhism, and over its great influence upon Asia. It has +a certain appeal too to the scientific mind, which is not found in any +other non-Christian religion; and some claim that it is more +satisfying to the intellect than Christianity. The appeal of Buddhism, +therefore, is more than a mild satisfaction of curiosity in something +novel; it gives to a mind which denies the fundamentals of +Christianity an apparently good religious substitute. This being true, +no one can question the fact that those who are to go as Christian +missionaries to Buddhist countries must take the utmost pains to +prepare themselves to meet those who believe in Buddhism, not merely +with friendliness and a sense of sympathy, but with an adequate +background of philosophical, psychological, and religious training +which enables them adequately to represent the best that is in +Christianity, and to deal sympathetically and fairly with Buddhism at +its best. Missionaries are all too few who can "out-think" these +Scotch and German Buddhists, who carry much influence with the peoples +among whom they live. Some of them are sincere and able men: and there +are also strong native defenders of the Buddhist Faith. Moreover, +without a deep appreciation of the power of Buddhism one cannot +understand the history and culture of Asia. And this study becomes +daily more important and more interesting. + + + + +2. It faces the Fact of Suffering. + + +Where shall one begin in his endeavour to grasp the essential +teachings of Buddhism? No one can fully understand Buddhism without +studying Hinduism as a background and starting point. The student can +go far, however, by starting from the fact of universal human +suffering, and its relief. "One thing only do I teach," said Buddha, +"sorrow and the uprooting of sorrow." He was never weary of bringing +home to his disciples the horror of the world's pain, in order that he +might lead them on to what he believed to be the only way of +salvation. "What think ye, O monks, which is vaster, the flood of +tears that, weeping and lamenting, ye in your past lives have shed, or +the waters of the four great oceans? Long time, O monks, have ye +suffered the death of father, mother, brothers, and sisters. Long time +have ye undergone the loss of your goods; long time have ye been +afflicted with sickness, old age, and death." "Where is the joy, where +is the laughter, when all is in flames about us?" Buddhism is often +labelled pessimistic, because its writings are full of attempts, such +as these, to make men realise the suffering and the worthlessness of +the life to which they cling. The critics, however, do not realise the +hopes which it holds out to a suffering world, which are just as +characteristic of Buddhistic teaching. The Buddhist replies, "If +medical science is pessimistic then Buddhism is also pessimistic." It +diagnoses the disease in order to cure it. + +Like other religions it is a "Way out." It first states the problem: +then offers a solution. + + + + +3. It affords a Way of Escape from Sorrow. + + +In India Gotama had an easier task than he would have faced in the +full-blooded and less thoughtful West. We Westerners do not need to be +convinced of the pain of life, we are now wide awake to it; but to the +Hindu of the sixth century before Christ a conviction of the emptiness +of life was something in the nature of an obsession. The bright, +naïve optimism of earlier ages, revealed, for example, in the +_Rig-Veda_,[9] had passed away; a combination of circumstances, +climate, speculative activities, disappointments and other causes, had +combined to make India pessimistic. Chief of these causes was +undoubtedly the belief in transmigration which has come more and more +to occupy a central position in Hinduism. It represents man as doomed +to wander from birth to birth, and to expiate every deed of his past. +It is impossible for us in the West to realise how firm a hold this +thought has upon India, or how great is the longing for a way of +escape. Gotama's resolute attempt to find such a way of escape, his +assurance that he had discovered it, and his enthusiastic preaching of +"the Way" brought Buddhism into the world as a new religion, and +became a veritable "gospel" to weary and jaded hearts. + + + + +4. It is a Practical Creed: Its Founder called Himself "A Physician of +Sick Souls." + + +Born the son of a chieftain in Nepal in the foothills of the +Himalayas, about 560 B.C., Gotama, the great founder of Buddhism, was +sheltered from the sights and sounds of suffering, as we are told in +the loving stories of Buddhist lore, until the gods, who had a higher +destiny in store for him than that of an Indian princeling, revealed +to him the facts of old age and decay and death. In a series of +visions--of the old man tottering down to the grave, of the leper +riddled with foul disease, of the corpse laid out for the burning, the +great fact of human suffering came home to him. It made so deep an +impression that he renounced his royal rights and went out as a +mendicant ascetic to discover some way of escape. He was then +twenty-nine years old. Not until he had reached the age of +thirty-eight, and had honestly tried the various accepted paths for +the attainment of holiness and the escape from the burdens of life +laid down by Hindu sages, did he find what he was seeking. Sitting +under the Indian fig-tree in the heat of the day, he meditated +patiently and long until the vision dawned upon him, or, as we should +say, until his sub-consciousness, which had long been working upon the +problem presented to it, sent a complete and satisfying solution into +the focus of his conscious mind. His solution, recognising the fact +that Hindu practices had vainly attempted to drug the aching nerve of +pain or to tear it out, offered a more positive remedy. The present +writer believes that the Spirit of God had much to do with this +discovery. There are, however, among missionaries, many who feel that +this is a grievous heresy, and are bitterly opposed to any such view. + +In order to understand the solution which Gotama offered to the world, +which undoubtedly captured the enthusiasm of unnumbered millions of +weary pilgrims in India and other lands, it may be well to consider +Gotama's own description of himself as "a physician of sick souls." +Just as the physician must first diagnose the disease and recognise +the germ which is its secret cause, before he can give the right +treatment, so Gotama set himself to discover the hidden cause of the +world's suffering. He thought that he had found it in that universal +clinging to life which he called _tanhā_, which means a "craving" for +anything less austere than _Nibbāna_. "From _tanhā_ springs sorrow; +he that is free from _tanhā_ is freed from sorrow and suffering." + +This is the source of all the world's agony, says Gotama: and if we +face the facts we shall see that egoism of men and nations, a form of +_tanhā_, accounts for most of it! The modern world is full of +_tanhā_. + + + + +5. It cultivates a Sense of the Worthlessness of Temporal Things. + + +It is because man clings to things which cannot fully satisfy him, +such as the love of family, the desire for wealth and fame, the wish +to be reborn in a heaven (all of which are classed together in +Buddhism), that he has to go on being reborn. This is the Buddhist +doctrine of _Kamma_. Hinduism, like much orthodox Christianity, thinks +of a "soul" which dwells in the body. The Hindu thinks of it as +passing from one body to another in the process of transmigration. The +view of Buddhism is rather that the "ego" of man is a stream of mental +energy, the direction of which is under his own control. If he dies +full of _tanhā_, cleaving to the things of this world, he will surely +be reborn to some sort of misery. If, on the other hand, he dies +detached from human interests and open-eyed to the worthlessness of +temporal things, he will eventually be set free from the entanglement +of life, as we know it on earth, and will pass into _Nibbāna_. Of +this goal one can only say with assurance that it is unlike anything +known to mortal man,[10] and that its essence is moral purity. + + + + +6. Its Conception of Bliss is realisable in this Life. + + +But Gotama was not concerned with the next life so much as with this. +He laid emphasis also upon the wonderful joy and peace which the fixed +purpose to achieve _Nibbāna_ had caused him to experience. This was +the real relief from suffering, which he had in mind. "Whoso is pure +from all _tanhā_, he is in _Nibbāna_." This he preached with great +conviction and enthusiasm, declaring that men might aim in this life +to attain the position of an _arhat_ (saint) and actually enter into +the preliminary experience of _Nibbāna_. It is this aspect of +Buddhism which makes it a true religion. Its joy and power can be +experienced in the midst of the world's pain. So it is called an +"Island," a "Refuge," where the drowning man may escape, or a "Cool +Retreat," whither one may fly from a world in flames. + + + + +7. Buddhism is a Religion of Enlightenment and Reason. + + +Buddhism exhibits salvation as, first of all, a way of understanding. +It is a religion of analysis, which bids man see life steadily and see +it whole, by first taking it to pieces! When one looks at the body, +what is it, says Buddhism, after all, that we should regard ourselves +as attached to it? There are so many bones, so many tendons, so much +skin, so many juices. If a man views the body with an anatomical eye, +he will see it as it really is; disgust will arise in him which will +lead him out into detachment. A Buddhist is sometimes urged to +practise the habit of sitting in cemeteries or among reminders of the +dead, or to have a skeleton near at hand, in order that he may +meditate upon the transient nature of all that is mortal. Similarly he +is to dispel anger or lust by asking, "Who is it I am angry with, +after whom do I lust, but a bag of bones?" It seeks to dispel passion +by reason. + + + + +8. It has a strong Moral Code: The "Four Noble Truths," and the +"Eight-fold Path." + + +As the old Teacher was passing away he emphasised anew the part which +intelligent belief plays in the Buddhist scheme of religion. "It is +through not understanding and not grasping four things, O monks, that +we have to abide and wander through this maze of being," he remarked. +The four things which he had in mind were suffering, its real cause +(_tanhā_), the cure of suffering, and the path which leads to +_Nibbāna_. These are the "Four Noble Truths" of Buddhism, driven +home to every disciple as the very foundation of his religious life. + +With reference to the "way" which leads to _Nibbāna_ Buddhism has +made its most remarkable contribution to human thought. It is called +the "Middle Way," between the extremes of an austere asceticism and a +spirit of worldliness, a clear-cut and admirably arranged ethical +scheme, which has undoubtedly done much to elevate the nations among +whom it has been practised. The "eight practices," urged upon every +one who aspires to spiritual growth, are right thinking (about the +"four noble truths," etc.), right aspirations (benevolence, pity, +brotherhood, etc.), right speech, right action, right livelihood (by +industries which are not harmful), right effort of mind, right +attention (alertness), and right contemplation, or mystic meditation. +Such a scheme may readily be ritualised and deadened, but it lends +itself no less readily to the cultivation of simple virtues. A popular +summary, universally known, teaches "Do good, shun ill, and cleanse +the inmost thoughts, this is the teaching of Buddhas." + +The "eight-fold path" is usually developed under three main +endeavours--enlightenment, morality, and concentrated meditation. +Stage by stage the disciple is led along this path. "Step by step, day +by day, one may purify one's heart from defilements by understanding, +even as the smith purifies silver in the fire." The true disciple must +avoid the extremes of asceticism, on the one hand, or of entanglement +with the world on the other. So the noble path claims to be a "middle +path" of sweet reasonableness. The lines are not always clearly drawn +between ritual offences or mistakes and moral failures, and the ideal +life often seems to be represented as primarily monastic, but there is +no doubt that one who deliberately sets himself to follow the +"eight-fold path" would be a lovable and strong type of character, +something like the fine old monk from Tibet in Kipling's "Kim." And +there have been many such, men not only of his gentle strength, but +men filled with missionary zeal and devotion to noble tasks. + + + + +9. It has come to practise Prayer. + + +In spite of the protests of Gotama against attempts to persuade the +gods, this is what most Buddhists in Southern Asia have come to do: +and in Tibet, China, and Japan prayer is multiplied by mechanical +devices, such as prayer-wheels, prayer-cylinders, and prayer-flags--a +degeneration of mysticism into magic, not unknown in some Christian +lands. The human heart is hungry and wants to pray! And even this +religion of enlightenment and of the fixed causality of the universe +has had to find a place for prayer. And Divine Beings have been called +in to answer the aspiration of the heart. Gotama himself is deified: +and folk pray to him in Burma, Siam, and Ceylon: whilst in the other +Buddhist lands they have learnt to love such compassionate beings as +Kwanyin, and Amitābha, Buddha of eternal Light who saves men by his +grace. That there is mercy in heaven is the hope of every man. It is +but a pathetic dream, until we know that the heavens have spoken and +declared that mercy in the Word made Flesh. + +"So through the thunder comes a human voice." + + + + +10. Yet it emphasises Stoical Self-mastery. + + +On the other hand, the whole trend of early Buddhism is stoical. It +sets up a lofty moral ideal, yet offers relatively little assistance +in attaining it. Admiration for the Buddha, faith in the system he +preached, common-sense or enlightened self-interest in accepting the +great truth that happiness follows upon goodness--these furnish the +motive power of a Buddhist religious life. In theory, at least, there +is no god higher than the little local deities who are said to have +bowed down before the Buddha. Inasmuch, moreover, as they are also +subject to _kamma_, the gods are less admirable and less helpful than +he. To some thinkers this stoical self-mastery is the strongest +element of Buddhism. "I am the captain of my soul," a good Buddhist +would say: "I am the master of my fate." But to those who think more +deeply, this will appear an element of weakness, for everywhere and in +all ages the human heart finds no ultimate satisfaction without a +belief in some loftier, purer, and stronger Being, who is ready to +hear and to help. And in the more developed Buddhism of the North such +theology plays a very great part. The history of Buddhism is one of +the best chapters in Christian apologetics and deserves close study. +As we shall see, the Japanese Buddhist believes in a Trinitarian +theology, and in an evangelical doctrine of salvation: and, in one +great sect, has urged its priests to marry. + + + + +11. It has Two Standards of Morality. + + +A very serious defect of Southern Buddhism is its double standard of +morality, one for the layman and another for the monk. It places the +celibate _bhikkhu_ (mendicant) on a higher footing than the layman. +During the Buddha's own lifetime he was accused of making many homes +desolate, and this has been a constant criticism in China where it is +a crime not to beget sons; and where Buddhism has been obstinately +monastic. There have been great exceptions, especially where kings +have been good Buddhists, but it is on the whole a monastic religion, +and has continually reverted to type. + + + + +12. It rates Womanhood Low. + + +Another alleged weakness, which will specially interest those who are +entering upon the careful study of non-Christian religions at the +present time, is the relatively low place which the Buddhist system, +at least in theory, gives to women. While in practice, as has been +pointed out, the women of Burma are the better half of the population, +yet in strict theory they are not "human beings" at all: they are less +than human: only he who takes the yellow robe and becomes for a time a +monk reaches the status of full humanity. Yet Gotama said equally +severe things about men; the two sexes, he taught, are a snare to one +another: but women are the worse! A Singhalese Christian pastor +praying for power to resist the Devil added, "and all _her_ works," +and women are in fact so described in many passages of the Buddhist +Books. Love between the sexes and lust are not distinguished. And +here, perhaps, is the supreme service that Jesus renders to human +society: he makes family life a sacred thing, and safeguards women and +children from abuse, bringing them to honour and sanctity. Buddhism +being concerned chiefly with the monastic life of meditation has not +much to say about the family. It does not, at least in Southern Asia, +teach the Fatherhood of God from whom "all families are named." + + + + +13. A Summary. + + +Such, in bare outline, is Southern Buddhism--in its origin a stoical +agnosticism which ignored the gods and bade men rely upon themselves +in following the paths of goodness that lead to happiness. Because it +thus ignored the deepest instincts of humanity, first by turning the +thoughts of men away from God, and again by glorifying celibacy, these +instincts, refusing to be snubbed, have taken a revenge, so that +to-day Buddhism survives, largely because of the teachings it has been +compelled to adopt in the process of moulding itself "nearer to the +heart's desire." This may be illustrated in two ways. _Nibbāna_ at +best, originally, an ideal of negative, solitary bliss, has been +replaced by an ideal of social life hereafter. Moreover, faith in +self-mastery has given place to prayers for help, or, among the most +conservative, to the belief that there is a store of merit gained by +the sacrificial lives of the Buddhas throughout the ages, which may be +"tapped" by the faithful. + +Buddhism has thus passed through an interesting history of adjustment. +It is important for the student of religion to give close attention to +this history, one of the most amazing and fascinating chapters in +human thought. + + +[7] Sanskrit, _Bhikshu_. It means "mendicant." + +[8] _Dhamma_ means "law" or "teaching." + +[9] The _Rig-Veda_ is a great anthology of religion. The Vedas are +early religious Books in which a joyous nature-worship predominates. + +[10] _Nirvāna_ means to the Hindu reabsorption into the Absolute +_Brahman_. To Buddhists it is variously expounded by their teachers as +either (a) annihilation, or (b) a heaven of bliss, or (c) annihilation +of evil desire, _i.e._ of all clinging to life. Western Buddhist +writers call it usually by some such phrase as "The great Peace," +which is vague enough to mean any of the three! + + + + + VI. THE MISSIONARY APPROACH TO MODERN BUDDHISM IN SOUTHERN ASIA + + +I have tried to show both the good and the bad sides of Buddhism in +Southern Asia: and have laid emphasis upon those characteristics which +demonstrate its continuing power. Southern Buddhists, however, need +earnest and sympathetic missionaries, with a gospel of abounding life, +of a Father God, and of communion with Him in Christ. Let all who +contemplate this great service note the following points. + + + + +1. Modern Buddhism differs from the Theoretical Buddhism of Gotama. + + +There is a marked difference between the theoretical Buddhism of early +days, reflected in the standard literature of Southern Buddhism, and +the Buddhism of the present day in Southern Asia. The Buddhism which +Western enthusiasts are eager to introduce into their own countries is +something which they have learnt, not from the peoples of Buddhist +lands, but from the ancient literature of Buddhism. Captivated at +first, it may be, by the beauty of some isolated saying, or, possibly, +deeply touched during some moonlight scene at the great golden pagodas +of Burma or on the hillsides of Ceylon, they become eager and not +infrequently learned students of the Buddhism of Gotama. They have to +declare with sadness that the great bulk of the people who profess +Buddhism have wandered very far from its true principles and practice, +and that human nature, for the most part, needs something less +austere. + +This old Buddhism of the Books may be regarded and used as a kind of +Old Testament for Buddhists; already they have passed away from its +traditions. + + + + +2. The Central Emphasis of Buddhism varies in the Three Southern +Countries. + + +Not only does Buddhism, as the missionary comes in contact with it, +differ very markedly from theoretical Buddhism, but the central +emphasis varies in different parts of Southern Asia. The student must +know his country and his people in order to know their Buddhism, as +well as _vice versâ_. Nothing can be further from the sunny +temperament of the Burmese than the central "truth" of Buddhism that +"all is sorrowful"; and it is a strange perversion of the truth which +claims, as some of these Western writers have claimed, that the +Burmese are optimistic because they are free from _tanhā_. The fact +that they believe in a good Buddha as a living god, however, has much +to do with it: and temperament has even more. + +In Ceylon, while Buddhist ideals are better suited to the more +melancholic temperament of the people, yet they are acutely conscious +of their powerlessness to gain the victory over sin and sorrow +unaided. As in Japan and China, so in a lesser degree in Burma and +Ceylon, Buddhism has been constrained to die to itself (to substitute +the idea of a saviour for the idea of earning one's own salvation) in +a way that is full of encouragement and suggestion to the Christian. +For, if the mythical Kwanyin and the far-off Metteya can so captivate +hungry human hearts, how shall not the historic and living Christ be +enthroned in their stead? + + + + +3. The Qualities of Missionaries to Buddhists. + + +The life of a missionary to Buddhist peoples is full of interest. Each +people has many attractive qualities and the life has much of delight. +Certain special qualifications may be worth mentioning:-- + +(a) _A Genuine Sympathy_.--A missionary will make very little +impression upon the people and especially upon their leaders in +Buddhist countries who is unable to think himself, to some extent, +sympathetically, into their point of view, and to be friendly toward +the better aspects of their life and beliefs. There are many things +which are "lovely and of good report." The spirit of friendliness and +of appreciation goes far toward establishing good relations with the +people. + +(b) _A Sense of Beauty and of Humour_.--They are lovers of beauty and +enjoy humour, and respond readily to these qualities in the +missionary. More over, without such gifts life in the tropics is very +trying to oneself and to others. + +(c) _Christian Convictions_.--Along with these qualities, the +missionary must have a passionate loyalty to Christ, a clear +understanding of the essential Christian message to such a people, and +a firm conviction of the right of Jesus Christ to claim these +attractive peoples for God, and to make them great. + +(d) _A willingness to appreciate fresh truth_.--It is very desirable +that the young missionary should face such people, themselves often +creative in their thinking, with a belief that the Holy Spirit, who +has guided the nations in their search for truth, is still seeking to +lead them on, at least into fresh realisations of the power and +meaning of the truths which have meant so much in past ages. Every +such missionary will be thrilled in his contact with the inner "soul +of the people" to whom he goes, by the hope that they will find in +Christ hitherto undiscovered riches and by the desire on his own part +to catch something of a continually enlarging vision of Christ and His +Church. + + + + +4. A Great Opportunity. + + +The missionary to Buddhists may find encouragement and inspiration in +the growing conviction that Oriental Christianity will definitely add +strength to the universal Church in coming days. God's kingdom will +not be complete without the peoples of Southern Asia. They are deeply +religious. It may be far from being an idle dream that God should give +to some missionary of to-day the privilege of training a St. Paul, an +Origen or an Augustine of the East, who will give to the Church other +great chapters of Christian interpretation, and a truly convincing +apologetic of the gospel to the world. + + + + + II. BUDDHISM IN EASTERN ASIA + + + I. BUDDHISM IN JAPAN + + +From the Buddhism of Southern Asia to that of China and Japan is a far +cry. It must be remembered that the monastic Buddhism, in which the +_Arhat_ seeking his own salvation is the ideal, gradually gave place +before Buddhism left India and entered Eastern Asia to the +_Mahāyāna_, or Great Vessel, in which the _Bodhisattva_, or +compassionate servant of humanity, became the ideal. Other important +changes also took place in the religion of Gotama during the five or +six centuries after his death. In the first place, in spite of all his +teachings that men should not look to him for help the teacher was +himself deified: He "mounts the empty throne of Brahmā." A little +later there appeared a docetic tendency which explained him away, or +attempted to show that he was without human feeling or passion, a kind +of unreal adaptation of the eternal to the needs of time. Others +conceived of him as an Eternal Being carrying on the work he had begun +upon earth, and opening up salvation to all sentient beings, until +finally a trinitarian doctrine was evolved which related the +historical Gotama to the eternal Buddha, and conceived of him as +having emptied himself of his glory for a season out of compassion for +mankind, but as now enjoying it and manifesting it in pitiful and +helpful ministries. + +It is possible to see in this developing Buddhology evidence of +Christian influence: the late Arthur Lloyd of Tokyo is the chief +exponent of such a view. To me, however, it seems at once more +scientific and more interesting to find in these parallels one more +evidence alike of the similarity of human nature in all lands and +ages, and of the indwelling Presence of the one Father of us all, +guiding the nations in their search for Truth. The vitality and +adaptability of Buddhism are evidences of His Spirit. + +This vitality, even if at times adaptability has degenerated into +compromise, is, as we have seen, great in Southern Asia, and amongst +the sources of its strength we have noted its great influence as a +civilising power and as a bond of social life: its appeal to the +imagination and to the gratitude of the peoples: its philosophical +explanation of the age-old problem of suffering, and the moderation +and sanity of its ethical teachings. All these factors enter in +differing degrees into the vitality of Buddhism in China and Japan: +for it has done much to help the civilisation of these countries also, +and to give them a popular philosophy of life and a pleasant social +setting for religious faith. + +Let us consider these facts in more detail as regards the Buddhism of +Japan; for she is leading the Orient not only in matters of material +progress, but in such spiritual things as a revival of the old faith +which she is characteristically using to her own advantage. In 1918, +for instance, a Pan-Buddhistic League was formed in Tokyo, and more +remarkable has been the lead taken by the Buddhists of Japan in +sending strong idealistic appeals to the Conferences at Versailles and +Washington. The vital forces of Buddhism in Japan, then, are as +follows:-- + +1. Buddhism has for twelve centuries rendered a unique service to the +culture of the nation. Letters, architecture, painting, the discipline +of the mind--in fact, the whole culture of Japan is shot through and +through with Buddhist influence. It is significant that the two +Western writers who entered most deeply into the spirit of Japanese +culture, Lafcadio Hearn and Fenollosa, both became Buddhists and are +buried in Buddhist cemeteries. + +2. Buddhism is again a great bond of social union. Its great +pilgrimages, for example, are the favourite recreation of the people, +and its great festivals such as the _Bon Matsuri_, in which the +spirits of the departed are honoured, are seasons of great +sociability. Here, again, the "pessimistic" Buddhism is a cheerful and +a pleasant thing. + +3. Its appeal to the imagination is obvious. Splendid temples with +their dim golden altars, gorgeous vestments, sonorous chanting, and +all the splendour of an artistic ritual--all this leaps to the eye of +the most casual visitor. What must it not be to the artistic Japanese +worshipper with all its tender associations? + +4. Nor does Japanese Buddhism appeal less to the mind. Its apologists +constantly claim for it that it is a more philosophical and more +scientific creed than any other. I have been many times impressed with +the wide reading of Japanese Buddhists, and with the intellectual tone +of Japanese Christianity. It is clear that the crude theology of some +missionaries will not meet the acid test of modern scholarship, and is +partly responsible for a widespread belief amongst the Japanese that +Christianity is out of date. The chief Buddhist sects give their +priests a better training in the History of Religion than our +missionary societies. A stronger apologetic literature is needed. + +5. The best apologetic, however, is in saintly lives; Tolstoi and +Francis of Assisi especially make an immense appeal to the Japanese; +there are Tolstoyan colonies, and a Buddhist Franciscan society. Yet +it must be remembered that they find in the saints of Buddhism such as +Honen and Nichiren, men worthy to compare with these great Christian +souls. Mr. Takayama, whose influence on young Japan has been so great, +was at once an ardent disciple of Tolstoy and a follower of Nichiren; +Dr. Anesaki is no less a Buddhist of the Nichiren school because he is +a devoted admirer of St. Francis. And these men believe that Buddhism +and Christianity at their best are closely akin: "We see your Christ," +says Dr. Anesaki, "because we have first seen our Buddha." + +6. There is much to be said for this view; for Buddhism in Japan has +developed a very noble idea of God; he is the Eternal Father who has +compassion on all his sons; their salvation is won by faith, not by +merit, and gratitude is the motive to good living. It is surely a +misnomer to call the fair forms of Amida, the lord of the Western +paradise, and of Kwannon the Compassionate, "idols." And Jīzo, the +strong Conqueror of Death, the play mate and protector of little +children--is he not a noble embodiment of divine strength and +gentleness? If the Christian apologist argues that these are figments +of the imagination, the Buddhist is right in replying that they owe +their inspiration to the historic Sākyamuni and his early followers, +and that there is as much evidence in the vision of a Buddhist saint +as in that of an Old Testament prophet for the objective reality of +the god who is worshipped. May we not see in the strivings of good and +true men everywhere to know God a movement of the Spirit of God +Himself? This is my own conviction--that the Spirit of God has been +moving for long centuries amongst our Buddhist brethren and has led +them far upon the path to Truth. It is, however, only right to say +that this view is shared by comparatively few missionaries in Japan. +Though the great Conference at Edinburgh in 1910 accepted it as an +axiom that God had been at work in these ethnic faiths, and though it +was specifically stated of Japanese Buddhism, yet it is a fact that +this view is held at best as one of academic interest, and without +enthusiasm. The leading authority upon the subject amongst the +Protestant missionaries in Japan sums up his conviction in these +weighty words and they are one tenable interpretation: "It may be +said, then, that Mahāyāna Buddhism is a religion with a rather lofty +idea of God among many conceptions of the divine, but without a real +faith in the living God; a religion with the idea of a saviour, but +without a historical saviour; a religion with a doctrine of divine +grace paralysed by the old karma doctrine; a religion with a promise +of a present salvation and a future life, which is nevertheless made +obscure by the doubts of a recurrent agnostic philosophy that cuts the +nerve of all vital ethics and beclouds the hopes of a better +future."[11] The student must weigh these two interpretations: and can +only do so by a sympathetic and patient study of the facts. And the +outstanding fact is that Buddhism has been the civiliser of Asia, and +a great bond of union between its peoples. + +Japan is, in many ways, the best country for an intelligent study of +its achievements. + +She has been called the custodian of Asiatic civilisation: India, +China, and Korea have all poured their rich gifts into her lap, and +she has preserved them with wise discrimination. But she has always +assimilated them till they are her own, and express her own genius. +This is perhaps especially true of Buddhism, which is a very different +thing in Japan even from what it is in China and Korea. Still more +does it differ from that which we have studied in Ceylon and Burma. To +turn away from these monastic expressions of the ancient faith to the +elaborate Buddhism of Japan is to realise that a development has taken +place not unlike that of Christianity, in its transition from the +simplicity of Galilean hillsides and the upper chamber at Jerusalem to +the pomp of high mass in St. Peter's at Rome or St. Mark's at Venice. +Into each great process there have entered similar elements, the +growth of a theology by which the historic founder is related to the +eternal order, the absorption of ideas and rituals from peoples +converted to the new faith and the making over of the faith in each +new land till it becomes indigenous, and racy of the soil. The story +of Buddhism as it developed its philosophical systems and its +elaborate pantheon cannot be told here;[12] but we may attempt, as in +the case of Ceylon and Burma, to give a few impressions of the +Buddhism of Japan, which will indicate the processes of change and +suggest what are the vital forces of this amazingly flexible religion, +whose watchwords have been adaptation and compromise. + +When Buddhism entered Japan in the seventh century A.D. it was already +the religion of all Asia. It found amidst the semi-barbarous peoples +of the islands certain deeply rooted ideas, such as the worship of +heroes and especially of the Emperor, who was believed to be descended +from the Sun-goddess Amaterasu. Within three centuries it had +civilised the country, and had triumphantly identified this goddess +with its own Sun-Buddha Vairochana, producing a blended faith made up +of elements of the old Shinto (_Shen Tao_ or Way of the Gods, _Kami no +michi_) and of highly philosophical Buddhism which saw in the sun the +source of all cosmic energy. This new Buddhism or _Ryobu Shinto_ is +different indeed from the faith of the founder, but it claims to be +the logical and only legitimate evolution of his teachings. + +Let us glance at it first in its great mountain fastness of Kōya San, +where its founder Kobo Daishi lived and died, and where the faithful +await with him the coming of Miroku--or Maitri--the next Buddha. + + + + +Koya San. + + +Like a great lotus of eight petals are the hills of Kōya San, and up +their wooded slopes wind the pilgrim roads. It is the season of +pilgrimage and they are thronged with pilgrims clad in white; here is +a litter in which some invalid is being borne to the great temple +where priests by the performance of mystic ritual and incantations +will attempt to restore him to physical as well as spiritual health; +here an aged couple are helping one another over steep parts of the +way. As they approach the shrines they say a prayer to the pitiful +Jizō, that he will be merciful to their dead; then as they pass the +wooden octagonal library they turn it upon its axis in order that the +merit of reading its voluminous scriptures may be theirs: and near by +some afflicted person rubs the portion of the wooden figure of Binzuru +which is affected in himself. Behind these somewhat childish +superstitions is an elaborate philosophy, and if one is fortunate one +may find a monk with leisure and ability to explain the elaborate +_mandaras_, the pictures of this _Shingon_, or Trueword; Buddhism. +Founded in the ninth century by the great scholar Kobo Daishi, it is a +pantheistic worship of Dainichi, the great sun Buddha, the indwelling +and pervading essence of the world. Present in all things, he is most +present where men worship him, and so by mystic rite and incantation +the worshipper is identified with this source of his being, and lays +hold of certain secrets of bodily and spiritual health. Japan, like +other countries, is eagerly looking for a religion which works, and +which has a message for this life as well as for that beyond the +grave. Amongst the great trees are innumerable tombs of the faithful, +and here in their midst sits Kobo Daishi himself awaiting the coming +of Miroku, the next Buddha. Nor is his spirit of loving-kindness, +which is the essence of Buddhism, forgotten. Unique amongst the +monuments of war stands this seventeenth-century pillar calling down +the mercies of heaven upon all who fell in the war with Korea, both +friend and foe. + +In these temples, too, one will see the simple mirror, emblem at once +of Amaterasu and of Dainichi, of Shinto and of Buddhism: are not the +two now reconciled, and have they not become an integral part of the +soul of Japan, _Yamato Damashii_? Here on Kōyasan mingle Japanese +nature-worship, Indian idealistic philosophy, gods from central Asia, +and the superstitions of needy human hearts. There is much that is +fine as well as much that is corrupt, and it is noteworthy that the +impatient reformer, Nichiren, called Kōbo "the prize liar" of Japan, +and abominated the beliefs and practices of _Shingon_. Yet he was not +unbiased in his judgments! + + + + +Hieisan and its Sects. + + +Another great mountain-fastness of Japanese Buddhism is Hieisan. Here +amidst vast cryptomerias and redwoods a contemporary of Kōbo, named +Saichō or Dengyō, established just eleven hundred years ago a +synthetic Buddhism, which strove to reconcile the conflicting schools +and to represent at once the founder Sākyamuni as he is revealed in +the Lotus Scripture, seated in glory and opening a way for all to +become Buddhas, and the eternal Amida Buddha of the Western Paradise. +Side by side are preaching-halls for these two schools of Buddhist +devotion, and from the parent stock of _Tendai_ have sprung the three +great sects of _Jōdo_, _Shinshu_, and _Nichiren-Shu_. The two former +are extreme developments of the Way of Faith in Amida, and the latter +is a revolt from their pietism and vain repetitions to the historical +Sākyamuni and the famous "Lotus Scripture," the _Hokkekyō_ which is +found to-day in every Buddhist temple in Japan. At the foot of the +great mountain clusters the old imperial city of Kyōto, or Miyako, +with its thousand temples. Let us visit some of them. + + + + +A Shinshu Temple. + + +The great _Hondo_ or hall of the _Hongwanji_ temples in Kyōto is a +thing of exquisite beauty. How different are these great altars, these +exquisite paintings, this cave of splendour, with its dim lights and +its fragrant incense, from the simple rock-hewn shrines of Ceylon and +their barbaric frescoes, and from the sunny courtyards and massed +images of a Burmese pagoda! Very different, too, is the worship of +this devout crowd of Japanese men and women, prostrating themselves +before the high altar or joining in antiphonal praises of Amitābha +(_Amida Nyorai_), the lord of the Western Paradise. The influence of +the solemn chanting, the deep notes of gongs, the incense rising in +clouds, the dim lights, the burnished gold and lacquer work of screen +and altar--all this is almost hypnotic, and the congregation is borne +along on a tide of sombre feeling shot through with gleams of joy and +otherworldly enthusiasm. The student who has steeped himself in the +simple pithy sayings of the _Dhammapada_, or of the Amitābha Books, +and then passes on to study the elaborate apocalypses of the Lotus +Scripture, will understand what has taken place in this transition +from the simple ethical reform movement of early Buddhism to the +elaborate pietism and cultus of the _Mahāyāna_. The historical +Sākyamuni has almost disappeared, and in his place there are the +eternal or semi-eternal Buddhas, and the great Bodhisattvas. Let us +study the figures in this great Kyōto temple. The central position is +given to the Japanese monk Shinran, a Luther or Wesley who in the +twelfth century popularised in Japan the Way of Salvation by Faith; to +the left of him are the figures of Amida Nyorai, the chief object of +worship in this sect, Honen, the predecessor of Shinran and his +teacher in the way of mystic faith, and Shōtoku, the great layman who +as Regent of Japan espoused Buddhism in the seventh century A.D., and +laid the foundations of Japanese civilisation. He is the patron saint +of the arts and crafts of Japan and is given a prominent place in +_Shin Shu_ Buddhism (to which three-quarters of Japanese Buddhists +belong) because it claims to be a religion for lay-people and not only +for monks. There is a delightful story of Shinran and of the lady who +led him to realise this truth. Going up to his monastery on the Hiei +San Shinran met a charming princess, who took from her long silken +sleeve a burning glass; "See how this little crystal gathers to a +point the scattered rays of the sun," she cried. "Cannot you do this +for our religion?" He replied that it took twenty years to train a +monk in the old _Tendai_ sect to which he belonged, and she reminded +him that women were not allowed to go up to its temples. He went away +and meditating upon the essential teachings of Buddhism came to the +conclusion that the real heart of the matter was this, that it is +faith in the eternal Buddha and gratitude to him which are to be the +motives of true living, that as the Lotus Scripture teaches, all may +become Buddhas, and that the priests of Amida should be free to become +fathers after the pattern of the Heavenly Father. Marrying the +charming princess this Japanese Luther founded a new sect, and to-day +one sees the hereditary abbot, splendid in purple and scarlet, +accompanied by his son, a boy of seventeen, proudly conscious of his +destiny as the next head of the great hierarchy, and taking his place +in the elaborate ritual of the service. Behind them are the choir in +robes of old gold and the priests in black. "_Namu Amida Butsu_"[13] +intone the priests, and alternating with this act of faith they sing +to a kind of Gregorian chant such words as these: + + "Eternal Life, Eternal Light! + Hail to Thee, wisdom infinite. + Hail to Thee, mercy shining clear, + And limitless as is the air. + Thou givest sight unto the blind, + Thou sheddest mercy on mankind, + Hail, gladdening Light, + Hail, generous Might, + Whose peace is round us like the sea, + And bathes us in infinity." + +Or it may be some patriarch who is being hymned, such as Honen +himself: + + "What though great teachers lead the way,-- + Genshin and Zendo of Cathay,-- + Did Honen not the truth declare + How should we far-off sinners fare + In this degenerate, evil day?" + +Occasionally a hymn, like the excellent preaching of some of the +priests, strikes a note of moral living whose motive is gratitude to +Amida: + + "Eternal Father on whose breast + We sinful children find our rest, + Thy mind in us is perfected + When on all men thy love we shed; + So we in faith repeat thy praise, + And gratefully live out our days."[14] + +The Japanese, in whom gratitude is a very strong motive, find in the +teachings of Shinran a Buddhism which is very Christian, and the words +attributed to him as he was nearing his journey's end, are a confession +of sin which is only worthy of a saint. That the mass of his followers +fall far behind him in this respect is unfortunately true, as it is +true of most of us who call ourselves by a greater name. + +Other founders of Buddhism are commemorated on the altars and in the +hymns of this sect, especially Nāgārjuna, the Indian philosopher of +about the second century A.D., and Donran, a Chinese, who carried +still further the evolution of Mahāyāna Buddhism. + + + + +A Revival of Buddhism. + + +The _Shin Shu_ is one of the sects of Japanese Buddhism in which a +great revival seems to be at work. Upwards of five hundred young +priests are being trained in its schools in Kyōto, and it claims to +have one hundred and fifty thousand children in its Sunday Schools, an +organisation in which it has wisely imitated the missionary methods of +the Christian Church. + +This Buddhist revival in Japan is well worthy of study. As in Ceylon +and Burma nationalism has much to do with it. The Japanese have been +reminded by Lafcadio Hearn and Fenollosa and by their own native +scholars trained by Max Müller at Oxford, or in other Western +universities, how great is the debt which they owe to Buddhism; "There +is scarcely one interesting or beautiful thing produced in the +country," wrote Lafcadio Hearn, "for which the nation is not in some +sort indebted to Buddhism," and the Japanese, in whom gratitude is a +strong motive, are saying, "Thank you." Moreover, in the present +restless seeking after truth the nation is finding, in its old +religions, things which it is refusing lightly to cast away, and in +its resentment against some of the nations of Christendom, and its +conviction that our Christianity does not go very deep, it reminds +itself that after all Buddhism was a great international force which +helped to establish peace for a thousand years in Asia. + +The present revival manifests itself in many ways, not least in the +new intellectual activity which has brought into existence Buddhist +universities, chairs of religious education, and a very vigorous +output of literature; and each of the great sects has some outstanding +scholar trained in the scientific methods of Western scholarship, but +proud to call himself a Buddhist. There are ample signs, too, of a +quickened interest in social service, of movements for children and +young people, such as the Y.M.B.A., which is now active in all +Buddhist countries. + +Old temples are being repaired and new ones built and there are said +to be over a hundred thousand of these in Japan devoted to Buddhism +alone. Amongst the more recent is one in Kyōto which cost nearly a +million pounds sterling; for the transport of its massive timbers +hundreds of thousands of women sacrificed their hair. It is +interesting and amusing to see Buddhist priests in bowler hats and +gorgeous robes directing the removal of some ancient shrine to a new +site and to note the modern American methods of engineering employed. +All this is symptomatic of a new Japan which is yet tenaciously loyal +to its old past. + +Another symptom is a vigorous attempt at moral reform about which the +"Mahāyānist," a Buddhist periodical, said, "Whilst formerly the +moral sickness was allowed to go on unchecked, now the coverings are +cast aside and the disease laid bare which is the first thing to do if +the patient is to be cured." One hears a good deal about +misappropriation of temple funds, and moral laxity in matters of sex. +It is not for a visitor to comment on these things. Personally I +believe that Buddhism is really a power for good: and I am inclined to +think that the beautiful courtesy and kindliness one meets everywhere +largely spring from it, and are one of its many noble fruits. We in +the West have made more of commercial honesty and less of courtesy and +forbearance than Jesus was wont to do: and there is no more odious +type than the self-righteous visitor from Western lands who comes to +the East armed with a narrow and negative moral code and a critical +spirit. Certainly Buddhism is teaching "morals" to its children, and +in a thousand ways its influence is felt in that very attractive +character so truly described by Lafcadio Hearn as peculiar to the +Japanese, of which the essence is a genuine kindness of heart that is +essentially Buddhist. Another proof that the chief sects are now +filled with vigorous life is to be found in their missionary +activities. The first Buddhist missionary from Japan to China was sent +out by the eastern branch of the _Hongwanji_ in 1876, a spiritual +return for the early Chinese missions of twelve hundred years ago. +Missions have also been established in Honolulu in 1897 and they are +numerous on the Pacific Coast of North America. Home missionary work, +too, is being attempted, owing largely to the influence of a layman; +the _Shin Shu_ priests are working in jails, seeking to arouse a sense +of sin in the inmates; and in Tokio one may visit a training school +where some sixty students are trained in charity organisation and +lodging houses for the poor. + + + + +Christian Influence. + + +All this is very largely the outcome of Christian activities in Japan +and it is very noteworthy that while the Christian Church is +numerically small its leadership in liberal politics and in +philanthropy is acknowledged all over the Empire and its pervasive +influence upon the thought of modern Japan is obvious on all sides. +St. Francis of Assisi and Tolstoy are perhaps the Christian leaders +most admired by the Japanese. They belong to the same spiritual +company as the great Sākyamuni, who, like them, embraced poverty and +was filled with a tender love and a sane yet passionate enthusiasm of +humanity. Japan is looking for a great spiritual and moral leader. +Will he be a Buddhist like the great Nichiren who in the thirteenth +century came like a strong sea-breeze to revive the soul of his people +and preached a religion which was to be a moral guide in national +affairs and in the daily life of his people? Or will he be a Christian +leader who, counting all things as dung compared with the Gospel of +Jesus, shall answer the cry of the Japanese patriot who believes that +his people are hungry for truth? There is a wealth of liberalism in +young Japan and there are idealists everywhere waiting to rally around +a great religious leader. But he will need to know and understand her +past and to launch his appeal to that wonderful patriotism which is +the essence of the Japanese character. + +Can Buddhism produce this moral leadership? Let us hear what a +Japanese Christian of great learning and insight has to say. "To +Buddhism Japan owes a great debt for certain elements of her faith +which would scarcely have developed without its aid; but those +germinal elements have taken on a form and colouring, a personal +vitality not gained elsewhere. Important as are those elements of +faith, they still lack the final necessary reality. Buddhism is +incomplete in the god whom it presents as an object of worship. In +place of the Supreme Being, spiritual and personal, Buddhism offers a +reality of which nothing can be affirmed, or, at best, a Great Buddha +among many. Buddhism is incomplete in the consciousness of sin which +it awakens within the soul of man. Instead of the sense of having +violated an eternal law of righteous love by personal antagonism, +Buddhism deepens the consciousness of human misery by an unbreakable +bond of suffering; and the salvation, therefore, which Buddhism offers +is deliverance from misery, not from the power of personal sin. In its +idea of self-sacrifice, Buddhism affords an element of faith much more +nearly allied to that of the Christian believer. In both the offering +of self is for the sake of the multitude, the world-brotherhood; but +in the one pity, often acquiescent and helpless, predominates, whereas +in the other loyalty to a divine ideal finds expression in the +obligation to active service." + +And yet let us note that Buddhism has undoubtedly nerved men of +action, and inspired saints, and that its call to meditation and to +quiet strength is one that our age needs to regard. Not far from the +great Pietist temples of _Hongwanji_, I found a veritable haven of +peace--the courtyard and simple buildings of a _Zenshu_ sect. + +How different from the Buddhism of the Amida sects is that of +_Zenshu_! Seated in his exquisite retreat one may visit an abbot or +teacher of this school. The orderliness and quiet of his temple +courts, the stillness of his posture, the repose of his face--all +alike tell one of spiritual calm. Perhaps one begins to ask him the +secret of it. "Ah," he may say, "that is not easy. You should go and +study one of the simpler sects." Then, if his questioner is +persistent, he will suddenly present him with one of the _Koans_, or +dark sayings which have come down for many centuries: "Listen," he +will say, "to the sound of a single hand." Puzzled and disturbed the +mind may refuse to deal with this enigma, or it may learn the great +lesson which is intended to be learned, that intuition is a surer +guide to truth than the discursive reason, or as we should say in our +psychological jargon, the sub-conscious has gifts for us if we will +give it a chance. The essence, in fact, of this sect is a quiet sense +of the presence of eternal truths. The Buddha is not to be found in +images or books, but in the heart or mind, and in scores of Buddhist +monasteries I have found the spirit of Wordsworth with its serene +sense of a pervasive presence, + +"Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns." + + +[11] A. K. Reischauer, _Studies in Japanese Buddhism_. + +[12] See _Buddhism as a Religion_, by H. Hackmann, and my _Epochs of +Buddhist History_. (To be published later.) + +[13] Praise to Amida Buddha. + +[14] See "Buddhist Hymns," tr. by S. Yamabe and L. Adams Beck. + + + + + II. BUDDHISM IN CHINA + + +The followers of this meditative school are to be found throughout the +monasteries of China and Korea where they are known as the _Chan_ +sect; but here more than in Japan their quietism is mingled with the +devotion to Amitābha or Omito-Fo, and though in many places such as +the exquisite island of Putoshan they are faithful in the practice of +meditation, they seem to have carried it to a far less perfect pitch +than the more scholarly followers of the Japanese school. + + + + +A Chinese Temple. + + +Let us get a glimpse of Chinese Buddhism in one of these great +monasteries. The day is a round of worship[15] and the worship is +divided amongst many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Here some rich layman +is making an offering for masses for his dead; Buddhism in China has +indeed become largely a matter of such masses, and the filial Chinese +spend yearly scores of millions upon them.[16] The priests have turned +out in force, and the abbot is reciting the praises now of Omito-Fo, +now of Pilochana, the great sun-Buddha, now of the merciful Kwanyin +whose ears are ever open to human prayer, and now of Titsang, guardian +of the dead. Beautiful figures these, and especially that of this +strong conqueror of death so popular amongst the Japanese as the +guardian of the little ones who have gone into the dark under-world. +Innumerable figures of him adorned with baby garments tell their own +pathetic tale, and he is unimaginative indeed who cannot find here in +these ideal figures traces of the Spirit of God at work in human +hearts. + +It is harder to sympathise with and to admire the Lama Buddhism which +has penetrated China from Tibet, but even here there are some +beautiful figures such as the _Tāras_, and amongst the mummery and +moral corruption of a Lama temple one may find some sparks of the +divine spirit, even if one fails to meet the Lama of Kim! + +Buddhism in China, decadent though it is in many places, is reviving +itself; there is great building activity at certain centres such as +Ningpo and Hangchow; there are probably nearly half a million monks, +and at one ordination in 1920 a thousand candidates were ordained in +Changchow. Many men, indeed, disillusioned at the failure of the +revolution, are seeking the quiet otherworldly retreats of Buddhism, +and others of scholarly bent delight in the classical scriptures which +the early missionaries from India translated into Chinese, and which +are still models of beauty. + +Among laymen also there is an increasing interest in the Buddhist +scriptures. Turn into this bookstore at Peking and you will find over +a thousand copies of different texts and commentaries, and there are +publishing-houses in most of the great cities. Two notable works are +the reprint of the whole of the Scriptures and a new dictionary of +Buddhist terms, containing over three thousand pages. At Ningpo one +will find a small group of young enthusiasts working for a +"neo-Buddhism." Antipathetic to Christianity, and especially to the +aggressions of "Christian" nations, these men, like some of the +propagandists in Ceylon, use weapons which are two-edged and dangerous +to all religion, not only to Christianity; they seem to feed upon the +publications of the rationalist press, and must not be taken too +seriously. Yet we can sympathise with their resentment of Western +aggression, which is a large factor in these Buddhist movements +everywhere. "Buddhism: the Religion of Asia" often accompanies and +reinforces another cry, "Asia for the Asiatics." + +Of great significance are these Pan-Buddhist movements attempting to +unite the Buddhist peoples in a strong Eastern civilisation such as +that which welded them together for a thousand years in the Golden Age +of the past. One such movement originates in Ceylon with the vigorous +layman Dharmapala, in whom resentment against the West blends with a +real enthusiasm for Buddhism. In 1893 he visited China, and stirred up +some of the Chinese monks, calling upon them to go to India as +missionaries; in Japan he attacked some of the great abbots as +wine-drinkers and corrupt, and every where he is a pungent and +provocative influence. In 1918 a Pan-Buddhist Association was started +in Tokyo and in the following year a rival one was founded in Peking. +It is, in fact, rather pathetic to find Buddhism being promoted by the +Japanese in Korea as a part of their propaganda to Japanise the +Koreans, and at the same time claiming in China to be _the_ religion +for democratic nations. + +In justification of such claims, however, Buddhism is doing some good +work in social service, and in education, and takes its part in famine +relief, prison visitation, and the beneficent work of the Red Cross. + +The Chinese are a religious people, whatever critics may say. Vast +armies of monks and innumerable temples and shrines witness to this +other-worldly strain, and though much of their religion is +superstitious, and almost all of it needs moralising, the sympathetic +observer will find on every hand the evidences that these are not a +"secular-minded" people. + +In almost every house are not only ancestor-tablets, but images of +Kwanyin and other Buddhist deities, and pilgrimages play in China as +elsewhere in Asia a great part in the national life. + +Follow this merry throng as it climbs the slopes of some great +mountain; note the groves and the poetical inscriptions on the rocks; +enter this noble group of temples with them and watch their acts of +worship. + +Here before Kwanyin a young apprentice bows: carelessly he tosses the +bamboo strips which will tell him if his prayer is to be answered, and +defiantly he tosses his head as he turns away with a refusal from the +goddess: but here is an old widow, with sorrowful persistence +importuning the Compassionate One, and in even the most careless is a +belief that Heaven rules in the affairs of men and that Heaven is +just. + +Here prayers are offered for rain and harvest, for children and +wealth, for release from suffering and demons. + +As in many Christian nations the bridge between natural religion and +the essential truths of Christian Theism is a very shaky one--so here +in China and Japan, whilst there is a widespread belief in Karma and +in Heaven's laws, this is but vaguely connected with the polytheistic +cults of the masses. And as in some other Christian lands, the worship +of the saints and local gods--even of the great Kwanyin--is not +always moralised. Habitual sinners--opium fiends who, it may be, are +ruining scores of lives, prostitutes and murderers--will pay their +daily court to the family or local god: not conscious of any demand +from the Compassionate that they should show compassion, or from the +Righteous that they should be righteous. Buddhism has indeed lost its +early salt of morality. It is for these and other reasons that China +and Japan urgently need the Gospel of Jesus and of His Kingdom. In +their own religious development is a noble preparation for this New +Order: and in the Jesus of History they are finding a Norm and a +Vision of God which makes their old ideals real and vital, and which +purifies their idea of God. In this faith the Church is at work in +these wonderful lands, believing that they have rich gifts for the +Kingdom of God, and that it will greatly enrich them and carry to its +fulfilment their noble civilisations whilst it emancipates their +masses from fear and superstition. With all its achievements Buddhism +has failed because it has had no power to cast out fear, and its +Confucian critics even accuse it of playing upon the superstition of +the people and of letting loose more demons to plague them. Yet it has +done much for China, not only ennobling her art and culture but giving +a new value to the individual, a new respect for women, a new love of +nature, and many noble objects of worship to hungry human hearts. + +Whilst then the Gospel wins its way slowly but surely in Asia, +leavening and giving new and abundant life, there are those in +Christendom who hold that it is played out, and that Buddhism is +destined to supersede it as the religion of the intelligent! + +The student should investigate their activities in London, Breslau, +and other Western cities; and he may find Appendix I a finger-post to +guide him in his quest. + +Appendix II is offered as a similar guide to a course of reading. + + +[15] The chief services are at 2 a.m. and at 4 p.m. + +[16] During the war many such masses were said for the fallen, whether +friend or foe. + + + + + APPENDIX I[17] + + SOME EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN BUDDHISTS + + +In the year 1881 Dr. Rhys Davids said, "There is not the slightest +danger of any European ever entering the Buddhist Order."[18] Yet a +recent writer was told by a Buddhist in Ceylon that his religion was +making its converts "chiefly amongst the Tamils and Germans," and in +each of the Buddhist countries there is to-day a small but active +group of converts from the European nations to Buddhism. + +It would be difficult to say whether these groups are the product or +the cause of the undoubted revival which is taking place in the +Buddhist world: probably they are part product and part cause. +Buddhism is certainly in ferment. As Dr. Suzuki has said, "It is in a +stage of transition from a mediæval dogmatic and conservative spirit +to one of progress, enlightenment, and liberalism,"[19] and in other +ways, especially in Japan, it is approximating to a liberal +Christianity. + +To this awakening there are several contributory causes, such as the +national spirit which has awakened in recent years, the works of +Eastern and Western students of Buddhism, the activities of the +Theosophical Society, and, it must be confessed, and unwise and, in my +opinion, illiberal and unfair attitude on the part of many +missionaries who, forgetting that they are sent to preach Christ, have +attacked, often without adequate knowledge, the religion of +Gautama.[20] From this criticism I do not wish to exempt myself; I +have gone through the unpleasant but salutary process of having to eat +my own words, and I am more anxious than I can say to foster a real +spirit of love and understanding between the followers of Gautama and +those of Jesus. + +Of the founder of Buddhism I can honestly say with the great Danish +scholar Fausboll: "The more I know of him, the more I love him," and +it is the "fact of Gautama," emerging more and more clearly as the +Buddhist books are being edited and translated, which more than any +other single cause is responsible for the Buddhist revival. + +"From such far distances the echo of his words returns that we cannot +but rank him amongst the greatest heroes of history," says the eminent +Belgian scholar de la Vallée Poussin, and from him, as from Gautama, +we shall all do well to learn the spirit of tolerance and courtesy. +Yet both of them speak out bluntly and shrewdly enough at times. It is +recorded that when the great teacher met men whose doctrines were +morally dangerous or intellectually insincere, he harried them +remorselessly till "the sweat poured from them" and they cried, "As +well might one meet an infuriated bull or dangerous snake as the +ascetic Gautama!" Of those whose teachings were sincere and earnest he +was wonderfully tolerant, even advising a soldier disciple to give +alms to them and their followers, no less than to the Buddhist monks. + +In this spirit the Belgian scholar, probably the greatest living +authority upon Buddhism as a whole, is lovingly tolerant towards +Buddhism and honest Buddhists, but of Neo-Buddhism he says: "It is at +once frivolous and detestable--dangerous, perhaps, for very feeble +intellects." Even so, a vast Neo-Buddhist Church is not impossible! + +European and American Buddhists, then, fall into these two classes: +those who are honest and sincere students of Buddhism and followers of +Gautama, and those of whom the most charitable thing that can be said +is that they lead astray "foolish women," and other sentimentalists. +To illustrate the methods of these two schools, who are unfortunately +at present often working in an unnatural alliance, let me describe two +recent experiences. + +On Easter Day I went from the simple and exquisite beauty of our +Communion Service, in which the glamour of the Resurrection is ever +being renewed, to a Buddhist church within a stone's throw, here in +the heart of San Francisco. There, as in innumerable other centres of +Buddhist life, the birth of Gautama was being celebrated; and I could +unhesitatingly join in paying reverence to the memory of the great +Indian teacher. But it was certainly amazing and a little staggering +to find "Buddhist High Mass" being performed, the celebrant calling +himself a bishop and ordaining on his own initiative abbots and +abbesses.[21] Three altar candles representing the Buddha, the Law, +and the Order being lighted, the "bishop," preceded by seven or eight +American and British monks in yellow robes, and by the Abbess, known +as Mahadevi, ascended to the platform, which contains a beautiful +Japanese shrine of the Hongwanji sect. Several monks from Japan, to my +surprise, assisted in the strange service that followed, which began +with the invocation of Amida Buddha, and went on in an astonishing +hotch-potch of the cults of the primitive and the later Buddhism +derived indiscriminately from Ceylon, Tibet, and Japan. + +Of this strange service, which the "bishop" claims to have modelled on +that in use in the Dalai Lama's palace at Lhassa, it must suffice to +say that if the Tibetan _Mantras_ were as inaccurately rendered as +were the five precepts in Pāli which are the Buddhist pentalogue, +then the general impression of Buddhism given was as misleading as it +is possible to conceive. The service included a processional hymn, +music by an organist announced as "late of the Golden Temple Shway +Dagon in Burma, and of St. Paul's Cathedral, London," an "Epistle" +read by an American Buddhist, a "gospel of the day," read by the +Abbess, several addresses by Japanese and Western Buddhists, and a +sermon by the "bishop," who claims to be ninety-five years old, to be +the son of a Persian prince, to have spent sixteen years at the feet +of the late Dalai Lama in Tibet, to have numerous degrees in arts, +medicine, science, and philosophy from Oxford, London, Paris, and +Heidelberg, and to have been seventy-five years a monk of the yellow +robe. His costume was as amazingly mixed as his liturgy, consisting of +a Hindu turban, a yellow Buddhist overmantle, a scarlet robe with +cincture and maniple of purple, and a rosary terminating in the +_Swastika_, with which sign he blessed the people at the end of the +service, saying: "May the face of the Truth shine upon you, and the +divine Wisdom of the Buddhas permeate you, and remain with you now and +throughout eternity. So mote it be." + +In his sermon he claimed to have founded no less than eighty missions +in the past ten years in California, and said some shrewd things in +criticism of the Christian Church, of which I am persuaded he was +himself once a member. For the rest it was a practical discourse +enough; he advised his followers, if they would live as long as he +(and he announced that he would still be going strong fifty years +hence), they must change their wrinkles into dimples, and learn the +secret of a serene mind. He gave notice that in the evening there +would be a banquet and a dance, in which he would join, if widows and +maidens pressed him, and immediately after the service he saluted them +all "with a holy kiss," which they seemed to enjoy as much as he. +There is something really attractive about this jovial monk, and he +has the energy, the ubiquity and the perseverance of another "Persian +prince" who is equally opposed to Christianity! + +The "bishop's" disciples are fairly numerous, though one of his +colleagues expressed the conviction, on the authority of an English +professor, that the same wonderful teachings would draw thousands to +hear them in London, instead of scores in San Francisco. Be that as it +may, they are faithful disciples; attracted very largely by the fact +that he is rather expounding spiritualism, telling of the wonderful +_Mahatmas_ of Tibet, and luring them with the glamour of Eastern +mysticism than teaching Buddhism. When I chuckled at some of his +shrewd sallies, an elegantly dressed woman next to me said, "Hush! +Hush! You are not an initiate, you do not understand; all that he says +has a profound, inner meaning which only we who are initiated can +comprehend." To which I could not resist the reply: "I may not be +initiated into this business, but I know that this is not Buddhism any +more than that the organist who is playing those penny-whistle tunes +on the harmonium ever played them on the Shway Dagon, where music is +not allowed, or any more than the old sportsman who is speaking is a +bishop." + +It is not by such means that Buddhism can be revived. + +But there are others! Some years ago I had a delightful talk with one +of them in the shadow of the great pagoda from which our organist did +not come. He was a Scot, a scholar and scrupulously honest, and his +name is already widely known as the translator of both German and +Pāli works. Quite frankly he told me why he had taken the yellow +robe, and how, having lost his faith in Christianity, he found in the +Buddhist books something which saved his reason and probably his life: +then, turning to me, he said: "How glad you fellows would be if you +could get rid of the Old Testament." + +Another friend of mine, an Englishman, was formerly trained as a Roman +Catholic priest, and is now a Buddhist missionary in California, +having been ordained in Japan, and having, with an American scholar, +now a professor in London, been responsible for the production of an +admirable and scholarly periodical, _The Mahayanist_. Its object is to +impart an accurate knowledge of the Buddhism of China and Japan, and +to investigate its history, doctrines, and present conditions in an +unbiased and scholarly way. + +Such men as these three ought not to be associated with those who +claim to teach "esoteric" Buddhism.[22] There is really no such thing; +"I have preached the Law without making any distinction between +exoteric and esoteric doctrine," said Gautama, "for I have no such +thing as the closed fist of the teacher who keeps some things in +reserve."[23] + +Now so long as these unequally yoked teams are drawing the Buddhist +chariot, there is bound to be a smash; when one studies, for instance, +the history of the propagandist literature they have put out, one +finds that it is one long story of fitful beginnings and spasmodic +effort, almost all of them failing to survive for more than a few +years. Of these periodicals, Professor Poussin writes as follows: +"Propagandist reviews like _Buddhism_ of Rangoon and the _Open Court_ +of Chicago are useful when Mrs. Rhys Davids condescends to contribute +to them, but she finds in them strange neighbours indeed, fully worthy +of the indescribable Mahabodhi Society!" + +Buddhists everywhere are finding new inspiration by going back to the +authority of Gautama; let the Christian Church go back to Jesus +Christ, and, taking Him as the full and perfect revelation of the +nature of God and man, rethink and restate its theology. And secondly, +let its missionaries study the great religion of Gautama--which is +still, after twenty-five centuries, a mighty power, with strong +capacity for revival, and which is still strangely misunderstood; and +let them see to it that they and the Christian "native" pastors and +catechists are as carefully trained as the Buddhist monks who each +year are receiving a more systematic preparation for the task of +defending and propagating the _Dhamma_. + + +[17] Reprinted from _The East and the West_. + +[18] _Hibbert Lectures_, 3rd edition, p. 184. + +[19] _The Zen Sect of Buddhism_, p. 11. + +[20] There is fortunately a marked improvement in this respect in +missionary methods: but the old order has not yet given place to the +new. The present writer was recently classed, in a public address in +Rangoon, with the Kaiser and Antichrist--as a "Sign of the Times." + +[21] The full form of service and a biographical sketch of its author +is published by the _Open Court_, Chicago, U.S.A. + +[22] They are, fortunately, even now parting company: the "bishop," +for example, has been obliged to start a rival "church" in San +Francisco. + +[23] From the _Mahaparinibbana Sutta_, the oldest and most authentic +of the Buddhist scriptures. + + + + +APPENDIX II + +HOW TO STUDY BUDDHISM[24] + + +The Christian missionary in Buddhist lands is faced with a task of +infinite fascination. He is dealing, in the first place, with +remarkable peoples for whom their religion has done much of the great +service which Christianity has done for him and his people. He will +find everywhere traces of a mighty Buddhist civilisation, and in many +places, if he has the eye to see, proofs that this venerable religion +is still alive and is reforming itself to meet the needs of the modern +world. In the second place, he will find that it is vitally linked up +with the intensely interesting and important nationalist movements of +Asia, and that he cannot understand the political situation in these +countries without a close and careful study of the religion. And in +the third place, he will find that it is not only as part and parcel +of nationalist movements that Buddhism is alive, but that it has an +international programme and that it is closely bound up with the +movement of "Asia for the Asiatics"--a movement deserving of +respectful and sympathetic study. + +How then will the missionary prepare himself for this absorbing task? +Nothing can take the place of friendly intercourse with Buddhists in +temple and home, on pilgrimage and at great times of festival; it is +thus that the religion will become a living reality to him, full of +colour and movement, giving him at times moments of exquisite pleasure +in its artistic pageantry, and bringing him into sympathetic touch +with the "soul of the people" to whom he is seeking to minister. But +to prepare him for this absorbing pursuit, at once business and +pleasure, study and hobby, for any one who really enjoys such things, +he can and must do some systematic reading. Appended are a course of +study for the first two years worked out for Y.M.C.A. secretaries in +India, and a more advanced and detailed course. The following +additional notes may be of service in using these: + +1. Clearly the first step is to get a sympathetic and accurate idea of +the founder of Buddhism, of the essence of his teaching, and of the +secret of his amazing influence. There is, in human history, only one +figure more significant and more worthy of a study. Side by side the +student should read Sir Edwin Arnold's _Light of Asia_ (London: Kegan +Paul. 1s. 6d. and 5s.) and some good biographical study such as that +of H. Oldenberg, _Buddha_ (London: Williams & Norgate. Out of print. +1882), or that by the present writer, _Gotama Buddha_ (New York: +Association Press. 1920). + +2. Next he will do well to saturate himself in such selections of the +moral teachings of Gautama as are contained in the _Dhammapada_ or the +_Itivuttaka_, both of which contain much very early material, some of +which may be attributed to the founder himself. + +3. For the whole Buddhist system in its earlier forms Warren's +admirable _Buddhism in Translations_ (Harvard Oriental Series. +Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. 1900) is indispensable, and should be +constantly used for reference. + +4. As an introduction to the history of Buddhism two elementary books, +attempting to cover the whole field in a rather sketchy way, are +Saunders' _The Story of Buddhism_ (London: Oxford University Press. +4s., 6d. 1916) and Hackmann's _Buddhism as a Religion_ (London: +Probsthain. 15s. 1910). + +5. Whether the student is going to work in lands devoted to the +primitive type of Buddhism, such as Ceylon, Siam, and Burma, or in +those in which a highly developed Buddhism prevails, such as Japan, +China, and Korea, he ought to have a grasp of the essential +differences between the two types of Buddhism known as _Hinayāna_ and +_Mahāyāna_; for an evolution must be read backwards as well as +forwards, and the missionary will look forward to spending a holiday +in one of the other Buddhist lands. If, for instance, his lot is cast +in Burma, he ought to plan to go on a visit to Japan or to China, and +_vice versâ_. To get a grasp of the highly developed Mahāyāna he +should study especially the famous _Lotus of the Good Law_ translated +in vol. xxi of the Sacred Books of the East (Oxford: Clarendon Press. +15s. 6d.) and should carefully compare this with the _Dhammapada_. He +will find that even in the conservative Buddhism of Ceylon and Burma +there are Mahāyāna tendencies, and that everywhere Gautama Buddha +has become in practice more than a moral teacher and is related, in +the minds of the people, to an eternal order making for righteousness. +In this and in other ways which the student will study for himself, +_e.g._ in the idea of a sacrificial life-process culminating in the +historical life of Sākyamuni and in the practice of prayer by all +Buddhists, he will find a wonderful preparation for the gospel of +Christ. I would suggest that he take as his guiding light this saying +of a great Buddhist scholar of Japan, "We see your Christ, because we +have first seen our Buddha." The task of the missionary will be to +relate Christianity to this great preparation that has been made for +it and to think out with Eastern scholars the thought bases of a truly +Eastern Christianity which shall seem to these Asiatic nations to come +with all the authority of their own past behind it, and with all the +glamour of a knowledge that the God who has been working with and for +them in the past is now bringing them out into a larger and freer +life. Only so can they be won for Christ. + + +[24] Reprinted by kind permission of the editors and publisher from +"An Introduction to Missionary Service," Ed. by G. A. Gollock and E. +G. K. Hewat, Oxford University Press. 1921, 3s. 6d. net. + + + + + I + + +The following course of reading--drawn up for Secretaries of the +Y.M.C.A. in the East by Dr. J. N. Farquhar and the writer--is +recommended to those whose leisure is scant: + +_First Year_. General: Rhys Davids, _Buddhism, Life and Teachings of +Gautama, the Buddha_ (London: S.P.C.K. 3s. 6d.); V. Smith, _Asoka_ +(Oxford: Clarendon Press. 4s. New edition, 1920). + +Special: _The Dhammapada_. Sacred Books of the East, vol. x (out of +print); _The Mahaparinibbana_. S.B.E., vol. xi (12s. 6d. See +Introduction). + +Additional: Oldenberg, _Buddha_ (see Introduction); or Rhys Davids, +_Dialogues of the Buddha_ (London: Milford. 12s. 6d. 3rd volume, +1921). + +_Second Year_. General: Copleston, _Buddhism Primitive and Present_ +(London: Longmans. 10s. 6d. Out of print); Hackmann, _Buddhism as a +Religion_ (see Introduction). + +Special: Warren, _Buddhism in Translations_. Chaps. i and iv (see +Introduction). + +Additional: Rhys Davids, _Buddhist India_ (London: Fisher Unwin. 7s. +6d.); _The Questions of King Milinda_, S.B.E., vols. xxxv, xxxvi. +(42s. for two. See Introduction.) + + + + + II + + +For those who desire further and more detailed study the following +suggestions, based upon Professor Hume's course at Union Theological +Seminary and the present writer's at the Pacific School of Religion, +are likely to prove helpful: + + +A. _The Life of the Buddha_. + +Rhys Davids, _Buddhism, Life and Teachings of Gautama, the Buddha_, +chaps. ii, iii, vii (see I, First Year); Kern, _Manual of Indian +Buddhism_, part ii (London: Probsthain. 15s.); Oldenberg, _Buddha_, +part i (see Introduction); Warren, _Buddhism in Translations_, chap. i +(see Introduction); Saunders, _Gotama Buddha_ (see Introduction). + + +B. _The Scriptures of Hinayāna Buddhism_. + +The Vinaya Pitaka (Discipline Basket), The Sutta Pitaka (Teaching +Basket), The Abhidhamma Pitaka (Higher Religion, or Metaphysical +Basket). + +Rhys Davids, _Buddhism, Its History and Literature_ (London: Putnams. +10s. 6d. 1907); Hastings' _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, vol. +viii, pp. 85-9 (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark. 35s. 1916); K. J. +Saunders, _Heart of Buddhism_ (London: Oxford University Press. 2s. +6d. Calcutta: Association Press. 6d. 1915); Sacred Books of the East, +vols. x, xi, xvii, xix, xx, xxi, xxxv, xxxvi, xlix (see Introduction); +Rhys Davids, _Sacred Books of the Buddhists_, vols. ii, iii (London: +Milford. 12s. 6d. each). + + +C. _The Doctrines and Practices of Hinayāna Buddhism_. + +(The Hindu Setting, Moral Teachings, Concerning the Soul, +Transmigration, Karma, Nirvana, Methods of Salvation, Prayer, +Miracles, The Order Woman.) + +Rhys Davids, _Buddhism, A Sketch_, chaps. iv, v, vi (London: Williams +and Norgate. 2s. 6d. 1912); E. W. Hopkins, _Religions of India_, chap. +xiii (Boston: Ginn & Co. 10s. 6d. 1902); K. J. Saunders, _Buddhist +Ideals_ (Calcutta: Y.M.C.A., 10 annas. 1912). + + +D. _The Expansion of Buddhism_. + +(In India, the Adjacent Countries, in China and Korea, in Japan.) + +K. J. Saunders, _Story of Buddhism_, chaps. iv, vii (see +Introduction); Hackmann, _Buddhism as a Religion_, Book iii (see +Introduction); Rhys Davids, _Buddhism, Sketch_, chap. ix (see C); R. +F. Johnston, _Buddhist China_ (London: Murray. 18s. 1913); K. +Reischauer, _Japanese Buddhism_ (London and New York; Macmillan. 10s. +6d. $2. 1917). + + +E. _Differences between Hinayāna and Mahāyāna_. + +Suzuki, _Outlines of Mahāyāna_ (London: Lusac. 8s. 6d. Out of print. +1908); _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_. Under headings (see B). + + +F. _Buddhism and Christianity_. + +(Similarities and Differences.) + +Saunders, _Buddhist Ideals_ (see C); Carus, _Buddhism and its +Christian Critics_, chap. v (Chicago: _Open Court_ Publishing Co. 7s. +6d.); K. J. Saunders, _Story of Buddhism_, chap. viii (see +Introduction). + + + + + III + + +For still more detailed work see the excellent booklets prepared by +the Board of Missionary Preparation, 25 Madison Avenue, New York City, +_The Preparation of Missionaries to Buddhist Lands_ and _Buddhism and +Buddhists in China_--both in the press. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Buddhism in the Modern World, by K. J. 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Saunders + +Release Date: January 6, 2014 [EBook #44607] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUDDHISM IN THE MODERN WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by the volunteers of Project Gutenberg Thailand. +Proofreading by users brianjungwi, emil, rikker, ianh68, +jtbrown. PGT is an affiliated sister project focusing on +public domain books on Thailand and Southeast Asia. Project +leads: Rikker Dockum, Emil Kloeden. (This file was produced +from images generously made available by The National +Library of Thailand.) + + + + + + + + + + BUDDHISM IN THE MODERN WORLD + + + BY + K. J. SAUNDERS + + AUTHOR OF + "THE STORY OF BUDDHISM," "GOTAMA BUDDHA," ETC. + + PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF RELIGION, BERKELEY + AND LECTURER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA + + + LONDON + SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE + NEW YORK AND TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + 1922 + + + + + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY + WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, + LONDON AND BECCLES. + + + + + PREFACE + + + +There are many books on Buddhism, and to produce a new one almost +demands an apology. Yet most of them deal with the dead past, and +Buddhism is a living religion which is showing remarkable powers of +revival and adaptation. This is a movement of so great significance +that I hope this small volume may prove of value, not only to +missionaries but to all sympathetic students of a religion which has +played an immense part in the world's history, and which is still a +dominant influence in the lives of scores of millions. During twelve +years of somewhat intimate study of Buddhist countries I have found +that while there is much that is degenerate there is much that is very +noble, and the object of this little book is to estimate the living +forces of the religion rather than to emphasise its weaknesses. It is +at once more scientific and more worth while to look at the strong +than at the weak points of a religion, and there is an increasing +school of missionary thought which believes in building the Christian +Church of Asia upon the great foundations laid through so many +centuries. Not only is it true that God has not left Himself without a +witness amongst these peoples; it is even truer that during the long +and on the whole noble history of the expansion of Buddhism His Spirit +has been at work. I am convinced that any who really study this +remarkable chapter in human history will come to this conclusion, if +they have any belief whatsoever in a meaning in history and in a +Divine Providence. + +The missionary amongst Buddhist peoples should aim at studying all +that is noble and of good repute, whilst of course he will not shut +his eyes to what is degenerate and unworthy, and inasmuch as an +increasing number of missionary teachers are doing me the honour to +consult me as to the method of approach to their Buddhist friends, I +venture to dedicate this small volume to them as a token of hearty +sympathy in the noble work that they are doing in seeking to fulfil +the age-long purposes of God. I think that many of them agree with me +that already a nobler form of Christianity is being produced on +Asiatic soil than that which we have brought thither, and it may well +be in the providence of God that a new and splendid era of Church +History is opening up as these responsive and religious peoples of the +Orient are captured by the Gospel of Christ. In spite of the failures +of Christendom and of our divided Christianity the whole of Asia +reverences the historic Jesus, and from her contact with His Spirit is +at once reforming and revivifying her ancient faiths. This process is +of immense significance and her best spirits, even when they do not +call themselves Christian, are frank to confess how much they owe to +Him and how much there is in their old faiths which will need to die +in order that they may live again, purified and deepened. That Asia is +increasingly becoming Christian in its standards of thought and +conduct is evident to any unbiased observer, and one of the most +remarkable proofs of the authenticity and originality of our faith is +this--that it is at once reforming and fulfilling the ancient faiths +of Asia. What it did with the religions of Rome and Greece it is +already doing with the nobler religions of the Orient; and true +missionaries of Christ are at work upon a task of incomparable dignity +and significance. + +These brief sketches are based upon ten years of intimate association +with Buddhists in Southern and Eastern Asia. + +Inasmuch as I have only been on the borders of Tibet I have not +written here of Tibetan Buddhism. It is very degenerate and so mixed +with Tantric Hinduism as to demand separate and different handling: it +is very clear that missionary work is urgently needed to free the +people of Tibet from a tyranny which is unworthy of the great name of +the Buddha. + + K. J. S. + + BERKELEY, + _January, 1922._ + + + + + TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + PREFACE + + I. BUDDHISM IN SOUTHERN ASIA + + I. BUDDHISM IN BURMA + + 1. AT THE GREAT PAGODA IN RANGOON + (a) A Monastic School + (b) Its Moral Teaching + (c) Its Religious Instruction + (d) The Importance of the Monks as a Class + (e) Women at Worship + + 2. THE RELIGIOUS VALUES OF EVERYDAY BUDDHISM + (a) What Buddhism means for Burmese Women + (b) What it means for Burmese Men + (c) What it means for Burmese Children + (d) The Attitude of Burmese Students + (e) The Better Side of Burmese Buddhism + + 3. CHRISTIANITY'S OPPORTUNITY IN BURMA + (a) The Burmese are truly Religious in Temperament + (b) They tend to view Gotama as a Saviour + (c) The Christian Heaven is more attractive than _Nibbāna_ + (d) Moral Conditions demand a Vital Christianity + (e) Loving Social Service finds its own Way to the Heart + (f) Christianity can dispel the Fear of the Demon World + + II. BUDDHISM IN CEYLON + + 1. ON A HILLSIDE NEAR KANDY + (a) The Dullness and Superstition of Village Life in Southern Ceylon + (b) The Themes of the Hillside Preacher + (c) The Stolidity of his Audience + + 2. THE HOLD OF BUDDHISM UPON THE SINGHALESE + (a) The Appeal of its Traditions + (b) Its Work of Reformation + (c) Its Leadership of Public Opinion + (d) Yet Ceylon needs Christianity + + 3. TWO SHARPLY MARKED ATTITUDES AMONG MODERN BUDDHISTS + + III. BUDDHISM IN SIAM + + 1. SIAM A BUDDHIST KINGDOM + 2. THE _THOT KRATHIN_ FESTIVAL + 3. THE KING AND PĀLI LEARNING + 4. BUDDHIST EDUCATION + 5. THE TEMPLES OR _WATS_ + + IV. CONTRASTED TYPES OF BUDDHIST RELIGIOUS LIFE IN SOUTHERN ASIA + + 1. THE CREMATION OF A SINGHALESE ABBOT + 2. THE FUNERAL RITES OF A BURMESE MONK + 3. THOSE OF A SIAMESE PRINCE + 4. THE SECRET OF BUDDHISM'S INFLUENCE + + V. BUDDHISM AS A LIVING WORLD RELIGION + + 1. IT ATTRACTS THOSE WHOSE FAITH IN CHRISTIANITY HAS CEASED + 2. IT DEALS WITH HUMAN SUFFERING + 3. IT OFFERS A WAY OF ESCAPE FROM PESSIMISM + 4. ITS GREAT FOUNDER CALLED HIMSELF A "PHYSICIAN OF SICK SOULS" + 5. IT CULTIVATES A SENSE OF THE WORTHLESSNESS OF TEMPORAL THINGS + 6. ITS CONCEPTION OF BLISS IS REALISABLE IN THIS LIFE + 7. IT IS A RELIGION OF ANALYSIS + 8. IT HAS FINE ETHICAL TEACHINGS, _e.g._ + (a) The Four Noble Truths + (b) The Eight-fold Path + 9. IT NOW PRACTISES PRAYER + 10. YET IT TEACHES STOICAL SELF-MASTERY RATHER THAN DEPENDENCE ON +GOD + 11. IT HAS TWO STANDARDS OF MORALITY: ONE FOR MONKS, ANOTHER FOR +LAY FOLK + 12. IT GIVES WOMEN A LOWER PLACE THAN MEN + 13. SUMMARY + + VI. THE MISSIONARY APPROACH TO MODERN BUDDHISM IN SOUTHERN ASIA + + 1. MODERN BUDDHISM DIFFERS FROM THE THEORETICAL BUDDHISM OF GOTAMA + 2. THE CENTRAL EMPHASIS OF BUDDHISM VARIES IN THE THREE SOUTHERN +COUNTRIES + 3. SOME QUALITIES DESIRABLE IN MISSIONARIES TO BUDDHISTS + (a) A Genuine Sympathy + (b) A Sense of Beauty and of Humour + (c) Strong Christian Convictions + (d) A Desire to appreciate Fresh Truth + 4. A GREAT OPPORTUNITY + + II. BUDDHISM IN EASTERN ASIA + + I. BUDDHISM IN JAPAN + + KŌYA SAN + HIEISAN AND ITS SECTS + A SHINSHU TEMPLE + A REVIVAL OF BUDDHISM + CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE + + II. BUDDHISM IN CHINA + + A CHINESE TEMPLE + + APPENDIX I. + APPENDIX II. + + + + + BUDDHISM IN THE MODERN WORLD + + + + + I. BUDDHISM IN SOUTHERN ASIA + + + I. BUDDHISM IN BURMA + + +1. At the great Pagoda in Rangoon. + +Let us visit the great _Shwe Dagon_ pagoda in Rangoon, one of the +living centres of the Buddhist world, where amidst a splendid grove of +palms and forest trees the golden spire rises high above a vast +platform crowded with shrines and images of the Buddha. Far below is +the teeming city bathed in golden light, and humming with life; here +all is still save for the rustle of leaves and the tinkling of +innumerable bells upon the great pagoda pinnacle, and the shouting of +a class of boys in the monastery school near by. + +(a) _A Monastic School_.--Some two score of them are seated round a +kindly old monk in his faded yellow robe. And all are shouting at the +top of their voices repeating in unison certain words, of whose +meaning they do not seem to think! + +(b) _Its Moral Teaching_.--As we draw near we realise that these are +phrases from a popular Buddhist book known as _Mingala Thot_, a +summary of the Buddhist beatitudes, which describe the happy life of +the Buddhist layman. First they shout a word of Pāli[1] and then a +word of Burmese, and lastly the whole phrase. There are twelve verses, +of which the following is typical:-- + + "Tend parents, cherish wife and child, + Pursue a blameless life and mild: + Do good, shun ill and still beware + Of the red wine's insidious snare; + Be humble, with thy lot content, + Grateful and ever reverent." + +Many times must these phrases be droned through before they are +learned by heart, but gradually their meanings sink in and simple +explanations and grammatical notes by the teacher help his class to +understand as well as to learn. These moral maxims still exert a +powerful influence for good. + +(c) _Its Religious Instruction_.--Another favourite lesson is a short +summary of the excellent qualities of the "Three Jewels" of +Buddhism--the Buddha, his Order of Monks, and his Law or teaching; and +another celebrates eight victories of the Buddha over enemies temporal +and spiritual. Having mastered these preliminary books, the boys will +learn the chief _Jātakas_, a strange medley of folklore dressed up in +Buddhist guise, and purporting to be stories of the various +sacrificial existences of the founder of Buddhism, Sākyamuni, before +he became a Buddha. Buddhism is not only a body of moral teachings, +but a religion with an elaborate system of beliefs, which makes very +great demands upon the faith of its worshippers, and some of these +beliefs are embodied in these stories of the former lives of the +Buddha. Others are conveyed in legends and hymns, in popular summaries +and proverbial sayings universally known and used by the people. + +(d) _The Importance of the Monks_.--This class of boys around the old +monk represents an educational system which covers all Burma and has +unbounded influence. It is an amazing fact that there are almost two +monasteries to every village. While this constitutes an enormous drain +upon the resources of the country, since all the monks retire from its +active industrial life, and live upon the alms of the laity, it has, +on the other hand, made Burma one of the most literate of all the +lands of the East, with a larger percentage of men who can read and +write than modern Italy. So great is the power of the monks that all +boys, before they can be regarded as human beings, must undergo a form +of ordination. It is not strange that some of them are caught by the +lure of the monastic life and the glamour of the yellow robe: yet most +of them, after a short experience, go back to the world. + +The young _shin_ or novice, who chooses to stay in a monastery, may in +due course be admitted to ordination. At that time, dressed in +princely robes, he celebrates the sacrifice of the founder of +Buddhism, Sākyamuni, in leaving his royal state to become a +mendicant. His head is shaved, his gorgeous clothes are taken away, +and henceforward he is clad only in the yellow robe of the Buddhist +monks, an order older, more widespread, and more picturesque than any +other religious order in the world. He has "taken refuge in the Three +Jewels," and now takes up the regular life of the monk. He goes out +daily with a group of others to collect food for the monastery; he +attends to the various needs of the older monks and carries on the +simple household tasks assigned to him. A large portion of his time +must be given to studies, until he has a good working knowledge of the +three "Baskets,"[2] _i.e._ the Discipline, the Narratives or +Dialogues, and the Higher Religion, which make up the Buddhist canon. +In course of time he may himself become a teacher. + +Let us turn again to the shrine. The great sun is going down and the +pagoda, splendid in the sunset as it changes from gold to purple and +from purple to gray, and then to silver as the glorious moon rises, is +thronged with devout worshippers. The monk prostrates himself before +the jewelled alabaster image of Buddha. He seems unaware of the people +around him, who honour him as a being of a superior order; or, if +conscious of them, it is with a sense of his own aloofness. "Sabbā +Dukkhā" (all is sorrow) he is murmuring: "Sabbā Anattā" (all is +without abiding entity). Mechanically the lay-folk repeat with him the +words which have been for twenty-five centuries the Buddhist challenge +to the world, calling it away from the lure of the senses and the ties +of family and home. + +Do the people really believe it? Let us look at this group of women +before one of the many shrines on the spacious pagoda platform. Are +they intent on giving up the world or on making the most of it? Are +they persuaded that it is all sad and transient? Here kneels a young +wife offering strands of her hair, and praying that her child may have +hair as long and beautiful. Near by is an unhappy wife who prays that +her husband may become as pure as the flower which she lays at the +feet of the Buddha. Not far away is one very old and trembling woman +who, after bowing to the impassive image and lighting her little +candle before it, has turned back to pat a great old tree lest the +_nat_, or spirit, which lives within, be offended. "The spirits are +always malignant and have to be propitiated. The world-renowned one, +is he not benign?" She must not risk offending this tree-spirit, in +her desire to please the Buddha. "The Burman tries to keep both in +mind and to serve them faithfully, for both may help to make this life +pleasant; but he is most anxious concerning the demons. Whilst in +every village in the country there is at least one pagoda and +monastery, there is sure to be a spirit-shrine in every home, where +the spirits are consulted and appeased before homes are built, +marriages arranged, purchases made, or journeys undertaken." It is +these things, after all, that make up life for most of us. + + + + +2. The Religious Values of Everyday Buddhism. + + +(a) _What Buddhism means for Burmese Women_.--It will be interesting +to consider what Buddhism has to offer to such groups of women. Four +sorts of appeal may be mentioned. In the first place Buddhism is a +great social force, providing many festivals and giving much colour to +everyday life. In theory it may be sad; in practice it is very +cheerful. Even in Christian lands some women go to church to see the +latest fashions; can we wonder that Burmese Buddhist women delight to +gather on the platform of the beautiful pagoda for friendly +intercourse and gossip? Again, they think of the order of monks as +giving them the best chance to gain "merit." They recall that the +Master taught that generous offerings to them are potent in bringing +all kinds of benefits in this world, and even in helping the dead in +the dim life of the underworld. The monks confer a favour by accepting +alms; it is the donor who says "Thank you." + +Another great source of enjoyment and instruction is the well-known +Buddhist stories, told over and over again, often miraculous, always +with a moral. They also reflect on the lives, which they know by +heart, of certain great _Bodhisattvas_, or Buddhas in the making, +"buds of the lotus," which later on burst into full bloom. One of the +pictures in which they delight is that of Gotama[3] when he was a hare +and jumped into the fire to feed a hungry Brahmin. Another picture +more familiar and more poignant still, depicts his appearance as +Prince Vessantara, giving away his wife and beloved children to a +hunchback beggar. These stories exert an immense influence. + +And finally, Buddhism influences Burmese women by appealing to their +imagination and their love of mystery, with its solemn chanting, its +myriad shrines, with their innumerable candles twinkling in the dusk, +and the sexless sanctity of its monks. How wise and good they seem to +be! Are they not custodians of the truth? Here one little woman is +lifting a heavy stone weighing forty pounds; a monk has told her that +if it seems heavy her prayer will surely be answered. To make +assurance doubly sure, she may go and consult the soothsayer, whose +little booth is near the shrine--a cheerful rogue, not without insight +and a sense of humour--but she gives to the monk the supreme place, +and pays him more generously! + +A Burman acquaintance of mine, who was converted to Christianity, was +asked by an old lady why he had deserted the "custom" of his people. +"I am sick," he began, "of all this bowing down to the monks, and of +all these offerings." "Stop, stop!" she cried, aghast. "You are +destroying the whole religion of our nation!" + +(b) _What it means for Burmese Men_.--Laymen in Burma are much like +men elsewhere. Here is one who between prostrations before the image +of Buddha keeps his long cheroot alive, and enjoys an occasional puff. +He is like many men one meets, "making the best of both worlds." Yet +to him too Buddhism makes a strong appeal, primarily because it is his +heritage or, as he says, "the custom of Burma." The national feeling, +which is alive in Burma as well as in all other parts of the East, +resents Western influences, of which Christianity seems a part. +Moreover, Buddhism strongly appeals to his habit of mind. He thinks he +understands why there is inequality in human lot, why some are rich +and some poor, some healthy and some diseased. He explains it as the +working out of the law of _Kamma_.[4] Men suffer now because they have +sinned in a former birth. Listen to this conversation: Old U Hpay is +telling a neighbour about a foolish old sister of his who has adopted +a calf, and is petting it because its voice is so like that of her +dead husband! While the old men chuckle at this quaint expression of +her faith, yet they do believe that this is the law of life. Should +you kill a mosquito it may be your mother-in-law in a new body, and +still going strong! But Buddhism puts forth its greatest appeal at +those times when there comes over its votaries a wistful yearning for +something which this world has not given them. At these quiet moments, +especially in the evening of life, when they are no longer concerned +with making money or with the raising of a family, the appeal of +_Nibbāna_[5] and its peace comes home to many. They do not feel sure +of reaching it, nor do they fully understand what it means. Some of +their monkish teachers tell them it will be annihilation, while others +describe it as the extinction of all passion or a great calm. In +either way _Nibbāna_[5] has its lure, especially to the world-weary. +I have even known a Christian missionary who was tempted to long for +the quiet and relief from the staleness and hurry of life which +annihilation would bring. But he was weary and needed a holiday! +Missionaries often do. + +(c) _Buddhism and Children_.--Playing around, while the old people +talk or pray, are always some children. Here a fat, naked baby takes a +puff at his grandfather's cigar; there a little girl, devoutly +imitating what she sees her parents doing before the great image of +Buddha, also lights her candle and offers her marigolds. The older +children quickly begin to take their share in the religious life about +them. In some of them is dawning a hero-worship of the great Buddha +who has done so much for the world. This little girl thinks wistfully +of her brother, so recently her playmate, but now a Buddhist novice, +with shaven head and yellow robe, as remote from her and aloof as if +he belonged to another world. Not much is taught to her and her +girl-playmates: "they are only girls!" But she is learning by what she +sees, and she too is becoming a staunch Buddhist. There are some +stalwart champions of Buddhism amongst the children, and the girls +grow up, less instructed but not less devout than the boys. + +(d) _The Attitude of Burmese Students_.--Every mother desires that one +of her sons shall take and keep the yellow robe, yet the younger among +the educated Burmese are frank in calling the order of monks a "yellow +peril," not because they are bad men, for public opinion in Burma +rarely tolerates immorality in these religious leaders, but because +there are so many of them, over seventy-five thousand in the whole +country. To feed such a horde of mendicants is a costly business, and +the rebuilding and gilding of a pagoda may mean that the inheritance +of every one belonging to its village will be decimated. "The pagoda +is built and the village ruined," they ruefully repeat. Thus there is +growing up among those who are in the government schools in contact +with the liberal thinking of the West a disposition to question the +values of the present religious system. Possibly not more than ten per +cent. of the students who have Western training can be called orthodox +Buddhists. Thus the old people to whom Buddhism means so much are +anxious, and the young are restive. Burma, like many other countries, +is going through a period of transition, the outcome of which is +uncertain. Yet undoubtedly it is still a strongly Buddhist country, +and the masses of its people are not much affected by this spirit of +scepticism. As, however, Western education is the key to preferment +the official classes are apt to sit loose to much that their fathers +held sacred. And some few are busy re-thinking their faith and seeking +to adapt it to modern needs. + +(e) _The Better Side of Burmese Buddhism_.--Buddhism is often +described as a pessimistic religion. As one sees it in Burma, however, +it seems to make the people happy and contented. Possibly this is due +to their naturally cheerful temperament. Whatever the reason, there is +a remarkable joyousness about the gay-robed crowds of happy, smiling +people. + +Again, while Buddhism does not give to womanhood nearly so high a +place as does the religion of Jesus, yet it has granted her a far +better standing than she has in any part of India under Hinduism or +Islam. Woman is the "better half" in Burma and knows it, even though +she may pray to be born next as a man. + +Caste, moreover, the great bane of India, is almost unknown to +Buddhist Burma: it is a cheerful democratic land. Buddhism believes in +the education of the masses, and its schools and monasteries are open +to all. It is also very tolerant and kindly. It has not led on any +large scale either to religious persecution or to war. These are no +small services. Moreover, Buddhism has in the past been a great bond +of union between the peoples of Asia, and it is to-day again playing +some part in the movement, "Asia for the Asiatics"--a movement +deserving our sympathetic attention. In the great awakening of +Nationalism the Buddhist Revival has its share both as cause and as +effect. + + + + +3. Prospects of Christianity in Burma. + + +There are only some twenty thousand Burmese Christians as yet, +although, within the confines of Burma there is a far larger number of +Christians, and the Karens are already a great church. What, then, are +the reasons for confidence that Burma will at some time be a Christian +country, albeit with a Christianity whose type will differ very +greatly from the prevailing types of the West? + +(a) _The Burmese are truly Religious in Temperament_.--The natural +instinct of the Burmese for religion is strong. They are not content +with mere ritual and with offerings, lavish as these are. Gratitude to +Gotama, the great Teacher and lord of life, is a real motive to many. +Not uncommonly are Christian hymns adapted by modern educated +Buddhists and sung in honour of the Buddha: + + "Glory, laud and honour + To our Lord and King, + This through countless ages, + Men and Devas sing." + +These Buddhists have organised Buddhist Sunday Schools. In these the +children not only closely imitate Protestant Sunday Schools but sing +to a small portable harmonium: + + "Buddha loves me, this I know; + For the Scriptures tell me so," + +or more usually Burmese hymns and "carols." + +(b) _They tend to view Gotama as a Saviour_.--Again many look upon +Gotama as a loving saviour. So strong is this attitude toward him that +when a father blesses his child, he says to him: "May you be reborn +when the Loving One, _Metteya_[6] comes." Gotama is reported as having +promised the coming of such a redeemer. Even in Southern Asia, +therefore, Buddhism is changing from a way of merit and self-mastery +into a way of salvation by faith. May we not reckon this transition as +a preparation for the message of Christianity? Buddhism everywhere is +to-day almost more like Christianity than it is like the Buddhism of +Gotama and the Elders. The Buddhism of Burma is more of a religion and +less of a philosophy than that of the Books. + +(c) _The Christian Heaven is more Attractive than _Nibbāna_.--It is +clear again that Buddhists to-day are much more ready than before to +accept the idea of a Christian heaven. This heaven, preached as a +state of progress, a meeting-place of friends, and the beatific vision +of God, is very attractive to them. The appeal of _Nibbāna_ is dying: +"_Nibbāna_," said a monk in Burma, "is a fearsome thought. I have no +hope of attaining it." "We are walking in darkness," said another +leader, "without seeing a light, a person, or a hope." + +Missionaries both in Burma and Ceylon are agreed that the teaching of +Buddhism has changed very greatly during the last few decades, among +those who have come directly or indirectly in touch with Christianity. +Formerly Buddhists preached that there was no supreme god, that +_Nibbāna_ meant total quiescence, almost total annihilation, that man +is his own saviour, and that there is no possible escape from the +penalty of sin; now many admit that there must be a God, declare that +Gotama is a saviour, that sin is forgiven and that there is a heaven +in place of _Nibbāna_. + +On the other hand, there is still much work for the Christian +missionary. Buddhism in many parts of Burma seems to be making one +great last stand against the gospel of Christ. Its own standard is in +many respects so high that our Christianity is as a whole not loving +or sacrificial enough to win its adherents. The Christianity which is +to be an overpowering argument for the efficacy and truth of the +Christian faith is too rare. The Buddhist Revival is largely a +reaction from our Western pseudo-Christianity, and from the shameless +aggression of Christendom. + +(d) _Moral Conditions Demand a Vital Christianity_.--The moral +situation in Burma clearly demands that either a revivified Buddhism +or Christianity in its most vital form should come to the rescue. The +need is grave. Burma is at once the most literate and the most +criminal portion of the Indian Empire. A government report for 1912 +reads: "The moral sense of the people is diminishing with a slackening +of religious observances. With the decay of ancient beliefs the +Buddhist religion is losing its moral sanction as an inspiring force +in the lives of its adherents. Drunkenness, gambling, drug-taking and +vicious habits, increasing as they all are, tend to produce a +weakening of self-control and a loss of self-respect which in +favouring circumstances easily create the criminal." A fair-minded +missionary would agree that these deplorable conditions are in large +measure chargeable to the impact of Western "civilisation." It is +incumbent upon us, in ordinary justice and fair play, to see that the +West is represented by our very best men in missionary service, in +commerce and in government posts. On the other hand, these deplorable +moral conditions are also due to the fact that Buddhism has not +succeeded in its task of building character. A genuine and vital +Christianity has a large and hopeful task in Burma. These very +attractive people need a dynamic and a bond of union in great +enterprises. They are seeking such a religion. + +(e) _Loving Social Service finds its own Way to the Heart_.--When +Christianity is expressed in deeds of loving social service, such as +work for lepers, for the deaf and the blind, or for any other needy +class in the community, it touches a responsive chord in every +Buddhist heart. They subscribe to our Christian mission work for the +afflicted. The social appeal of Christianity will go far toward +breaking down all forms of prejudice: and it is significant that the +young Burmese are organising their own Y.M.B.A.'s and their own social +service clubs, though at present these movements do not exhibit much +staying-power. + +(f) _Christianity dispels the Fear of the Demon World_.--Christianity +reveals its power by dispelling the terrors of demon-haunted villages, +and lessening the horrors of the slums of the great cities. A country +like Burma is not interested in a new system of ethics. It is wholly +satisfied with the admirable system it already possesses. But it does +welcome the sense of spiritual freedom and power which Christianity +can impart. "The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." May we +not say that Christ can give strength to follow the Noble Path of +which Gotama spoke? + + +[1] The ancient and still the classic language of S. Buddhism in which +its scriptures are preserved. It is used religiously, much as Latin is +used in the Roman Catholic services. + +[2] The Tipitaka (Sanskrit, Tripitika) (1) _Vinaya_; (2) _Sutta_; (3) +_Abhidhamma_. The Pāli scriptures were originally written on palm +leaves and preserved, layer upon layer, in the three "baskets." This, +at least, is one explanation of the use of this term. + +[3] Gotama is the Pāli form (common in S. Asia) of the Sanskrit +Gautama, more familiar to Western readers. + +[4] Sanskrit, _Karma_. + +[5] Sanskrit, _Nirvāna_. + +[6] Sanskrit, _Maitri_. + + + + + II. BUDDHISM IN CEYLON + + +1. On a Hillside near Kandy. + + +Over against this sketch of Buddhism as it appears in Burma let us +consider a scene in a neighbouring land, the island of Ceylon, where +for twenty-five hundred years, the religion of the yellow robe has +held almost undisputed sway. Here it has a supreme opportunity, and +has often used it nobly, building a great civilisation for a thousand +years. + +It is early spring. The rains are over, and in the brilliant +moonlight, the Singhalese peasants have gathered from their little +malarial villages to listen to _bana_, the preaching of the Buddhist +Law. + +(a) _The Dullness and Superstition of Village Life in Southern +Ceylon_.--Life is dull in these villages, and any incident and any +teaching will be welcome. It is a strange world in which these people +live, "a world of bare and brutal facts; of superstition, of grotesque +imagination; a world of hunger and fear and devils, where a man is +helpless before the unseen, unintelligible forces surrounding him." As +in Burma, so in Ceylon, demonism is inextricably interwoven with the +Buddhism of the people. In Ceylon, however, it is a darker and more +sinister demonism, blending with a far more sombre and pessimistic +Buddhism. Devils and anti-devils, exorcists and monks, incantations +and prayers to Buddha mingle in the dim confused minds of these poor +Kandyan villagers. It is not very long since human sacrifices were +made to the "demons" of disease. + +(b) _The Themes of the Hillside Preacher_.--This darker pessimism +speaks through the monotonous sing-song of the yellow-robed monk on +the hillside, as he speaks to the villagers, urging upon them that +life is transient and full of sorrow, that none the less their chief +duty is to avoid taking the life of the meanest animal, not even +killing the malarial mosquito or the plague-bringing rat against which +government edicts have gone out. Here religion is in conflict with +science and with family love: which is to die, my child or the rat? +There can in the end of the day be but one answer. + +(c) _The Stolidity of his Audience_.--The men listen dully, chewing +their betel-nut. They have not much use for the monks, who own +one-third of the arable land of the country and are a heavy drain upon +its resources. Except fitfully, they are not schoolmasters like those +of Burma, but tend to be drones in the hive. When they do teach the +children they only emphasise the doctrines of rebirth and of +not-killing; yet some are kind and teach reading and writing to the +little ones. And occasionally one leads a life of such real piety as +to justify this division of labour--"the people to work, the monk to +meditate." But saints are rare in all lands. + + + + +2. The Hold of Buddhism upon the Singhalese. + + +Even in this village audience, crude as the preaching and dull as the +response to it may be, there is a certain sense of religious peace, of +an otherworldly calm. The _Dharma_ has not lost its power. What are +the deep roots which the great tree of Buddhism has put out in the +island of Ceylon? Of these the more intelligent Buddhist laity will +speak. Let us question this young lawyer, dressed in Western style, +who stands looking on with some contempt. + +(a) _Appeal of its Traditions_.--Such men are impressed by what they +see of a very ancient and very real civilisation, which Buddhism +undoubtedly built. In the jungles everywhere are the remains of the +days when Buddhism taught the people to irrigate their fields, to +build strong cities, to write remarkable books, and to develop a +genuine culture. The ruined cities of Anuradhapura and Pollanaruwa, in +spite of the incursions of the jungle and of the neglect of centuries, +are still magnificent and eloquent monuments of what was a really +great civilisation when Europe was still barbarian. Here the patriot +sees the melancholy remnants of a great Buddhist nation, great not +only in the beauty of its art, but great in the tanks and irrigation +systems now almost hidden by rank undergrowth, but remaining to prove +that the whole of this vast deserted area was once under cultivation. +Great, too, was the spirit of some of these rulers. Imagine the +emotions which surge in the young patriot's heart as he thinks of all +the devastation caused by the great European war and then stands +before the calm statue of the noble Dutu Gemunu who to save his people +from war, sought out the invader and slew him in single combat, and +then in the greatness of his heart put up a splendid monument in his +honour! It is on account of such things as these that the young modern +Singhalese is convinced that Buddhism has still a place in the world. + +Wave after wave of European aggression has swept over Ceylon, arousing +a resentment which leads the Singhalese even to exaggerate the glories +of ancient Buddhism. It is not strange that they do so. Moreover, +although it is fashionable in Ceylon to despise the mendicants of the +yellow robe, the fact that there are still about eight thousand monks +shows that in these days of disillusionment there are many world-weary +men, to whom the traditional attraction of the monastic life is +over-poweringly strong and who find under it protection and peace. I +have seen strong and true boys being drawn under its spell, and have +known some noble characters among the monks. + +(b) _Its work of Reformation_.--The intelligent Buddhist layman +emphasises not merely the sense of peace and quiet satisfaction which +Buddhism affords; he also claims that it has done away with caste and +has purified religion. He will often compare the dignity, the stately +beauty, and the harmlessness of the Buddhist temple and its +surroundings with the incredibly gross indecencies of a Saivite shrine +in Southern India. Men must worship something: in Buddhism they +worship a good and great man deified. In Saivite Hinduism they mingle +the base passions of a perverted sexuality with their worship. + +(c) _Its Leadership of Public Opinion_.--This apologist argues, too, +that Buddhism still retains the power of moulding public opinion. He +instances the strenuous appeals which the Buddhists have made to the +Ceylon government to suppress instead of encourage the liquor traffic: +and points to some of their good schools, where young Ceylon is being +taught the great moral lessons of their Faith. And though Theosophists +from the West have been most responsible for starting these, the +Buddhists keep them up and are adding new buildings and improving +their quality. + +(d) _Yet Ceylon needs Christianity_.--It is clear that much as +Buddhism has done for this lovely land, it does need Jesus Christ as +indeed all lands, not least our own, need Him in increasing measure as +they face the complexities of the modern world. + +He is needed in jungle village and in teeming city, to cast out fear +and sin, and to enable His people to live nearer to their ideals. +They, too, have gifts for Him! And we and they are partners in a +glorious enterprise: to establish His Kingdom of Love and Truth in all +the world. Their devotion to their Buddha, no less than their need and +helplessness to-day, is an inspiring motive to the Christian +missionary to win them to Christ. + + + + +3. Two Sharply Marked Attitudes among Buddhists. + + +Let us return to the hillside preacher. A change has come over his +audience. All are now alert and eager. Seated around his platform, +they are holding a cord which seems to bind them in some mystic +circle. It is "_Pirit_": a kind of magic incantation. The preacher is +reciting the ancient runes by which evil is averted and demon armies +kept at bay. He is telling how the bandit, Angulimāla, who had killed +nine hundred and ninety-nine victims and wore their fingers as a +chaplet, tried to kill the Buddha so as to make the full tale of a +thousand, but was converted on the spot. "May the merit of this be +yours," he says, and they all cry, "_Sadhu_, Amen." + +"All humbug," grunts the layman. "Come, let us go to the Young Men's +Buddhist Association, where a Singhalese advocate, newly returned from +England, is going to read a paper on 'Buddhism, a Gospel for Europe.'" +Leaving the palms and fragrant trees of the jungle silhouetted against +the brilliant sky, and passing the white buildings of the Buddhist +High School and of the precious and venerated Temple of the Tooth, he +talks of this possibility. It seems that a movement is on foot to send +a mission to Europe. We agree that, if Christians were real followers +of Jesus of Nazareth, such missions would be futile: and that the +spirit of Gotama is akin to that of Jesus. "We see your Christ," he +says; "in His beauty, because we have first seen the beauty of our +Buddha." Here is a preparation for the gospel indeed. And may not all +idealists--Christians, Buddhists, and others--cooperate much more +freely than they do in great causes? In a League of Nations, for +example, and in social programmes? In Ceylon, as in Burma, Buddhism is +in some degree adapting itself to the new world-environment. Its old +cry of pain, "All is fleeting, transient, sorrowful," is giving place +to attempts at social service and positive living. Yet as compared +with Burma or with Christian lands, the predominating note among +Buddhists in Ceylon is one of world-weariness and despair. + + + + + III. BUDDHISM IN SIAM + + +1. Siam a Buddhist Kingdom. + + +Ceylon and Burma were for many centuries Buddhist kingdoms with a +sovereign as patron and supporter of the monks and very often with +members of the royal family amongst the great abbots. Buddhism has +indeed depended much upon royal patronage, and in these days when +kings are rare it is of special interest to get a glimpse of a modern +Buddhist kingdom which is not unlike those of the past. Let us study a +great festival in Siam where the king's own brother is Head of the +Order and where he himself is a staunch patron of Buddhism. + + + + +2. The Thot Krathin Festival. + + +Some time between the eleventh and twelfth moons his majesty visits +the temples round Bangkok which are under his royal patronage. For +weeks past every household in Siam, from that of the King to that of +the poorest peasant, has been busy "laying down holy cloth" or making +patchwork robes for the monks, that the letter of the old commandment +"be ye clothed in rags" may be observed, and the monks be supplied +with their year's clothing. At the same time offerings of bedding, +furniture, and food are made and great merit is acquired by the +faithful. The King in his splendid barge of state, with its prows +shaped like dragons, its sixty oarsmen, its canopy of cloth of gold, +sets out for one of the great _Wats_ or temples; he is seated on his +throne, and wears a golden crown, and about him are numerous little +princes. Arrived at the shrine his retainers carry the bales of cloth +and other offerings into the temple, and then the King himself with +due ceremony and amidst barbaric music and military salutes, comes +down from the barge and lights five candles which stand upon the table +prepared for his offering. Then, burning incense, he bows to the image +of the Buddha, to the sacred books written on strips of palm-leaf, and +to the Order of Monks; he is "taking refuge" in the Buddhist Jewels. +He then reverently asks the abbot to accept him as a lay-adherent, and +to allow him to keep the Five Precepts, not to kill, not to steal, not +to commit sexual sin, not to lie nor to drink strong drink. And if it +be a holy day he will also take the vows of a monk, not to eat after +midday, not to watch theatrical shows, nor use perfumes, nor sleep on +a high luxurious bed. Then as he offers his gifts the monks accept +them, crying "_Sadhu_" (Amen or well done), and distribution is made +according to their rank. So amidst their blessings he bows again to +the Three Jewels and makes a solemn departure to another shrine. + + + + +3. The King and Pāli Learning. + + +The present King, whom we may call for short King Mahamongkut (he has +more names than the Hohenzollerns), is a graduate of Oxford, a man of +the world, and a great patron of Buddhist scholarship. This has been a +tradition of his house for centuries and in no small degree the +present interest in Pāli learning in Western countries is due to the +enthusiasm of the ruling house of Siam, which has presented splendid +libraries of the sacred books to many universities and temples. The +King summons the monkish candidates for degrees in Pāli learning to +undergo examinations every three years; and for nine days in the +comparatively cool weather of the early part of the year makes a royal +festival in their honour, during which they are undergoing an +examination which increases every day in stiffness. Those who survive +to the end are given the degree _Pareean ek_, or "first-class +honours," and with it goes a small pension; those who drop out before +the end are given second-, third-, or fourth-class degrees. So the +knowledge of the sacred books is kept alive and some of these Siamese +scholars reach a remarkable degree of proficiency. Their influence has +been potent in a renaissance of Pāli learning in Burma and Ceylon. + + + + +4. Buddhist Education. + + +In Siam as in Burma the monks are the elementary schoolmasters. The +boys all spend some time as novices, during which they not only learn +the rudiments of the religion but reading, writing, and arithmetic. As +in Burma, very little is done for the education of the girls, though +this is steadily improving owing to the splendid work done by mission +schools. + + + + +5. The Temples or Wats. + + +These Siamese pagodas, fantastic and gay with gold and sky-blue tiles, +are of four grades, those built by the King and dedicated to him, +those built by the princes, those built by the nobles, and lastly +those built by the common people, usually by subscription organised by +the monks or by some enthusiastic laymen. Merit gained in this and +similar ways has been called "The Sum and Substance of Siamese +Buddhism": there is some truth in these generalisations as regards the +whole of Southern Asia. But in Siam as elsewhere there is genuine +devotion to the religion of Buddha, and the human heart is not as +calculating as this sentence implies. Moreover, there is considerable +attempt to modernise the religion to fit the new age, and many of the +people follow the King in believing that it can be made the basis for +a modern state, and can unify and uplift the peoples. All that helps +to build up a nation is welcomed in Siam, and Christianity therefore +has an open door here as in Ceylon and Burma. Burma is tolerant, but +Siam desires the friendship of Western peoples, and being independent +is freer to develop along its own lines. Let us now attempt to +summarise our impressions of the Buddhism of these lands of Southern +Asia by describing other typical scenes in each. + + + + + + IV. SOME TYPES OF BUDDHIST RELIGIOUS LIFE + + +1. The Cremation of a Singhalese Abbot. + + +A great Singhalese abbot has passed away. It is a national event. The +hillside near Kandy is thronged with great companies of monks in every +shade of yellow and brown, while around them surges a sombre sea of +the faithful laity. In the centre of the huge assemblage is the +funeral-pyre, draped in white and red. Standing beside it, a monk is +telling in solemn and mournful tones of the greatness and goodness of +the departed, who, though he had not become worthy of _Nibbāna_, had +his feet surely set upon the upward path leading to a good rebirth in +_so-wan_, a heaven. Then amidst solemn chanting and the wailing of +flutes and throbbing of drums he applies a torch to the pyre. While +the people bow their heads and cry "_sadhu_" (Amen), the body turns to +ashes. Then solemnly and silently the great throng disperses, the lay +people to take up the ordinary duties of life, the monks to meditate +upon its transient character and unreality. And here a young novice, +to whom the dead man has been very dear, stays weeping, until the last +embers die down and night comes swiftly on. + + + + +2. The Funeral Rites of a Burmese Monk. + + +Another funeral scene. It is that of a Buddhist monk in Burma--a +_Hpongyi_. The whole countryside is present. In clothing of exquisite +silk, resembling a brilliant swarm of butterflies, the people surround +the great catafalque, blazing with tinsel and gold leaf, on which lies +the embalmed body of the monk. After a time the coffin is taken down +and a programme of merry-making begins. The young bloods of the +village to which the monk has belonged, range themselves in two +carefully picked teams on either side of it. Then begins a tug-of-war +with the body in its coffin, the victorious team treating the defeated +to drinks, and to side shows at the little booths which cluster round, +awaiting custom. These and other contests make a glad and joyful scene +at which all the people rejoice, for has not the good man been +released from this transient life (which, nevertheless, is good and +satisfying while blood is hot and youth endures)? Has he not returned +to a life of glory, and won much merit for his own folk and for all +the faithful? + +In due time the body is restored to its resting place on the funeral +pyre, the fire is lighted, and the whole mass flares up in flame and +smoke, consuming not only the body, but along with it the decorations, +including paintings of numerous demons, among whom may be an +Englishman with a gun! Only demons could kill for sport! When it is +consumed, the crowd disperses with shouts of merriment, well content, +not least among the others the relatives of the departed. A good show +has been staged, the dead has been honoured, the family name has been +distinguished, and everybody is satisfied. If for the next year or +more the family exchequer has been sorely depleted, still "it is the +custom," and every one expects to follow it. Some one has well said +that Buddhism in Burma is a cheery and social affair, "from festive +marriages to no less festive funerals." I confess to an admiration for +this cheerful view of death, even if some of its expressions are +bizarre! It is less pagan than our "blacks, and funeral obsequies." + + + + +3. A Similar Scene in Siam. + + +_The Funeral of a Siamese Prince_.--A nephew of the King has died, and +his funeral sermon is being preached by another royal Prince, who is +also a monk, and who is true to type and to the orthodox Buddhism of +his race. "As kinsmen welcome kinsmen returning after long sojourn in +far countries, so do good deeds welcome the good as they enter the +other world. And what are good deeds, but the unselfish effort to +advance the good of others? All must be left behind as we enter the +Gate of Death; but as a shadow follows the body so do purity and +simplicity of heart and deed steal after us, and minister to us in +that world beyond. As a flame is our mortal life, and if there be no +fuel it burns no more. We know not when it may die down, for all that +has a beginning has also an end, and transient are all things. And as +we may take with us only virtue, shall we not cherish and ensue it?" + +We are reminded of the picture by G. F. Watts, "_Sic Transit Gloria +Mundi_," in which another prince is seen upon the bier, his crown, his +books, his winecup laid aside; and over his bier are the words, "What +I spent I had, what I had I lost, what I gave I have." It is sound +Buddhism, and every word of this sermon of the royal monk is drawn +from the _Dhammapada_, accepted in all Buddhist lands as the very +words of the Buddha, himself the prototype of a long line of kings and +princes in many lands, who have been proud to wear the Yellow Robe. + + + + +4. The Secret of Buddhism's Influence. + + +Which of these funeral scenes (chosen because Buddhism plays almost +its chief part at such times) is most true to type? It is a perplexing +question. Buddhism has from the very beginning been chiefly a religion +for monks, calling men and women to leave the world. It was never +exactly optimistic, and yet another permanent root of its remarkable +power over humankind has been that often men and women who obeyed +possessed a sense of discovery, of hopefulness, of sheer joy; +especially strong in its golden age, the first five centuries of its +existence. There was something vernal in the air. "In joy we live, +hating none; let us live in the midst of those who hate, unhating; in +the midst of those who ail, let us live in perfect health; having +nothing, yet we possess great riches." Such is the spirit of the early +_sangha_ (monastic community). And when we turn to the Buddhism of +to-day we find that it retains these two dominant characteristics: +this blending of sadness and quiet joy. Even in sunny Burma the old +people and the monks seem sad at times, and even in Ceylon and Siam +the ordinary folk are fairly cheerful as they go on pilgrimages or +make their offerings to monk or image. + + + + + V. BUDDHISM AS A LIVING RELIGION + + +Buddhism stands in a different relation to Christianity from any other +world religion, because it has unquestionably done for Eastern peoples +something of the intellectual, moral, and spiritual service which +Christianity has done for Europe and America. Moreover, it is showing +a strange power of revival. It also seems to make a real appeal to +certain types of mind in the West. Little groups of Westerners in +Burma and in Ceylon, the former Scotch, the latter German, have for +some years been promoting the propagation of Buddhism in Western +lands. They feel convinced that it is "the religion of mature minds." +One of their number, a Scot, known as _Bhikkhu Silācāra_,[7] wrote +in 1913: "This seems to be the place of honour which Burma is called +upon to fill in the family of the nations of the world--that of being +_Dhammadāyaka_ to the world, giver of the _dhamma_[8] of the Blessed +One to all the nations of the earth. What prouder, what more glorious, +what more merit-bringing position could any people ask for than to be +chosen as the bearer of the sublime teaching of the Blessed One?" +There is a considerable amount of publication of Buddhist propaganda +to-day in Europe and America, even if few Eastern Buddhists are found +with the courage to preach Buddhism in person in Western cities. In +Germany, where there are said to be scores of thousands of Buddhists, +a publishing house has been set up at Breslau; and the _Buddhist +Review_ is published in London. In North America Buddhism has numerous +missions, especially on the Pacific Coast, where it aims at converting +Americans as well as at ministering to the Japanese. It is the only +non-Christian religion which has this appeal. What gives it this hold, +not only upon great sections of the East, but also upon those who have +been born within the range of Christianity, is a question which needs +a thoughtful answer. It is a question of vital importance to us all. + + + + +1. It takes hold where Faith in Christianity has ceased. + + +Buddhism makes a strong appeal to minds dissatisfied with +Christianity, or unwilling to accept the claims of Christ. It is not +difficult to draw analogies between the acts and sayings of Jesus and +those of Gotama. It is easy to be enthusiastic over the ethical +teachings of Buddhism, and over its great influence upon Asia. It has +a certain appeal too to the scientific mind, which is not found in any +other non-Christian religion; and some claim that it is more +satisfying to the intellect than Christianity. The appeal of Buddhism, +therefore, is more than a mild satisfaction of curiosity in something +novel; it gives to a mind which denies the fundamentals of +Christianity an apparently good religious substitute. This being true, +no one can question the fact that those who are to go as Christian +missionaries to Buddhist countries must take the utmost pains to +prepare themselves to meet those who believe in Buddhism, not merely +with friendliness and a sense of sympathy, but with an adequate +background of philosophical, psychological, and religious training +which enables them adequately to represent the best that is in +Christianity, and to deal sympathetically and fairly with Buddhism at +its best. Missionaries are all too few who can "out-think" these +Scotch and German Buddhists, who carry much influence with the peoples +among whom they live. Some of them are sincere and able men: and there +are also strong native defenders of the Buddhist Faith. Moreover, +without a deep appreciation of the power of Buddhism one cannot +understand the history and culture of Asia. And this study becomes +daily more important and more interesting. + + + + +2. It faces the Fact of Suffering. + + +Where shall one begin in his endeavour to grasp the essential +teachings of Buddhism? No one can fully understand Buddhism without +studying Hinduism as a background and starting point. The student can +go far, however, by starting from the fact of universal human +suffering, and its relief. "One thing only do I teach," said Buddha, +"sorrow and the uprooting of sorrow." He was never weary of bringing +home to his disciples the horror of the world's pain, in order that he +might lead them on to what he believed to be the only way of +salvation. "What think ye, O monks, which is vaster, the flood of +tears that, weeping and lamenting, ye in your past lives have shed, or +the waters of the four great oceans? Long time, O monks, have ye +suffered the death of father, mother, brothers, and sisters. Long time +have ye undergone the loss of your goods; long time have ye been +afflicted with sickness, old age, and death." "Where is the joy, where +is the laughter, when all is in flames about us?" Buddhism is often +labelled pessimistic, because its writings are full of attempts, such +as these, to make men realise the suffering and the worthlessness of +the life to which they cling. The critics, however, do not realise the +hopes which it holds out to a suffering world, which are just as +characteristic of Buddhistic teaching. The Buddhist replies, "If +medical science is pessimistic then Buddhism is also pessimistic." It +diagnoses the disease in order to cure it. + +Like other religions it is a "Way out." It first states the problem: +then offers a solution. + + + + +3. It affords a Way of Escape from Sorrow. + + +In India Gotama had an easier task than he would have faced in the +full-blooded and less thoughtful West. We Westerners do not need to be +convinced of the pain of life, we are now wide awake to it; but to the +Hindu of the sixth century before Christ a conviction of the emptiness +of life was something in the nature of an obsession. The bright, +naïve optimism of earlier ages, revealed, for example, in the +_Rig-Veda_,[9] had passed away; a combination of circumstances, +climate, speculative activities, disappointments and other causes, had +combined to make India pessimistic. Chief of these causes was +undoubtedly the belief in transmigration which has come more and more +to occupy a central position in Hinduism. It represents man as doomed +to wander from birth to birth, and to expiate every deed of his past. +It is impossible for us in the West to realise how firm a hold this +thought has upon India, or how great is the longing for a way of +escape. Gotama's resolute attempt to find such a way of escape, his +assurance that he had discovered it, and his enthusiastic preaching of +"the Way" brought Buddhism into the world as a new religion, and +became a veritable "gospel" to weary and jaded hearts. + + + + +4. It is a Practical Creed: Its Founder called Himself "A Physician of +Sick Souls." + + +Born the son of a chieftain in Nepal in the foothills of the +Himalayas, about 560 B.C., Gotama, the great founder of Buddhism, was +sheltered from the sights and sounds of suffering, as we are told in +the loving stories of Buddhist lore, until the gods, who had a higher +destiny in store for him than that of an Indian princeling, revealed +to him the facts of old age and decay and death. In a series of +visions--of the old man tottering down to the grave, of the leper +riddled with foul disease, of the corpse laid out for the burning, the +great fact of human suffering came home to him. It made so deep an +impression that he renounced his royal rights and went out as a +mendicant ascetic to discover some way of escape. He was then +twenty-nine years old. Not until he had reached the age of +thirty-eight, and had honestly tried the various accepted paths for +the attainment of holiness and the escape from the burdens of life +laid down by Hindu sages, did he find what he was seeking. Sitting +under the Indian fig-tree in the heat of the day, he meditated +patiently and long until the vision dawned upon him, or, as we should +say, until his sub-consciousness, which had long been working upon the +problem presented to it, sent a complete and satisfying solution into +the focus of his conscious mind. His solution, recognising the fact +that Hindu practices had vainly attempted to drug the aching nerve of +pain or to tear it out, offered a more positive remedy. The present +writer believes that the Spirit of God had much to do with this +discovery. There are, however, among missionaries, many who feel that +this is a grievous heresy, and are bitterly opposed to any such view. + +In order to understand the solution which Gotama offered to the world, +which undoubtedly captured the enthusiasm of unnumbered millions of +weary pilgrims in India and other lands, it may be well to consider +Gotama's own description of himself as "a physician of sick souls." +Just as the physician must first diagnose the disease and recognise +the germ which is its secret cause, before he can give the right +treatment, so Gotama set himself to discover the hidden cause of the +world's suffering. He thought that he had found it in that universal +clinging to life which he called _tanhā_, which means a "craving" for +anything less austere than _Nibbāna_. "From _tanhā_ springs sorrow; +he that is free from _tanhā_ is freed from sorrow and suffering." + +This is the source of all the world's agony, says Gotama: and if we +face the facts we shall see that egoism of men and nations, a form of +_tanhā_, accounts for most of it! The modern world is full of +_tanhā_. + + + + +5. It cultivates a Sense of the Worthlessness of Temporal Things. + + +It is because man clings to things which cannot fully satisfy him, +such as the love of family, the desire for wealth and fame, the wish +to be reborn in a heaven (all of which are classed together in +Buddhism), that he has to go on being reborn. This is the Buddhist +doctrine of _Kamma_. Hinduism, like much orthodox Christianity, thinks +of a "soul" which dwells in the body. The Hindu thinks of it as +passing from one body to another in the process of transmigration. The +view of Buddhism is rather that the "ego" of man is a stream of mental +energy, the direction of which is under his own control. If he dies +full of _tanhā_, cleaving to the things of this world, he will surely +be reborn to some sort of misery. If, on the other hand, he dies +detached from human interests and open-eyed to the worthlessness of +temporal things, he will eventually be set free from the entanglement +of life, as we know it on earth, and will pass into _Nibbāna_. Of +this goal one can only say with assurance that it is unlike anything +known to mortal man,[10] and that its essence is moral purity. + + + + +6. Its Conception of Bliss is realisable in this Life. + + +But Gotama was not concerned with the next life so much as with this. +He laid emphasis also upon the wonderful joy and peace which the fixed +purpose to achieve _Nibbāna_ had caused him to experience. This was +the real relief from suffering, which he had in mind. "Whoso is pure +from all _tanhā_, he is in _Nibbāna_." This he preached with great +conviction and enthusiasm, declaring that men might aim in this life +to attain the position of an _arhat_ (saint) and actually enter into +the preliminary experience of _Nibbāna_. It is this aspect of +Buddhism which makes it a true religion. Its joy and power can be +experienced in the midst of the world's pain. So it is called an +"Island," a "Refuge," where the drowning man may escape, or a "Cool +Retreat," whither one may fly from a world in flames. + + + + +7. Buddhism is a Religion of Enlightenment and Reason. + + +Buddhism exhibits salvation as, first of all, a way of understanding. +It is a religion of analysis, which bids man see life steadily and see +it whole, by first taking it to pieces! When one looks at the body, +what is it, says Buddhism, after all, that we should regard ourselves +as attached to it? There are so many bones, so many tendons, so much +skin, so many juices. If a man views the body with an anatomical eye, +he will see it as it really is; disgust will arise in him which will +lead him out into detachment. A Buddhist is sometimes urged to +practise the habit of sitting in cemeteries or among reminders of the +dead, or to have a skeleton near at hand, in order that he may +meditate upon the transient nature of all that is mortal. Similarly he +is to dispel anger or lust by asking, "Who is it I am angry with, +after whom do I lust, but a bag of bones?" It seeks to dispel passion +by reason. + + + + +8. It has a strong Moral Code: The "Four Noble Truths," and the +"Eight-fold Path." + + +As the old Teacher was passing away he emphasised anew the part which +intelligent belief plays in the Buddhist scheme of religion. "It is +through not understanding and not grasping four things, O monks, that +we have to abide and wander through this maze of being," he remarked. +The four things which he had in mind were suffering, its real cause +(_tanhā_), the cure of suffering, and the path which leads to +_Nibbāna_. These are the "Four Noble Truths" of Buddhism, driven +home to every disciple as the very foundation of his religious life. + +With reference to the "way" which leads to _Nibbāna_ Buddhism has +made its most remarkable contribution to human thought. It is called +the "Middle Way," between the extremes of an austere asceticism and a +spirit of worldliness, a clear-cut and admirably arranged ethical +scheme, which has undoubtedly done much to elevate the nations among +whom it has been practised. The "eight practices," urged upon every +one who aspires to spiritual growth, are right thinking (about the +"four noble truths," etc.), right aspirations (benevolence, pity, +brotherhood, etc.), right speech, right action, right livelihood (by +industries which are not harmful), right effort of mind, right +attention (alertness), and right contemplation, or mystic meditation. +Such a scheme may readily be ritualised and deadened, but it lends +itself no less readily to the cultivation of simple virtues. A popular +summary, universally known, teaches "Do good, shun ill, and cleanse +the inmost thoughts, this is the teaching of Buddhas." + +The "eight-fold path" is usually developed under three main +endeavours--enlightenment, morality, and concentrated meditation. +Stage by stage the disciple is led along this path. "Step by step, day +by day, one may purify one's heart from defilements by understanding, +even as the smith purifies silver in the fire." The true disciple must +avoid the extremes of asceticism, on the one hand, or of entanglement +with the world on the other. So the noble path claims to be a "middle +path" of sweet reasonableness. The lines are not always clearly drawn +between ritual offences or mistakes and moral failures, and the ideal +life often seems to be represented as primarily monastic, but there is +no doubt that one who deliberately sets himself to follow the +"eight-fold path" would be a lovable and strong type of character, +something like the fine old monk from Tibet in Kipling's "Kim." And +there have been many such, men not only of his gentle strength, but +men filled with missionary zeal and devotion to noble tasks. + + + + +9. It has come to practise Prayer. + + +In spite of the protests of Gotama against attempts to persuade the +gods, this is what most Buddhists in Southern Asia have come to do: +and in Tibet, China, and Japan prayer is multiplied by mechanical +devices, such as prayer-wheels, prayer-cylinders, and prayer-flags--a +degeneration of mysticism into magic, not unknown in some Christian +lands. The human heart is hungry and wants to pray! And even this +religion of enlightenment and of the fixed causality of the universe +has had to find a place for prayer. And Divine Beings have been called +in to answer the aspiration of the heart. Gotama himself is deified: +and folk pray to him in Burma, Siam, and Ceylon: whilst in the other +Buddhist lands they have learnt to love such compassionate beings as +Kwanyin, and Amitābha, Buddha of eternal Light who saves men by his +grace. That there is mercy in heaven is the hope of every man. It is +but a pathetic dream, until we know that the heavens have spoken and +declared that mercy in the Word made Flesh. + +"So through the thunder comes a human voice." + + + + +10. Yet it emphasises Stoical Self-mastery. + + +On the other hand, the whole trend of early Buddhism is stoical. It +sets up a lofty moral ideal, yet offers relatively little assistance +in attaining it. Admiration for the Buddha, faith in the system he +preached, common-sense or enlightened self-interest in accepting the +great truth that happiness follows upon goodness--these furnish the +motive power of a Buddhist religious life. In theory, at least, there +is no god higher than the little local deities who are said to have +bowed down before the Buddha. Inasmuch, moreover, as they are also +subject to _kamma_, the gods are less admirable and less helpful than +he. To some thinkers this stoical self-mastery is the strongest +element of Buddhism. "I am the captain of my soul," a good Buddhist +would say: "I am the master of my fate." But to those who think more +deeply, this will appear an element of weakness, for everywhere and in +all ages the human heart finds no ultimate satisfaction without a +belief in some loftier, purer, and stronger Being, who is ready to +hear and to help. And in the more developed Buddhism of the North such +theology plays a very great part. The history of Buddhism is one of +the best chapters in Christian apologetics and deserves close study. +As we shall see, the Japanese Buddhist believes in a Trinitarian +theology, and in an evangelical doctrine of salvation: and, in one +great sect, has urged its priests to marry. + + + + +11. It has Two Standards of Morality. + + +A very serious defect of Southern Buddhism is its double standard of +morality, one for the layman and another for the monk. It places the +celibate _bhikkhu_ (mendicant) on a higher footing than the layman. +During the Buddha's own lifetime he was accused of making many homes +desolate, and this has been a constant criticism in China where it is +a crime not to beget sons; and where Buddhism has been obstinately +monastic. There have been great exceptions, especially where kings +have been good Buddhists, but it is on the whole a monastic religion, +and has continually reverted to type. + + + + +12. It rates Womanhood Low. + + +Another alleged weakness, which will specially interest those who are +entering upon the careful study of non-Christian religions at the +present time, is the relatively low place which the Buddhist system, +at least in theory, gives to women. While in practice, as has been +pointed out, the women of Burma are the better half of the population, +yet in strict theory they are not "human beings" at all: they are less +than human: only he who takes the yellow robe and becomes for a time a +monk reaches the status of full humanity. Yet Gotama said equally +severe things about men; the two sexes, he taught, are a snare to one +another: but women are the worse! A Singhalese Christian pastor +praying for power to resist the Devil added, "and all _her_ works," +and women are in fact so described in many passages of the Buddhist +Books. Love between the sexes and lust are not distinguished. And +here, perhaps, is the supreme service that Jesus renders to human +society: he makes family life a sacred thing, and safeguards women and +children from abuse, bringing them to honour and sanctity. Buddhism +being concerned chiefly with the monastic life of meditation has not +much to say about the family. It does not, at least in Southern Asia, +teach the Fatherhood of God from whom "all families are named." + + + + +13. A Summary. + + +Such, in bare outline, is Southern Buddhism--in its origin a stoical +agnosticism which ignored the gods and bade men rely upon themselves +in following the paths of goodness that lead to happiness. Because it +thus ignored the deepest instincts of humanity, first by turning the +thoughts of men away from God, and again by glorifying celibacy, these +instincts, refusing to be snubbed, have taken a revenge, so that +to-day Buddhism survives, largely because of the teachings it has been +compelled to adopt in the process of moulding itself "nearer to the +heart's desire." This may be illustrated in two ways. _Nibbāna_ at +best, originally, an ideal of negative, solitary bliss, has been +replaced by an ideal of social life hereafter. Moreover, faith in +self-mastery has given place to prayers for help, or, among the most +conservative, to the belief that there is a store of merit gained by +the sacrificial lives of the Buddhas throughout the ages, which may be +"tapped" by the faithful. + +Buddhism has thus passed through an interesting history of adjustment. +It is important for the student of religion to give close attention to +this history, one of the most amazing and fascinating chapters in +human thought. + + +[7] Sanskrit, _Bhikshu_. It means "mendicant." + +[8] _Dhamma_ means "law" or "teaching." + +[9] The _Rig-Veda_ is a great anthology of religion. The Vedas are +early religious Books in which a joyous nature-worship predominates. + +[10] _Nirvāna_ means to the Hindu reabsorption into the Absolute +_Brahman_. To Buddhists it is variously expounded by their teachers as +either (a) annihilation, or (b) a heaven of bliss, or (c) annihilation +of evil desire, _i.e._ of all clinging to life. Western Buddhist +writers call it usually by some such phrase as "The great Peace," +which is vague enough to mean any of the three! + + + + + VI. THE MISSIONARY APPROACH TO MODERN BUDDHISM IN SOUTHERN ASIA + + +I have tried to show both the good and the bad sides of Buddhism in +Southern Asia: and have laid emphasis upon those characteristics which +demonstrate its continuing power. Southern Buddhists, however, need +earnest and sympathetic missionaries, with a gospel of abounding life, +of a Father God, and of communion with Him in Christ. Let all who +contemplate this great service note the following points. + + + + +1. Modern Buddhism differs from the Theoretical Buddhism of Gotama. + + +There is a marked difference between the theoretical Buddhism of early +days, reflected in the standard literature of Southern Buddhism, and +the Buddhism of the present day in Southern Asia. The Buddhism which +Western enthusiasts are eager to introduce into their own countries is +something which they have learnt, not from the peoples of Buddhist +lands, but from the ancient literature of Buddhism. Captivated at +first, it may be, by the beauty of some isolated saying, or, possibly, +deeply touched during some moonlight scene at the great golden pagodas +of Burma or on the hillsides of Ceylon, they become eager and not +infrequently learned students of the Buddhism of Gotama. They have to +declare with sadness that the great bulk of the people who profess +Buddhism have wandered very far from its true principles and practice, +and that human nature, for the most part, needs something less +austere. + +This old Buddhism of the Books may be regarded and used as a kind of +Old Testament for Buddhists; already they have passed away from its +traditions. + + + + +2. The Central Emphasis of Buddhism varies in the Three Southern +Countries. + + +Not only does Buddhism, as the missionary comes in contact with it, +differ very markedly from theoretical Buddhism, but the central +emphasis varies in different parts of Southern Asia. The student must +know his country and his people in order to know their Buddhism, as +well as _vice versâ_. Nothing can be further from the sunny +temperament of the Burmese than the central "truth" of Buddhism that +"all is sorrowful"; and it is a strange perversion of the truth which +claims, as some of these Western writers have claimed, that the +Burmese are optimistic because they are free from _tanhā_. The fact +that they believe in a good Buddha as a living god, however, has much +to do with it: and temperament has even more. + +In Ceylon, while Buddhist ideals are better suited to the more +melancholic temperament of the people, yet they are acutely conscious +of their powerlessness to gain the victory over sin and sorrow +unaided. As in Japan and China, so in a lesser degree in Burma and +Ceylon, Buddhism has been constrained to die to itself (to substitute +the idea of a saviour for the idea of earning one's own salvation) in +a way that is full of encouragement and suggestion to the Christian. +For, if the mythical Kwanyin and the far-off Metteya can so captivate +hungry human hearts, how shall not the historic and living Christ be +enthroned in their stead? + + + + +3. The Qualities of Missionaries to Buddhists. + + +The life of a missionary to Buddhist peoples is full of interest. Each +people has many attractive qualities and the life has much of delight. +Certain special qualifications may be worth mentioning:-- + +(a) _A Genuine Sympathy_.--A missionary will make very little +impression upon the people and especially upon their leaders in +Buddhist countries who is unable to think himself, to some extent, +sympathetically, into their point of view, and to be friendly toward +the better aspects of their life and beliefs. There are many things +which are "lovely and of good report." The spirit of friendliness and +of appreciation goes far toward establishing good relations with the +people. + +(b) _A Sense of Beauty and of Humour_.--They are lovers of beauty and +enjoy humour, and respond readily to these qualities in the +missionary. More over, without such gifts life in the tropics is very +trying to oneself and to others. + +(c) _Christian Convictions_.--Along with these qualities, the +missionary must have a passionate loyalty to Christ, a clear +understanding of the essential Christian message to such a people, and +a firm conviction of the right of Jesus Christ to claim these +attractive peoples for God, and to make them great. + +(d) _A willingness to appreciate fresh truth_.--It is very desirable +that the young missionary should face such people, themselves often +creative in their thinking, with a belief that the Holy Spirit, who +has guided the nations in their search for truth, is still seeking to +lead them on, at least into fresh realisations of the power and +meaning of the truths which have meant so much in past ages. Every +such missionary will be thrilled in his contact with the inner "soul +of the people" to whom he goes, by the hope that they will find in +Christ hitherto undiscovered riches and by the desire on his own part +to catch something of a continually enlarging vision of Christ and His +Church. + + + + +4. A Great Opportunity. + + +The missionary to Buddhists may find encouragement and inspiration in +the growing conviction that Oriental Christianity will definitely add +strength to the universal Church in coming days. God's kingdom will +not be complete without the peoples of Southern Asia. They are deeply +religious. It may be far from being an idle dream that God should give +to some missionary of to-day the privilege of training a St. Paul, an +Origen or an Augustine of the East, who will give to the Church other +great chapters of Christian interpretation, and a truly convincing +apologetic of the gospel to the world. + + + + + II. BUDDHISM IN EASTERN ASIA + + + I. BUDDHISM IN JAPAN + + +From the Buddhism of Southern Asia to that of China and Japan is a far +cry. It must be remembered that the monastic Buddhism, in which the +_Arhat_ seeking his own salvation is the ideal, gradually gave place +before Buddhism left India and entered Eastern Asia to the +_Mahāyāna_, or Great Vessel, in which the _Bodhisattva_, or +compassionate servant of humanity, became the ideal. Other important +changes also took place in the religion of Gotama during the five or +six centuries after his death. In the first place, in spite of all his +teachings that men should not look to him for help the teacher was +himself deified: He "mounts the empty throne of Brahmā." A little +later there appeared a docetic tendency which explained him away, or +attempted to show that he was without human feeling or passion, a kind +of unreal adaptation of the eternal to the needs of time. Others +conceived of him as an Eternal Being carrying on the work he had begun +upon earth, and opening up salvation to all sentient beings, until +finally a trinitarian doctrine was evolved which related the +historical Gotama to the eternal Buddha, and conceived of him as +having emptied himself of his glory for a season out of compassion for +mankind, but as now enjoying it and manifesting it in pitiful and +helpful ministries. + +It is possible to see in this developing Buddhology evidence of +Christian influence: the late Arthur Lloyd of Tokyo is the chief +exponent of such a view. To me, however, it seems at once more +scientific and more interesting to find in these parallels one more +evidence alike of the similarity of human nature in all lands and +ages, and of the indwelling Presence of the one Father of us all, +guiding the nations in their search for Truth. The vitality and +adaptability of Buddhism are evidences of His Spirit. + +This vitality, even if at times adaptability has degenerated into +compromise, is, as we have seen, great in Southern Asia, and amongst +the sources of its strength we have noted its great influence as a +civilising power and as a bond of social life: its appeal to the +imagination and to the gratitude of the peoples: its philosophical +explanation of the age-old problem of suffering, and the moderation +and sanity of its ethical teachings. All these factors enter in +differing degrees into the vitality of Buddhism in China and Japan: +for it has done much to help the civilisation of these countries also, +and to give them a popular philosophy of life and a pleasant social +setting for religious faith. + +Let us consider these facts in more detail as regards the Buddhism of +Japan; for she is leading the Orient not only in matters of material +progress, but in such spiritual things as a revival of the old faith +which she is characteristically using to her own advantage. In 1918, +for instance, a Pan-Buddhistic League was formed in Tokyo, and more +remarkable has been the lead taken by the Buddhists of Japan in +sending strong idealistic appeals to the Conferences at Versailles and +Washington. The vital forces of Buddhism in Japan, then, are as +follows:-- + +1. Buddhism has for twelve centuries rendered a unique service to the +culture of the nation. Letters, architecture, painting, the discipline +of the mind--in fact, the whole culture of Japan is shot through and +through with Buddhist influence. It is significant that the two +Western writers who entered most deeply into the spirit of Japanese +culture, Lafcadio Hearn and Fenollosa, both became Buddhists and are +buried in Buddhist cemeteries. + +2. Buddhism is again a great bond of social union. Its great +pilgrimages, for example, are the favourite recreation of the people, +and its great festivals such as the _Bon Matsuri_, in which the +spirits of the departed are honoured, are seasons of great +sociability. Here, again, the "pessimistic" Buddhism is a cheerful and +a pleasant thing. + +3. Its appeal to the imagination is obvious. Splendid temples with +their dim golden altars, gorgeous vestments, sonorous chanting, and +all the splendour of an artistic ritual--all this leaps to the eye of +the most casual visitor. What must it not be to the artistic Japanese +worshipper with all its tender associations? + +4. Nor does Japanese Buddhism appeal less to the mind. Its apologists +constantly claim for it that it is a more philosophical and more +scientific creed than any other. I have been many times impressed with +the wide reading of Japanese Buddhists, and with the intellectual tone +of Japanese Christianity. It is clear that the crude theology of some +missionaries will not meet the acid test of modern scholarship, and is +partly responsible for a widespread belief amongst the Japanese that +Christianity is out of date. The chief Buddhist sects give their +priests a better training in the History of Religion than our +missionary societies. A stronger apologetic literature is needed. + +5. The best apologetic, however, is in saintly lives; Tolstoi and +Francis of Assisi especially make an immense appeal to the Japanese; +there are Tolstoyan colonies, and a Buddhist Franciscan society. Yet +it must be remembered that they find in the saints of Buddhism such as +Honen and Nichiren, men worthy to compare with these great Christian +souls. Mr. Takayama, whose influence on young Japan has been so great, +was at once an ardent disciple of Tolstoy and a follower of Nichiren; +Dr. Anesaki is no less a Buddhist of the Nichiren school because he is +a devoted admirer of St. Francis. And these men believe that Buddhism +and Christianity at their best are closely akin: "We see your Christ," +says Dr. Anesaki, "because we have first seen our Buddha." + +6. There is much to be said for this view; for Buddhism in Japan has +developed a very noble idea of God; he is the Eternal Father who has +compassion on all his sons; their salvation is won by faith, not by +merit, and gratitude is the motive to good living. It is surely a +misnomer to call the fair forms of Amida, the lord of the Western +paradise, and of Kwannon the Compassionate, "idols." And Jīzo, the +strong Conqueror of Death, the play mate and protector of little +children--is he not a noble embodiment of divine strength and +gentleness? If the Christian apologist argues that these are figments +of the imagination, the Buddhist is right in replying that they owe +their inspiration to the historic Sākyamuni and his early followers, +and that there is as much evidence in the vision of a Buddhist saint +as in that of an Old Testament prophet for the objective reality of +the god who is worshipped. May we not see in the strivings of good and +true men everywhere to know God a movement of the Spirit of God +Himself? This is my own conviction--that the Spirit of God has been +moving for long centuries amongst our Buddhist brethren and has led +them far upon the path to Truth. It is, however, only right to say +that this view is shared by comparatively few missionaries in Japan. +Though the great Conference at Edinburgh in 1910 accepted it as an +axiom that God had been at work in these ethnic faiths, and though it +was specifically stated of Japanese Buddhism, yet it is a fact that +this view is held at best as one of academic interest, and without +enthusiasm. The leading authority upon the subject amongst the +Protestant missionaries in Japan sums up his conviction in these +weighty words and they are one tenable interpretation: "It may be +said, then, that Mahāyāna Buddhism is a religion with a rather lofty +idea of God among many conceptions of the divine, but without a real +faith in the living God; a religion with the idea of a saviour, but +without a historical saviour; a religion with a doctrine of divine +grace paralysed by the old karma doctrine; a religion with a promise +of a present salvation and a future life, which is nevertheless made +obscure by the doubts of a recurrent agnostic philosophy that cuts the +nerve of all vital ethics and beclouds the hopes of a better +future."[11] The student must weigh these two interpretations: and can +only do so by a sympathetic and patient study of the facts. And the +outstanding fact is that Buddhism has been the civiliser of Asia, and +a great bond of union between its peoples. + +Japan is, in many ways, the best country for an intelligent study of +its achievements. + +She has been called the custodian of Asiatic civilisation: India, +China, and Korea have all poured their rich gifts into her lap, and +she has preserved them with wise discrimination. But she has always +assimilated them till they are her own, and express her own genius. +This is perhaps especially true of Buddhism, which is a very different +thing in Japan even from what it is in China and Korea. Still more +does it differ from that which we have studied in Ceylon and Burma. To +turn away from these monastic expressions of the ancient faith to the +elaborate Buddhism of Japan is to realise that a development has taken +place not unlike that of Christianity, in its transition from the +simplicity of Galilean hillsides and the upper chamber at Jerusalem to +the pomp of high mass in St. Peter's at Rome or St. Mark's at Venice. +Into each great process there have entered similar elements, the +growth of a theology by which the historic founder is related to the +eternal order, the absorption of ideas and rituals from peoples +converted to the new faith and the making over of the faith in each +new land till it becomes indigenous, and racy of the soil. The story +of Buddhism as it developed its philosophical systems and its +elaborate pantheon cannot be told here;[12] but we may attempt, as in +the case of Ceylon and Burma, to give a few impressions of the +Buddhism of Japan, which will indicate the processes of change and +suggest what are the vital forces of this amazingly flexible religion, +whose watchwords have been adaptation and compromise. + +When Buddhism entered Japan in the seventh century A.D. it was already +the religion of all Asia. It found amidst the semi-barbarous peoples +of the islands certain deeply rooted ideas, such as the worship of +heroes and especially of the Emperor, who was believed to be descended +from the Sun-goddess Amaterasu. Within three centuries it had +civilised the country, and had triumphantly identified this goddess +with its own Sun-Buddha Vairochana, producing a blended faith made up +of elements of the old Shinto (_Shen Tao_ or Way of the Gods, _Kami no +michi_) and of highly philosophical Buddhism which saw in the sun the +source of all cosmic energy. This new Buddhism or _Ryobu Shinto_ is +different indeed from the faith of the founder, but it claims to be +the logical and only legitimate evolution of his teachings. + +Let us glance at it first in its great mountain fastness of Kōya San, +where its founder Kobo Daishi lived and died, and where the faithful +await with him the coming of Miroku--or Maitri--the next Buddha. + + + + +Koya San. + + +Like a great lotus of eight petals are the hills of Kōya San, and up +their wooded slopes wind the pilgrim roads. It is the season of +pilgrimage and they are thronged with pilgrims clad in white; here is +a litter in which some invalid is being borne to the great temple +where priests by the performance of mystic ritual and incantations +will attempt to restore him to physical as well as spiritual health; +here an aged couple are helping one another over steep parts of the +way. As they approach the shrines they say a prayer to the pitiful +Jizō, that he will be merciful to their dead; then as they pass the +wooden octagonal library they turn it upon its axis in order that the +merit of reading its voluminous scriptures may be theirs: and near by +some afflicted person rubs the portion of the wooden figure of Binzuru +which is affected in himself. Behind these somewhat childish +superstitions is an elaborate philosophy, and if one is fortunate one +may find a monk with leisure and ability to explain the elaborate +_mandaras_, the pictures of this _Shingon_, or Trueword; Buddhism. +Founded in the ninth century by the great scholar Kobo Daishi, it is a +pantheistic worship of Dainichi, the great sun Buddha, the indwelling +and pervading essence of the world. Present in all things, he is most +present where men worship him, and so by mystic rite and incantation +the worshipper is identified with this source of his being, and lays +hold of certain secrets of bodily and spiritual health. Japan, like +other countries, is eagerly looking for a religion which works, and +which has a message for this life as well as for that beyond the +grave. Amongst the great trees are innumerable tombs of the faithful, +and here in their midst sits Kobo Daishi himself awaiting the coming +of Miroku, the next Buddha. Nor is his spirit of loving-kindness, +which is the essence of Buddhism, forgotten. Unique amongst the +monuments of war stands this seventeenth-century pillar calling down +the mercies of heaven upon all who fell in the war with Korea, both +friend and foe. + +In these temples, too, one will see the simple mirror, emblem at once +of Amaterasu and of Dainichi, of Shinto and of Buddhism: are not the +two now reconciled, and have they not become an integral part of the +soul of Japan, _Yamato Damashii_? Here on Kōyasan mingle Japanese +nature-worship, Indian idealistic philosophy, gods from central Asia, +and the superstitions of needy human hearts. There is much that is +fine as well as much that is corrupt, and it is noteworthy that the +impatient reformer, Nichiren, called Kōbo "the prize liar" of Japan, +and abominated the beliefs and practices of _Shingon_. Yet he was not +unbiased in his judgments! + + + + +Hieisan and its Sects. + + +Another great mountain-fastness of Japanese Buddhism is Hieisan. Here +amidst vast cryptomerias and redwoods a contemporary of Kōbo, named +Saichō or Dengyō, established just eleven hundred years ago a +synthetic Buddhism, which strove to reconcile the conflicting schools +and to represent at once the founder Sākyamuni as he is revealed in +the Lotus Scripture, seated in glory and opening a way for all to +become Buddhas, and the eternal Amida Buddha of the Western Paradise. +Side by side are preaching-halls for these two schools of Buddhist +devotion, and from the parent stock of _Tendai_ have sprung the three +great sects of _Jōdo_, _Shinshu_, and _Nichiren-Shu_. The two former +are extreme developments of the Way of Faith in Amida, and the latter +is a revolt from their pietism and vain repetitions to the historical +Sākyamuni and the famous "Lotus Scripture," the _Hokkekyō_ which is +found to-day in every Buddhist temple in Japan. At the foot of the +great mountain clusters the old imperial city of Kyōto, or Miyako, +with its thousand temples. Let us visit some of them. + + + + +A Shinshu Temple. + + +The great _Hondo_ or hall of the _Hongwanji_ temples in Kyōto is a +thing of exquisite beauty. How different are these great altars, these +exquisite paintings, this cave of splendour, with its dim lights and +its fragrant incense, from the simple rock-hewn shrines of Ceylon and +their barbaric frescoes, and from the sunny courtyards and massed +images of a Burmese pagoda! Very different, too, is the worship of +this devout crowd of Japanese men and women, prostrating themselves +before the high altar or joining in antiphonal praises of Amitābha +(_Amida Nyorai_), the lord of the Western Paradise. The influence of +the solemn chanting, the deep notes of gongs, the incense rising in +clouds, the dim lights, the burnished gold and lacquer work of screen +and altar--all this is almost hypnotic, and the congregation is borne +along on a tide of sombre feeling shot through with gleams of joy and +otherworldly enthusiasm. The student who has steeped himself in the +simple pithy sayings of the _Dhammapada_, or of the Amitābha Books, +and then passes on to study the elaborate apocalypses of the Lotus +Scripture, will understand what has taken place in this transition +from the simple ethical reform movement of early Buddhism to the +elaborate pietism and cultus of the _Mahāyāna_. The historical +Sākyamuni has almost disappeared, and in his place there are the +eternal or semi-eternal Buddhas, and the great Bodhisattvas. Let us +study the figures in this great Kyōto temple. The central position is +given to the Japanese monk Shinran, a Luther or Wesley who in the +twelfth century popularised in Japan the Way of Salvation by Faith; to +the left of him are the figures of Amida Nyorai, the chief object of +worship in this sect, Honen, the predecessor of Shinran and his +teacher in the way of mystic faith, and Shōtoku, the great layman who +as Regent of Japan espoused Buddhism in the seventh century A.D., and +laid the foundations of Japanese civilisation. He is the patron saint +of the arts and crafts of Japan and is given a prominent place in +_Shin Shu_ Buddhism (to which three-quarters of Japanese Buddhists +belong) because it claims to be a religion for lay-people and not only +for monks. There is a delightful story of Shinran and of the lady who +led him to realise this truth. Going up to his monastery on the Hiei +San Shinran met a charming princess, who took from her long silken +sleeve a burning glass; "See how this little crystal gathers to a +point the scattered rays of the sun," she cried. "Cannot you do this +for our religion?" He replied that it took twenty years to train a +monk in the old _Tendai_ sect to which he belonged, and she reminded +him that women were not allowed to go up to its temples. He went away +and meditating upon the essential teachings of Buddhism came to the +conclusion that the real heart of the matter was this, that it is +faith in the eternal Buddha and gratitude to him which are to be the +motives of true living, that as the Lotus Scripture teaches, all may +become Buddhas, and that the priests of Amida should be free to become +fathers after the pattern of the Heavenly Father. Marrying the +charming princess this Japanese Luther founded a new sect, and to-day +one sees the hereditary abbot, splendid in purple and scarlet, +accompanied by his son, a boy of seventeen, proudly conscious of his +destiny as the next head of the great hierarchy, and taking his place +in the elaborate ritual of the service. Behind them are the choir in +robes of old gold and the priests in black. "_Namu Amida Butsu_"[13] +intone the priests, and alternating with this act of faith they sing +to a kind of Gregorian chant such words as these: + + "Eternal Life, Eternal Light! + Hail to Thee, wisdom infinite. + Hail to Thee, mercy shining clear, + And limitless as is the air. + Thou givest sight unto the blind, + Thou sheddest mercy on mankind, + Hail, gladdening Light, + Hail, generous Might, + Whose peace is round us like the sea, + And bathes us in infinity." + +Or it may be some patriarch who is being hymned, such as Honen +himself: + + "What though great teachers lead the way,-- + Genshin and Zendo of Cathay,-- + Did Honen not the truth declare + How should we far-off sinners fare + In this degenerate, evil day?" + +Occasionally a hymn, like the excellent preaching of some of the +priests, strikes a note of moral living whose motive is gratitude to +Amida: + + "Eternal Father on whose breast + We sinful children find our rest, + Thy mind in us is perfected + When on all men thy love we shed; + So we in faith repeat thy praise, + And gratefully live out our days."[14] + +The Japanese, in whom gratitude is a very strong motive, find in the +teachings of Shinran a Buddhism which is very Christian, and the words +attributed to him as he was nearing his journey's end, are a confession +of sin which is only worthy of a saint. That the mass of his followers +fall far behind him in this respect is unfortunately true, as it is +true of most of us who call ourselves by a greater name. + +Other founders of Buddhism are commemorated on the altars and in the +hymns of this sect, especially Nāgārjuna, the Indian philosopher of +about the second century A.D., and Donran, a Chinese, who carried +still further the evolution of Mahāyāna Buddhism. + + + + +A Revival of Buddhism. + + +The _Shin Shu_ is one of the sects of Japanese Buddhism in which a +great revival seems to be at work. Upwards of five hundred young +priests are being trained in its schools in Kyōto, and it claims to +have one hundred and fifty thousand children in its Sunday Schools, an +organisation in which it has wisely imitated the missionary methods of +the Christian Church. + +This Buddhist revival in Japan is well worthy of study. As in Ceylon +and Burma nationalism has much to do with it. The Japanese have been +reminded by Lafcadio Hearn and Fenollosa and by their own native +scholars trained by Max Müller at Oxford, or in other Western +universities, how great is the debt which they owe to Buddhism; "There +is scarcely one interesting or beautiful thing produced in the +country," wrote Lafcadio Hearn, "for which the nation is not in some +sort indebted to Buddhism," and the Japanese, in whom gratitude is a +strong motive, are saying, "Thank you." Moreover, in the present +restless seeking after truth the nation is finding, in its old +religions, things which it is refusing lightly to cast away, and in +its resentment against some of the nations of Christendom, and its +conviction that our Christianity does not go very deep, it reminds +itself that after all Buddhism was a great international force which +helped to establish peace for a thousand years in Asia. + +The present revival manifests itself in many ways, not least in the +new intellectual activity which has brought into existence Buddhist +universities, chairs of religious education, and a very vigorous +output of literature; and each of the great sects has some outstanding +scholar trained in the scientific methods of Western scholarship, but +proud to call himself a Buddhist. There are ample signs, too, of a +quickened interest in social service, of movements for children and +young people, such as the Y.M.B.A., which is now active in all +Buddhist countries. + +Old temples are being repaired and new ones built and there are said +to be over a hundred thousand of these in Japan devoted to Buddhism +alone. Amongst the more recent is one in Kyōto which cost nearly a +million pounds sterling; for the transport of its massive timbers +hundreds of thousands of women sacrificed their hair. It is +interesting and amusing to see Buddhist priests in bowler hats and +gorgeous robes directing the removal of some ancient shrine to a new +site and to note the modern American methods of engineering employed. +All this is symptomatic of a new Japan which is yet tenaciously loyal +to its old past. + +Another symptom is a vigorous attempt at moral reform about which the +"Mahāyānist," a Buddhist periodical, said, "Whilst formerly the +moral sickness was allowed to go on unchecked, now the coverings are +cast aside and the disease laid bare which is the first thing to do if +the patient is to be cured." One hears a good deal about +misappropriation of temple funds, and moral laxity in matters of sex. +It is not for a visitor to comment on these things. Personally I +believe that Buddhism is really a power for good: and I am inclined to +think that the beautiful courtesy and kindliness one meets everywhere +largely spring from it, and are one of its many noble fruits. We in +the West have made more of commercial honesty and less of courtesy and +forbearance than Jesus was wont to do: and there is no more odious +type than the self-righteous visitor from Western lands who comes to +the East armed with a narrow and negative moral code and a critical +spirit. Certainly Buddhism is teaching "morals" to its children, and +in a thousand ways its influence is felt in that very attractive +character so truly described by Lafcadio Hearn as peculiar to the +Japanese, of which the essence is a genuine kindness of heart that is +essentially Buddhist. Another proof that the chief sects are now +filled with vigorous life is to be found in their missionary +activities. The first Buddhist missionary from Japan to China was sent +out by the eastern branch of the _Hongwanji_ in 1876, a spiritual +return for the early Chinese missions of twelve hundred years ago. +Missions have also been established in Honolulu in 1897 and they are +numerous on the Pacific Coast of North America. Home missionary work, +too, is being attempted, owing largely to the influence of a layman; +the _Shin Shu_ priests are working in jails, seeking to arouse a sense +of sin in the inmates; and in Tokio one may visit a training school +where some sixty students are trained in charity organisation and +lodging houses for the poor. + + + + +Christian Influence. + + +All this is very largely the outcome of Christian activities in Japan +and it is very noteworthy that while the Christian Church is +numerically small its leadership in liberal politics and in +philanthropy is acknowledged all over the Empire and its pervasive +influence upon the thought of modern Japan is obvious on all sides. +St. Francis of Assisi and Tolstoy are perhaps the Christian leaders +most admired by the Japanese. They belong to the same spiritual +company as the great Sākyamuni, who, like them, embraced poverty and +was filled with a tender love and a sane yet passionate enthusiasm of +humanity. Japan is looking for a great spiritual and moral leader. +Will he be a Buddhist like the great Nichiren who in the thirteenth +century came like a strong sea-breeze to revive the soul of his people +and preached a religion which was to be a moral guide in national +affairs and in the daily life of his people? Or will he be a Christian +leader who, counting all things as dung compared with the Gospel of +Jesus, shall answer the cry of the Japanese patriot who believes that +his people are hungry for truth? There is a wealth of liberalism in +young Japan and there are idealists everywhere waiting to rally around +a great religious leader. But he will need to know and understand her +past and to launch his appeal to that wonderful patriotism which is +the essence of the Japanese character. + +Can Buddhism produce this moral leadership? Let us hear what a +Japanese Christian of great learning and insight has to say. "To +Buddhism Japan owes a great debt for certain elements of her faith +which would scarcely have developed without its aid; but those +germinal elements have taken on a form and colouring, a personal +vitality not gained elsewhere. Important as are those elements of +faith, they still lack the final necessary reality. Buddhism is +incomplete in the god whom it presents as an object of worship. In +place of the Supreme Being, spiritual and personal, Buddhism offers a +reality of which nothing can be affirmed, or, at best, a Great Buddha +among many. Buddhism is incomplete in the consciousness of sin which +it awakens within the soul of man. Instead of the sense of having +violated an eternal law of righteous love by personal antagonism, +Buddhism deepens the consciousness of human misery by an unbreakable +bond of suffering; and the salvation, therefore, which Buddhism offers +is deliverance from misery, not from the power of personal sin. In its +idea of self-sacrifice, Buddhism affords an element of faith much more +nearly allied to that of the Christian believer. In both the offering +of self is for the sake of the multitude, the world-brotherhood; but +in the one pity, often acquiescent and helpless, predominates, whereas +in the other loyalty to a divine ideal finds expression in the +obligation to active service." + +And yet let us note that Buddhism has undoubtedly nerved men of +action, and inspired saints, and that its call to meditation and to +quiet strength is one that our age needs to regard. Not far from the +great Pietist temples of _Hongwanji_, I found a veritable haven of +peace--the courtyard and simple buildings of a _Zenshu_ sect. + +How different from the Buddhism of the Amida sects is that of +_Zenshu_! Seated in his exquisite retreat one may visit an abbot or +teacher of this school. The orderliness and quiet of his temple +courts, the stillness of his posture, the repose of his face--all +alike tell one of spiritual calm. Perhaps one begins to ask him the +secret of it. "Ah," he may say, "that is not easy. You should go and +study one of the simpler sects." Then, if his questioner is +persistent, he will suddenly present him with one of the _Koans_, or +dark sayings which have come down for many centuries: "Listen," he +will say, "to the sound of a single hand." Puzzled and disturbed the +mind may refuse to deal with this enigma, or it may learn the great +lesson which is intended to be learned, that intuition is a surer +guide to truth than the discursive reason, or as we should say in our +psychological jargon, the sub-conscious has gifts for us if we will +give it a chance. The essence, in fact, of this sect is a quiet sense +of the presence of eternal truths. The Buddha is not to be found in +images or books, but in the heart or mind, and in scores of Buddhist +monasteries I have found the spirit of Wordsworth with its serene +sense of a pervasive presence, + +"Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns." + + +[11] A. K. Reischauer, _Studies in Japanese Buddhism_. + +[12] See _Buddhism as a Religion_, by H. Hackmann, and my _Epochs of +Buddhist History_. (To be published later.) + +[13] Praise to Amida Buddha. + +[14] See "Buddhist Hymns," tr. by S. Yamabe and L. Adams Beck. + + + + + II. BUDDHISM IN CHINA + + +The followers of this meditative school are to be found throughout the +monasteries of China and Korea where they are known as the _Chan_ +sect; but here more than in Japan their quietism is mingled with the +devotion to Amitābha or Omito-Fo, and though in many places such as +the exquisite island of Putoshan they are faithful in the practice of +meditation, they seem to have carried it to a far less perfect pitch +than the more scholarly followers of the Japanese school. + + + + +A Chinese Temple. + + +Let us get a glimpse of Chinese Buddhism in one of these great +monasteries. The day is a round of worship[15] and the worship is +divided amongst many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Here some rich layman +is making an offering for masses for his dead; Buddhism in China has +indeed become largely a matter of such masses, and the filial Chinese +spend yearly scores of millions upon them.[16] The priests have turned +out in force, and the abbot is reciting the praises now of Omito-Fo, +now of Pilochana, the great sun-Buddha, now of the merciful Kwanyin +whose ears are ever open to human prayer, and now of Titsang, guardian +of the dead. Beautiful figures these, and especially that of this +strong conqueror of death so popular amongst the Japanese as the +guardian of the little ones who have gone into the dark under-world. +Innumerable figures of him adorned with baby garments tell their own +pathetic tale, and he is unimaginative indeed who cannot find here in +these ideal figures traces of the Spirit of God at work in human +hearts. + +It is harder to sympathise with and to admire the Lama Buddhism which +has penetrated China from Tibet, but even here there are some +beautiful figures such as the _Tāras_, and amongst the mummery and +moral corruption of a Lama temple one may find some sparks of the +divine spirit, even if one fails to meet the Lama of Kim! + +Buddhism in China, decadent though it is in many places, is reviving +itself; there is great building activity at certain centres such as +Ningpo and Hangchow; there are probably nearly half a million monks, +and at one ordination in 1920 a thousand candidates were ordained in +Changchow. Many men, indeed, disillusioned at the failure of the +revolution, are seeking the quiet otherworldly retreats of Buddhism, +and others of scholarly bent delight in the classical scriptures which +the early missionaries from India translated into Chinese, and which +are still models of beauty. + +Among laymen also there is an increasing interest in the Buddhist +scriptures. Turn into this bookstore at Peking and you will find over +a thousand copies of different texts and commentaries, and there are +publishing-houses in most of the great cities. Two notable works are +the reprint of the whole of the Scriptures and a new dictionary of +Buddhist terms, containing over three thousand pages. At Ningpo one +will find a small group of young enthusiasts working for a +"neo-Buddhism." Antipathetic to Christianity, and especially to the +aggressions of "Christian" nations, these men, like some of the +propagandists in Ceylon, use weapons which are two-edged and dangerous +to all religion, not only to Christianity; they seem to feed upon the +publications of the rationalist press, and must not be taken too +seriously. Yet we can sympathise with their resentment of Western +aggression, which is a large factor in these Buddhist movements +everywhere. "Buddhism: the Religion of Asia" often accompanies and +reinforces another cry, "Asia for the Asiatics." + +Of great significance are these Pan-Buddhist movements attempting to +unite the Buddhist peoples in a strong Eastern civilisation such as +that which welded them together for a thousand years in the Golden Age +of the past. One such movement originates in Ceylon with the vigorous +layman Dharmapala, in whom resentment against the West blends with a +real enthusiasm for Buddhism. In 1893 he visited China, and stirred up +some of the Chinese monks, calling upon them to go to India as +missionaries; in Japan he attacked some of the great abbots as +wine-drinkers and corrupt, and every where he is a pungent and +provocative influence. In 1918 a Pan-Buddhist Association was started +in Tokyo and in the following year a rival one was founded in Peking. +It is, in fact, rather pathetic to find Buddhism being promoted by the +Japanese in Korea as a part of their propaganda to Japanise the +Koreans, and at the same time claiming in China to be _the_ religion +for democratic nations. + +In justification of such claims, however, Buddhism is doing some good +work in social service, and in education, and takes its part in famine +relief, prison visitation, and the beneficent work of the Red Cross. + +The Chinese are a religious people, whatever critics may say. Vast +armies of monks and innumerable temples and shrines witness to this +other-worldly strain, and though much of their religion is +superstitious, and almost all of it needs moralising, the sympathetic +observer will find on every hand the evidences that these are not a +"secular-minded" people. + +In almost every house are not only ancestor-tablets, but images of +Kwanyin and other Buddhist deities, and pilgrimages play in China as +elsewhere in Asia a great part in the national life. + +Follow this merry throng as it climbs the slopes of some great +mountain; note the groves and the poetical inscriptions on the rocks; +enter this noble group of temples with them and watch their acts of +worship. + +Here before Kwanyin a young apprentice bows: carelessly he tosses the +bamboo strips which will tell him if his prayer is to be answered, and +defiantly he tosses his head as he turns away with a refusal from the +goddess: but here is an old widow, with sorrowful persistence +importuning the Compassionate One, and in even the most careless is a +belief that Heaven rules in the affairs of men and that Heaven is +just. + +Here prayers are offered for rain and harvest, for children and +wealth, for release from suffering and demons. + +As in many Christian nations the bridge between natural religion and +the essential truths of Christian Theism is a very shaky one--so here +in China and Japan, whilst there is a widespread belief in Karma and +in Heaven's laws, this is but vaguely connected with the polytheistic +cults of the masses. And as in some other Christian lands, the worship +of the saints and local gods--even of the great Kwanyin--is not +always moralised. Habitual sinners--opium fiends who, it may be, are +ruining scores of lives, prostitutes and murderers--will pay their +daily court to the family or local god: not conscious of any demand +from the Compassionate that they should show compassion, or from the +Righteous that they should be righteous. Buddhism has indeed lost its +early salt of morality. It is for these and other reasons that China +and Japan urgently need the Gospel of Jesus and of His Kingdom. In +their own religious development is a noble preparation for this New +Order: and in the Jesus of History they are finding a Norm and a +Vision of God which makes their old ideals real and vital, and which +purifies their idea of God. In this faith the Church is at work in +these wonderful lands, believing that they have rich gifts for the +Kingdom of God, and that it will greatly enrich them and carry to its +fulfilment their noble civilisations whilst it emancipates their +masses from fear and superstition. With all its achievements Buddhism +has failed because it has had no power to cast out fear, and its +Confucian critics even accuse it of playing upon the superstition of +the people and of letting loose more demons to plague them. Yet it has +done much for China, not only ennobling her art and culture but giving +a new value to the individual, a new respect for women, a new love of +nature, and many noble objects of worship to hungry human hearts. + +Whilst then the Gospel wins its way slowly but surely in Asia, +leavening and giving new and abundant life, there are those in +Christendom who hold that it is played out, and that Buddhism is +destined to supersede it as the religion of the intelligent! + +The student should investigate their activities in London, Breslau, +and other Western cities; and he may find Appendix I a finger-post to +guide him in his quest. + +Appendix II is offered as a similar guide to a course of reading. + + +[15] The chief services are at 2 a.m. and at 4 p.m. + +[16] During the war many such masses were said for the fallen, whether +friend or foe. + + + + + APPENDIX I[17] + + SOME EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN BUDDHISTS + + +In the year 1881 Dr. Rhys Davids said, "There is not the slightest +danger of any European ever entering the Buddhist Order."[18] Yet a +recent writer was told by a Buddhist in Ceylon that his religion was +making its converts "chiefly amongst the Tamils and Germans," and in +each of the Buddhist countries there is to-day a small but active +group of converts from the European nations to Buddhism. + +It would be difficult to say whether these groups are the product or +the cause of the undoubted revival which is taking place in the +Buddhist world: probably they are part product and part cause. +Buddhism is certainly in ferment. As Dr. Suzuki has said, "It is in a +stage of transition from a mediæval dogmatic and conservative spirit +to one of progress, enlightenment, and liberalism,"[19] and in other +ways, especially in Japan, it is approximating to a liberal +Christianity. + +To this awakening there are several contributory causes, such as the +national spirit which has awakened in recent years, the works of +Eastern and Western students of Buddhism, the activities of the +Theosophical Society, and, it must be confessed, and unwise and, in my +opinion, illiberal and unfair attitude on the part of many +missionaries who, forgetting that they are sent to preach Christ, have +attacked, often without adequate knowledge, the religion of +Gautama.[20] From this criticism I do not wish to exempt myself; I +have gone through the unpleasant but salutary process of having to eat +my own words, and I am more anxious than I can say to foster a real +spirit of love and understanding between the followers of Gautama and +those of Jesus. + +Of the founder of Buddhism I can honestly say with the great Danish +scholar Fausboll: "The more I know of him, the more I love him," and +it is the "fact of Gautama," emerging more and more clearly as the +Buddhist books are being edited and translated, which more than any +other single cause is responsible for the Buddhist revival. + +"From such far distances the echo of his words returns that we cannot +but rank him amongst the greatest heroes of history," says the eminent +Belgian scholar de la Vallée Poussin, and from him, as from Gautama, +we shall all do well to learn the spirit of tolerance and courtesy. +Yet both of them speak out bluntly and shrewdly enough at times. It is +recorded that when the great teacher met men whose doctrines were +morally dangerous or intellectually insincere, he harried them +remorselessly till "the sweat poured from them" and they cried, "As +well might one meet an infuriated bull or dangerous snake as the +ascetic Gautama!" Of those whose teachings were sincere and earnest he +was wonderfully tolerant, even advising a soldier disciple to give +alms to them and their followers, no less than to the Buddhist monks. + +In this spirit the Belgian scholar, probably the greatest living +authority upon Buddhism as a whole, is lovingly tolerant towards +Buddhism and honest Buddhists, but of Neo-Buddhism he says: "It is at +once frivolous and detestable--dangerous, perhaps, for very feeble +intellects." Even so, a vast Neo-Buddhist Church is not impossible! + +European and American Buddhists, then, fall into these two classes: +those who are honest and sincere students of Buddhism and followers of +Gautama, and those of whom the most charitable thing that can be said +is that they lead astray "foolish women," and other sentimentalists. +To illustrate the methods of these two schools, who are unfortunately +at present often working in an unnatural alliance, let me describe two +recent experiences. + +On Easter Day I went from the simple and exquisite beauty of our +Communion Service, in which the glamour of the Resurrection is ever +being renewed, to a Buddhist church within a stone's throw, here in +the heart of San Francisco. There, as in innumerable other centres of +Buddhist life, the birth of Gautama was being celebrated; and I could +unhesitatingly join in paying reverence to the memory of the great +Indian teacher. But it was certainly amazing and a little staggering +to find "Buddhist High Mass" being performed, the celebrant calling +himself a bishop and ordaining on his own initiative abbots and +abbesses.[21] Three altar candles representing the Buddha, the Law, +and the Order being lighted, the "bishop," preceded by seven or eight +American and British monks in yellow robes, and by the Abbess, known +as Mahadevi, ascended to the platform, which contains a beautiful +Japanese shrine of the Hongwanji sect. Several monks from Japan, to my +surprise, assisted in the strange service that followed, which began +with the invocation of Amida Buddha, and went on in an astonishing +hotch-potch of the cults of the primitive and the later Buddhism +derived indiscriminately from Ceylon, Tibet, and Japan. + +Of this strange service, which the "bishop" claims to have modelled on +that in use in the Dalai Lama's palace at Lhassa, it must suffice to +say that if the Tibetan _Mantras_ were as inaccurately rendered as +were the five precepts in Pāli which are the Buddhist pentalogue, +then the general impression of Buddhism given was as misleading as it +is possible to conceive. The service included a processional hymn, +music by an organist announced as "late of the Golden Temple Shway +Dagon in Burma, and of St. Paul's Cathedral, London," an "Epistle" +read by an American Buddhist, a "gospel of the day," read by the +Abbess, several addresses by Japanese and Western Buddhists, and a +sermon by the "bishop," who claims to be ninety-five years old, to be +the son of a Persian prince, to have spent sixteen years at the feet +of the late Dalai Lama in Tibet, to have numerous degrees in arts, +medicine, science, and philosophy from Oxford, London, Paris, and +Heidelberg, and to have been seventy-five years a monk of the yellow +robe. His costume was as amazingly mixed as his liturgy, consisting of +a Hindu turban, a yellow Buddhist overmantle, a scarlet robe with +cincture and maniple of purple, and a rosary terminating in the +_Swastika_, with which sign he blessed the people at the end of the +service, saying: "May the face of the Truth shine upon you, and the +divine Wisdom of the Buddhas permeate you, and remain with you now and +throughout eternity. So mote it be." + +In his sermon he claimed to have founded no less than eighty missions +in the past ten years in California, and said some shrewd things in +criticism of the Christian Church, of which I am persuaded he was +himself once a member. For the rest it was a practical discourse +enough; he advised his followers, if they would live as long as he +(and he announced that he would still be going strong fifty years +hence), they must change their wrinkles into dimples, and learn the +secret of a serene mind. He gave notice that in the evening there +would be a banquet and a dance, in which he would join, if widows and +maidens pressed him, and immediately after the service he saluted them +all "with a holy kiss," which they seemed to enjoy as much as he. +There is something really attractive about this jovial monk, and he +has the energy, the ubiquity and the perseverance of another "Persian +prince" who is equally opposed to Christianity! + +The "bishop's" disciples are fairly numerous, though one of his +colleagues expressed the conviction, on the authority of an English +professor, that the same wonderful teachings would draw thousands to +hear them in London, instead of scores in San Francisco. Be that as it +may, they are faithful disciples; attracted very largely by the fact +that he is rather expounding spiritualism, telling of the wonderful +_Mahatmas_ of Tibet, and luring them with the glamour of Eastern +mysticism than teaching Buddhism. When I chuckled at some of his +shrewd sallies, an elegantly dressed woman next to me said, "Hush! +Hush! You are not an initiate, you do not understand; all that he says +has a profound, inner meaning which only we who are initiated can +comprehend." To which I could not resist the reply: "I may not be +initiated into this business, but I know that this is not Buddhism any +more than that the organist who is playing those penny-whistle tunes +on the harmonium ever played them on the Shway Dagon, where music is +not allowed, or any more than the old sportsman who is speaking is a +bishop." + +It is not by such means that Buddhism can be revived. + +But there are others! Some years ago I had a delightful talk with one +of them in the shadow of the great pagoda from which our organist did +not come. He was a Scot, a scholar and scrupulously honest, and his +name is already widely known as the translator of both German and +Pāli works. Quite frankly he told me why he had taken the yellow +robe, and how, having lost his faith in Christianity, he found in the +Buddhist books something which saved his reason and probably his life: +then, turning to me, he said: "How glad you fellows would be if you +could get rid of the Old Testament." + +Another friend of mine, an Englishman, was formerly trained as a Roman +Catholic priest, and is now a Buddhist missionary in California, +having been ordained in Japan, and having, with an American scholar, +now a professor in London, been responsible for the production of an +admirable and scholarly periodical, _The Mahayanist_. Its object is to +impart an accurate knowledge of the Buddhism of China and Japan, and +to investigate its history, doctrines, and present conditions in an +unbiased and scholarly way. + +Such men as these three ought not to be associated with those who +claim to teach "esoteric" Buddhism.[22] There is really no such thing; +"I have preached the Law without making any distinction between +exoteric and esoteric doctrine," said Gautama, "for I have no such +thing as the closed fist of the teacher who keeps some things in +reserve."[23] + +Now so long as these unequally yoked teams are drawing the Buddhist +chariot, there is bound to be a smash; when one studies, for instance, +the history of the propagandist literature they have put out, one +finds that it is one long story of fitful beginnings and spasmodic +effort, almost all of them failing to survive for more than a few +years. Of these periodicals, Professor Poussin writes as follows: +"Propagandist reviews like _Buddhism_ of Rangoon and the _Open Court_ +of Chicago are useful when Mrs. Rhys Davids condescends to contribute +to them, but she finds in them strange neighbours indeed, fully worthy +of the indescribable Mahabodhi Society!" + +Buddhists everywhere are finding new inspiration by going back to the +authority of Gautama; let the Christian Church go back to Jesus +Christ, and, taking Him as the full and perfect revelation of the +nature of God and man, rethink and restate its theology. And secondly, +let its missionaries study the great religion of Gautama--which is +still, after twenty-five centuries, a mighty power, with strong +capacity for revival, and which is still strangely misunderstood; and +let them see to it that they and the Christian "native" pastors and +catechists are as carefully trained as the Buddhist monks who each +year are receiving a more systematic preparation for the task of +defending and propagating the _Dhamma_. + + +[17] Reprinted from _The East and the West_. + +[18] _Hibbert Lectures_, 3rd edition, p. 184. + +[19] _The Zen Sect of Buddhism_, p. 11. + +[20] There is fortunately a marked improvement in this respect in +missionary methods: but the old order has not yet given place to the +new. The present writer was recently classed, in a public address in +Rangoon, with the Kaiser and Antichrist--as a "Sign of the Times." + +[21] The full form of service and a biographical sketch of its author +is published by the _Open Court_, Chicago, U.S.A. + +[22] They are, fortunately, even now parting company: the "bishop," +for example, has been obliged to start a rival "church" in San +Francisco. + +[23] From the _Mahaparinibbana Sutta_, the oldest and most authentic +of the Buddhist scriptures. + + + + +APPENDIX II + +HOW TO STUDY BUDDHISM[24] + + +The Christian missionary in Buddhist lands is faced with a task of +infinite fascination. He is dealing, in the first place, with +remarkable peoples for whom their religion has done much of the great +service which Christianity has done for him and his people. He will +find everywhere traces of a mighty Buddhist civilisation, and in many +places, if he has the eye to see, proofs that this venerable religion +is still alive and is reforming itself to meet the needs of the modern +world. In the second place, he will find that it is vitally linked up +with the intensely interesting and important nationalist movements of +Asia, and that he cannot understand the political situation in these +countries without a close and careful study of the religion. And in +the third place, he will find that it is not only as part and parcel +of nationalist movements that Buddhism is alive, but that it has an +international programme and that it is closely bound up with the +movement of "Asia for the Asiatics"--a movement deserving of +respectful and sympathetic study. + +How then will the missionary prepare himself for this absorbing task? +Nothing can take the place of friendly intercourse with Buddhists in +temple and home, on pilgrimage and at great times of festival; it is +thus that the religion will become a living reality to him, full of +colour and movement, giving him at times moments of exquisite pleasure +in its artistic pageantry, and bringing him into sympathetic touch +with the "soul of the people" to whom he is seeking to minister. But +to prepare him for this absorbing pursuit, at once business and +pleasure, study and hobby, for any one who really enjoys such things, +he can and must do some systematic reading. Appended are a course of +study for the first two years worked out for Y.M.C.A. secretaries in +India, and a more advanced and detailed course. The following +additional notes may be of service in using these: + +1. Clearly the first step is to get a sympathetic and accurate idea of +the founder of Buddhism, of the essence of his teaching, and of the +secret of his amazing influence. There is, in human history, only one +figure more significant and more worthy of a study. Side by side the +student should read Sir Edwin Arnold's _Light of Asia_ (London: Kegan +Paul. 1s. 6d. and 5s.) and some good biographical study such as that +of H. Oldenberg, _Buddha_ (London: Williams & Norgate. Out of print. +1882), or that by the present writer, _Gotama Buddha_ (New York: +Association Press. 1920). + +2. Next he will do well to saturate himself in such selections of the +moral teachings of Gautama as are contained in the _Dhammapada_ or the +_Itivuttaka_, both of which contain much very early material, some of +which may be attributed to the founder himself. + +3. For the whole Buddhist system in its earlier forms Warren's +admirable _Buddhism in Translations_ (Harvard Oriental Series. +Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. 1900) is indispensable, and should be +constantly used for reference. + +4. As an introduction to the history of Buddhism two elementary books, +attempting to cover the whole field in a rather sketchy way, are +Saunders' _The Story of Buddhism_ (London: Oxford University Press. +4s., 6d. 1916) and Hackmann's _Buddhism as a Religion_ (London: +Probsthain. 15s. 1910). + +5. Whether the student is going to work in lands devoted to the +primitive type of Buddhism, such as Ceylon, Siam, and Burma, or in +those in which a highly developed Buddhism prevails, such as Japan, +China, and Korea, he ought to have a grasp of the essential +differences between the two types of Buddhism known as _Hinayāna_ and +_Mahāyāna_; for an evolution must be read backwards as well as +forwards, and the missionary will look forward to spending a holiday +in one of the other Buddhist lands. If, for instance, his lot is cast +in Burma, he ought to plan to go on a visit to Japan or to China, and +_vice versâ_. To get a grasp of the highly developed Mahāyāna he +should study especially the famous _Lotus of the Good Law_ translated +in vol. xxi of the Sacred Books of the East (Oxford: Clarendon Press. +15s. 6d.) and should carefully compare this with the _Dhammapada_. He +will find that even in the conservative Buddhism of Ceylon and Burma +there are Mahāyāna tendencies, and that everywhere Gautama Buddha +has become in practice more than a moral teacher and is related, in +the minds of the people, to an eternal order making for righteousness. +In this and in other ways which the student will study for himself, +_e.g._ in the idea of a sacrificial life-process culminating in the +historical life of Sākyamuni and in the practice of prayer by all +Buddhists, he will find a wonderful preparation for the gospel of +Christ. I would suggest that he take as his guiding light this saying +of a great Buddhist scholar of Japan, "We see your Christ, because we +have first seen our Buddha." The task of the missionary will be to +relate Christianity to this great preparation that has been made for +it and to think out with Eastern scholars the thought bases of a truly +Eastern Christianity which shall seem to these Asiatic nations to come +with all the authority of their own past behind it, and with all the +glamour of a knowledge that the God who has been working with and for +them in the past is now bringing them out into a larger and freer +life. Only so can they be won for Christ. + + +[24] Reprinted by kind permission of the editors and publisher from +"An Introduction to Missionary Service," Ed. by G. A. Gollock and E. +G. K. Hewat, Oxford University Press. 1921, 3s. 6d. net. + + + + + I + + +The following course of reading--drawn up for Secretaries of the +Y.M.C.A. in the East by Dr. J. N. Farquhar and the writer--is +recommended to those whose leisure is scant: + +_First Year_. General: Rhys Davids, _Buddhism, Life and Teachings of +Gautama, the Buddha_ (London: S.P.C.K. 3s. 6d.); V. Smith, _Asoka_ +(Oxford: Clarendon Press. 4s. New edition, 1920). + +Special: _The Dhammapada_. Sacred Books of the East, vol. x (out of +print); _The Mahaparinibbana_. S.B.E., vol. xi (12s. 6d. See +Introduction). + +Additional: Oldenberg, _Buddha_ (see Introduction); or Rhys Davids, +_Dialogues of the Buddha_ (London: Milford. 12s. 6d. 3rd volume, +1921). + +_Second Year_. General: Copleston, _Buddhism Primitive and Present_ +(London: Longmans. 10s. 6d. Out of print); Hackmann, _Buddhism as a +Religion_ (see Introduction). + +Special: Warren, _Buddhism in Translations_. Chaps. i and iv (see +Introduction). + +Additional: Rhys Davids, _Buddhist India_ (London: Fisher Unwin. 7s. +6d.); _The Questions of King Milinda_, S.B.E., vols. xxxv, xxxvi. +(42s. for two. See Introduction.) + + + + + II + + +For those who desire further and more detailed study the following +suggestions, based upon Professor Hume's course at Union Theological +Seminary and the present writer's at the Pacific School of Religion, +are likely to prove helpful: + + +A. _The Life of the Buddha_. + +Rhys Davids, _Buddhism, Life and Teachings of Gautama, the Buddha_, +chaps. ii, iii, vii (see I, First Year); Kern, _Manual of Indian +Buddhism_, part ii (London: Probsthain. 15s.); Oldenberg, _Buddha_, +part i (see Introduction); Warren, _Buddhism in Translations_, chap. i +(see Introduction); Saunders, _Gotama Buddha_ (see Introduction). + + +B. _The Scriptures of Hinayāna Buddhism_. + +The Vinaya Pitaka (Discipline Basket), The Sutta Pitaka (Teaching +Basket), The Abhidhamma Pitaka (Higher Religion, or Metaphysical +Basket). + +Rhys Davids, _Buddhism, Its History and Literature_ (London: Putnams. +10s. 6d. 1907); Hastings' _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, vol. +viii, pp. 85-9 (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark. 35s. 1916); K. J. +Saunders, _Heart of Buddhism_ (London: Oxford University Press. 2s. +6d. Calcutta: Association Press. 6d. 1915); Sacred Books of the East, +vols. x, xi, xvii, xix, xx, xxi, xxxv, xxxvi, xlix (see Introduction); +Rhys Davids, _Sacred Books of the Buddhists_, vols. ii, iii (London: +Milford. 12s. 6d. each). + + +C. _The Doctrines and Practices of Hinayāna Buddhism_. + +(The Hindu Setting, Moral Teachings, Concerning the Soul, +Transmigration, Karma, Nirvana, Methods of Salvation, Prayer, +Miracles, The Order Woman.) + +Rhys Davids, _Buddhism, A Sketch_, chaps. iv, v, vi (London: Williams +and Norgate. 2s. 6d. 1912); E. W. Hopkins, _Religions of India_, chap. +xiii (Boston: Ginn & Co. 10s. 6d. 1902); K. J. Saunders, _Buddhist +Ideals_ (Calcutta: Y.M.C.A., 10 annas. 1912). + + +D. _The Expansion of Buddhism_. + +(In India, the Adjacent Countries, in China and Korea, in Japan.) + +K. J. Saunders, _Story of Buddhism_, chaps. iv, vii (see +Introduction); Hackmann, _Buddhism as a Religion_, Book iii (see +Introduction); Rhys Davids, _Buddhism, Sketch_, chap. ix (see C); R. +F. Johnston, _Buddhist China_ (London: Murray. 18s. 1913); K. +Reischauer, _Japanese Buddhism_ (London and New York; Macmillan. 10s. +6d. $2. 1917). + + +E. _Differences between Hinayāna and Mahāyāna_. + +Suzuki, _Outlines of Mahāyāna_ (London: Lusac. 8s. 6d. Out of print. +1908); _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_. Under headings (see B). + + +F. _Buddhism and Christianity_. + +(Similarities and Differences.) + +Saunders, _Buddhist Ideals_ (see C); Carus, _Buddhism and its +Christian Critics_, chap. v (Chicago: _Open Court_ Publishing Co. 7s. +6d.); K. J. Saunders, _Story of Buddhism_, chap. viii (see +Introduction). + + + + + III + + +For still more detailed work see the excellent booklets prepared by +the Board of Missionary Preparation, 25 Madison Avenue, New York City, +_The Preparation of Missionaries to Buddhist Lands_ and _Buddhism and +Buddhists in China_--both in the press. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Buddhism in the Modern World, by K. J. Saunders + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUDDHISM IN THE MODERN WORLD *** + +***** This file should be named 44607-0.txt or 44607-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/6/0/44607/ + +Produced by the volunteers of Project Gutenberg Thailand. +Proofreading by users brianjungwi, emil, rikker, ianh68, +jtbrown. PGT is an affiliated sister project focusing on +public domain books on Thailand and Southeast Asia. Project +leads: Rikker Dockum, Emil Kloeden. 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