\vi\W>?v;>\
lR^\\\\Sxx\\^.\w-^.:^-
■1 -^V^S ;•
\",
■ . V ,1* « »■
■^^^ ;-t^^■•-•^^'*^>^;-
".A
■^ *» «\N
J* * ^ *
ls^\\\ccc^\\^^\\\^^\\\\\\\\\\v^\>x^^^
i^ibmx^af
lllrllrslnt
•^.-
Citllri|f.
(>
an introduction to
mahAyana buddhism
With especial Reference to
Chinese and Japanese
Phases
BY
WILLIAM MONTGOMERY McGOVERN, Ph. D.
Lecturer on Japanese and Chinese at the
School of Oriental Studies {University of London) ;
Priest of the Nishi Honganji, Kyoto, Japan
Author of Modern Japan, Colloquial Japanese,
Elements of Japanese Writing, etc., etc.
LONDON :
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1922
6^
/ ^2:2
DEDICATION
TO
MRS. C. A. F. RHYS-DAVIDS, M.A., D.LITT.
Dear Mrs. Rhys-Davids,
In dedicating to you this exposition of the
bare essentials of the Mahayana philosophy, I
feel that I must explain something of its scope
and aim.
In its original form the present work was part
of a thesis which, when presented to the Japanese
cathedral, the Nishi Honganji, secured me my
Buddhist degree, and an honorary ordination as
a Buddhist priest. In consequence I hope that
it may be considered to represent, as far as it
goes, what the Japanese Buddhists believe to
be true, and what they consider accurate.
In presenting the book in a new dress before
the Western public, a good deal of revision has
taken place, but this has been chiefly a matter
of omission and simplification. All technical
details have been deleted, and any unusual
idea or term has had placed after it a few words of
elementary elucidation.
^^
iv DEDICATION
I have called it an " introduction " for three
reasons. First, because it is intended for a guide
to the general reader of average education, who
does not care to go into details ; second, because
it is intended also to point out the chief sign-
posts to those who desire to take up the subject
somewhat more seriously ; and third, because
it serves as a preface to my longer, more serious,
and more ambitious book on Buddhism, which is
now in preparation.
Finally, may I add that though working at
Buddhism through Chinese rather than Pali
sources, and from the Mahayana rather than the
HJnayana point of view, with the consequence
that I am afraid that you will not always agree
with my presentation, yet I wish to thank you
most heartily for your encouragement, discussion,
and occasional advice.
Yours sincerely,
WILLIAM MONTGOMERY MCGOVERN.
Christ Church, Oxford.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
INTEODUCTION ; the doctrinal
EVOLUTION OF BUDDHISM . . I
I. EPISTEMOLOGY AND LOGIC . . . . 32
II. THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE AND
ITS RELATION TO THE UNIVERSE 48
III. THE TRIKA"yA — THE BUDDHIST
DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY . . J^
IV. THE NATURE AND POWERS OF
BUDDHAHOOD . . . . • • 99
V. PSYCHOLOGY — ELEMENTS OF EXIST-
ENCE 132
VI. THE WHEEL OF LIFE AND THE ROAD
TO NIRVANA 1 53
CONCLUSION: A short history
OF BUDDHISM AND THE PRINCIPAL
BUDDHIST SECTS .. .. .. 180
APPENDIX : the sacred litera-
TL^RE OF THE BUDDHISTS .. 2! 5
INTEODUCTION
THE DOCTRINAL EVOLUTION OF
BUDDHISM
Buddhism is divided into two great schools,
Mahayana and Hinayana. Both systems origi-
nated in India, but since the former predomi-
nates in China, Japan, Nepal, and, in a modified
form, in Tibet and Mongolia, while the latter is
confined almost exclusively to Ceylon, Burma,
and Siam, they are often, and rather incorrectly,
known as Northern and Southern Buddhism.
Mahayana is again divided into unreformed
and reformed branches, the unreformed branch
being found all over Eastern Asia, while there-
formed branch has its centre in Japan. Eoughly,
we may compare these divisions of Buddhism
to those of the principal Occidental faiths. Hina-
yana, or the earlier and more primitive form of
Buddhism, corresponds to Judaism ; Unreformed
Mahayana to Catholicism, and Reformed Maha-
yana to Protestantism.
Of recent years, owing to the labours of such
scholars as Spence Hardy, Gogerly, Prof, and Mrs.
2 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
Khys-Davids, etc., Hinayana has become more
or less known to the Western world, but Maha-
yana still awaits adequate treatment. Different
scholars in dealing with Mahayana have spoken
of it as a ritualistic and animistic degeneration
of Hinayana ; as sophistic nihilism, as mystic
pantheism. They have claimed it to be now
monotheistic, now polytheistic, now atheistic ; or
finally, they have contented themselves with
stating that it is a vast mass of contradictory
ideas, unassimilated and undefined.
It is obvious that all of these descriptions can
not be true, while the historical importance of
the Mahayana philosophy renders it imperative
to attempt some more concise interpretation of
its essential elements, for as Christians far out-
number Jews, so do Mahayanists far outnumber
Hinayanists ; as Christianity has had far more
important cultural connections than Judaism, so
has Mahayana, at the expense of Hinayana,
ineffaceably linked itself with the civilizations of
vast parts of Asia ; and as the early fathers of
the Christian Church and the schoolmen of the
Middle Ages built up a religious and philosophic
system far more important than the ideas ex-
pressed in Eabbinic schools, so is Mahayana the
outcome of centuries of speculative development,
INTRODUCTION 3
enriched by materials from all sources, and ex-
pounded by the great bulk of the ancient meta-
physicians of India and China, while Hina-
yana has remained far more narrow and confined
in its philosophic evolution.
Indian TJiought at the Time of the Buddha.
Any adequate understanding of Mahayana
must be based upon a comprehension of the
stages of its development, of the processes by
which it differentiated itself from the more primi-
tive Hinayana, of the relation of the latter to
pristine Buddhism, and of the place of this
pristine Buddhism in Indian thought.
The period in which Gautama or ^akyamuni,
the historical founder of Buddhism, lived (some
five and a half centuries B.C.) was in many ways
an interesting one. The earlier child-like beliefs
of the Vedas had dwindled, and the implicit
acceptance of the primeval_deities had given way,
at least among the educated classes, to a keen
discussion, from a mystico-rationalist point of
view of the essential problems of existence. It
was the age of the formulation of metaphysical
systems. Bands of mendicant teachers went
forth proclaiming new syntheses of knowledge,
new outlooks on life.
4 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
These Indian philosophers, like their contem-
porary Occidental brethren, were primarily con-
cerned with problems relating to (I) the nature
of ultimate reality, and (II) methods of ascertain-
ing truth.
I. — Just as the early Greek philosophers were
divided into (a) a School of Naive Eealists, (6) a
School of Being, and (c) a School of Becoming, so
did the Indians divide themselves into (1) those
who followed the Vedic hymns and accepted the
universe at its face value, (2) those who taught
that the ultimate nature of things is quiescent and
changeless, that beyond the realm of fluctuating
phenomena is the realm of the absolute, in which
there is no space and time, but only an eternal
present, and (3) those who taught that change,
flux, becoming, integration and disintegration,
are inherent in the nature of things ; that no
thing ever remains the same for two consecutive
moments ; that even the Absolute is ever evolv-
ing and becoming.
II. — Consequent upon these differences of out-
look upon the nature of reality, there arose widely
divergent theories concerning the basis of truth :
(1) Truth through sense impression. In early
days man instinctively believed in the validity
INTRODUCTION 5
of his sense impressions. All things were sup-
posed to be exactly as we see them, and absolute
truth was to be gained by experience.
(2) Truth through reason. Gradually, however,
as the limitations of the senses come to be felt,
it is recognized that the ceaseless change of the
phenomenal world prevents our obtaining an
insight into its nature by means of the senses.
But the school of Being represented by the
Upanishads taught that man's soul is not of the
phenomenal but of the noumenal world, that he
might, through the exercise of his mental
powers, gain a direct insight into the
ultimate nature of reality. This Vedanta doc-
trine corresponds very closely to certain phases
of Plato's theory of knowledge.
(3) Truth through psychological analysis. —
While the Vedantins and Plato were content to
accept the validity of reason, supported, no doubt,
by the seeming absolutivity of mathematics, the
Indian school of Becoming came to regard the
mind, not as an independent, unconditioned, and
eternal entity having a direct insight into truth,
but as a limited, caused, confined, and con-
ditioned organism whose data are of purely rela-
tive value. Acute analysis of the functions of
consciousness no doubt aided this conception,
6 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
and the conflicting nature of all reasoning seemed
to support it. In spite of age-long disputes, no
two systems of philosophy agreed, and no single
rational doctrine could claim universal accept-
ance.
Consequently, only the immediate data of
consciousness could claim assured validity. We
have no means of ascertaining whether or not
these data correspond to ultimate reality, or are
logically consistent, but of the reality of feelings
qua feelings, there can be no doubt.
Primitive Buddhism.
Primitive Buddhism, so far as we can judge
its doctrines by means of higher criticism of the
various recensions of the Siitra Pitaka, was the
supreme example of the Indian Becoming philo-
soi)hy. Change was the foundation stone on
which its metaphysic rested. The body was
considered a living complex organism, possessing
no self -nature. The nature of the mind was sup-
posed to be analogous. The percipient conscious-
ness had no direct insight into truth through a
stable and transcendent reason, but was a com-
pound effected by the chain of causality, and
conditioned by its environment.
Consequently at the outset Buddhism assumed
an agnostic position concerning transcendental
INTRODUCTION 7
problems. " These problems the Blessed One
has left unelucidated, has set aside, has rejected
— that the world is eternal, that the world is not
eternal, that the world is finite, that the world
is infinite, etc."
In a word. Buddhism insisted that we can only-
deal with facts and data of which we are imme-
diately conscious ; with states of consciousness ;
with an analysis of the emotions ; with the
universe as perceived as opposed to the universe
as it is.
The doctrines of primitive Buddhism are all in
accordance with this psychological basis, as may
be seen by examining its theory of the Three
Marks and the Four Noble Truths.
The Three Marks are not doctrines which are
to be accepted on faith, or as the result of logical
reasoning, but are considered the essential charac-
teristics of life as recognized by every day
perceptual and emotional experience.
They are : " (1) All is impermanent. (2) All
is sorrowful. (3) All is lacking a self." This
last phrase refers not only to the soul, but to
the universe as a whole. It consists not of
simple or self-existing things, but of complex,
caused, conditioned things. The fourth mark,
Nirvana, is no less psychological. By means of
8 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
contemplation certain forms of Samadhi, trance,
or ecstasy were experienced. Magnify the ex-
perience, consider it permanent, associate with it
the abolition of sorrow, sin, and ignorance, and
the theory of Nirvana is formulated, for it must
be remembered that originally Nirvana is purely
a state of mind.
The so-called four Noble Truths are derived
from the same basic ideas. Transformed from
an ancient Indian medical rune, they are: — (L)
Suffering exists. (2) The cause of suffering is
desire (and ignorance). (3) There is a possible
end of suffering — Nirvana. (4) This end may be
achieved by following the Noble Eight-fold Path,
which consists of (a) right knowledge, (b) right
aspiration, (c) right speech, (d) right conduct,
(e) right means of livelihood, (f ) right endeavour,
(g) right mindfulness, and (h) right meditation.
The first and third " truths " (suffering and
Nirvana) are the same as the second and fourth
" marks." The fourth (the path to Nirvana) is
purely a point of ethics, and does not at present
concern us. The second (the cause of suffering)
is the most important, and contains the seed of a
very complete phenomenology, for at a very
early stage " suffering " became, in this instance,
synonymous with life, and this " truth " was
JNTR09UCTI9N 9
supposed to explain the origin of the experienced
world — the experienced universe, let it be noted,
for early Buddhism had no interest in the origin
of the external universe.
Primitive Buddhism though agnostic was
probably realistically inclined. It believed that
there is an external universe closely corresponding
to our sense-data, but it realized that in its
present form the world as we see it is subjective,
the result of the percipient consciousness
(vijndna) acted upon by external stimuli.
The theory of the origin, awakening, and
development of the Vijhana is explained in the
obscure Pratitya Samutpdda, or the twelve-linked
chain of causation. This, though differently ex-
plained by the various schools of Buddhism,
always consists of : —
(1) Ignorance.
(2) Action.
(3) Consciousness.
(4) Name and Form.
(5) The Senses.
(6) Contact.
(7) Sensation.
(8) Craving.
(9) Attachment.
(10) Becoming.
(11) Birth.
(12) Old age, disease, and death.
10 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
The origin of the percipient consciousness is
ignorance and desire. Without these the indi-
vidual consciousness would disintegrate, and
though the experienced universe cannot exist
without object, it equally cannot exist without
subject. Consequently when an Arhat (one who
has attained Mrvana) dies, the experienced world
for that person comes to an end.
It will be seen from this that there is a close
connection between cause and effect. This law
Buddhism calls Karma, and is one of the funda-
mental features of the Buddhist faith. Among
the innumerable divisions of Karma we find the
following : —
Des/'re
Ac//o/j ^ — ^ ffeju/f
^-
Another such threefold classification is : —
1. The Seed. {Retu).
2. Environment or attendant circumstances.
(Pratyaya).
3. The result or fruit. (PJiala).
The doctrine of Andtman prevents the belief
in the persistence of the undying personality,
while the doctrine of Karma, on the other hand,
demands that there be something that can reap
the result of a man's good or bad deeds. Accord-
INTRODUCTION II
ingly the early Buddhists taught that the fruit
of a man's deeds will cause the birth of a new
personality after the dissolution of the old. This
birth may be in one of the numerous heavens or
hells, or it may be on the earth again.
Hlnaydna Buddhism.
The philosophy of primitive or pristine Budd-
hism became crystallized in Hinayana Buddhism,
the Orthodox branch of the faith which was
matured during the period from the death of the
Buddha down to about the time of the beginning
of the Christian era, after which it had to compete
with the newly-developed Mahayana. Hinayana
itself was by no means unified, for shortly after
the death of Gautama it broke up into a number
of sects, with widely varying interpretations of
the earlier philosophy. Out of the eighteen or
twenty such Hinayana sects, two only require
especial attention at the present time. These
are, first, the Sthaviravadins (Pali Thervadins),
and, second, the Sarvastivadins.
The former is probably the school which keeps
nearest to the tenets of early Buddhism, but
soon lost its hold over India proper,
though it has always maintained itself in Ceylon,
Burma, and Siam. The Sarvastivadins were of
a more scholastic nature. They transformed
12 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
Buddhism into a complete and consistent
philosophy, and wrote in or translated their
works into classical Sanskrit, while the more
simple Sthaviravadins retained the more collo-
quial, popular, and vulgar Pali. The Sarvas-
tivadins seem to have gained the upper hand in
India some time before the birth of Christ, and
long remained the most important school of
Indian Hinayana. Most of the Hinayana works
translated into foreign tongues, such as Chinese
or Tibetan, belonged to this school, and though
as a separate school it almost expired with the
extinction of Buddhism in India, it had an
enormous influence on the philosophic develop-
ment of the later sects which survived. In fact,
the Sarvastivadins may be called the Hinayana
school par excellence.
Even the more primitive Sthaviravadin school,
which prides itself upon its maintenance of the
letter of the law as preached by Qakyamuni, has
added several important features. The most
essential point is that in practice it has abandoned
the agnosticism of the earlier faith, and depending
upon the fidelity of sense impressions proceeded
to systematize objective phenomena. Thus, for
example, it accepted, in a somewhat modified
form, the ancient cosmography of India, with its
INTRODUCTION 13
geography, astronomy, and account of the in-
tegration and disintegration of the material {i.e.,
external) universe. Where primitive Buddhism
had ignored, the Sthaviravadins denied, the
existence of an Absolute. Those problems which
the early Buddhists has rejected as being irrele-
vant were answered by the Sthaviravadins, even
though the answers were relegated to the body
of relative, as opposed to absolute, truth. The
latter consisted only of such doctrines as the
three marks and the four noble truths.
One of the most important steps to be taken
was the analysis of the parts of being, approached
in the first place from the psychological point of
view. Early Buddhism had taught that instead
of an ego entity, the personality consisted of five
constituent parts (skandha), viz. : — Rupa (Form,
i.e., the body) ; Vedand (sensation or feeling) ;
Samjnd (conception) ; SamsMra (here meaning
various mental qualities) ; and Vijndna (con-
sciousness). The Sthaviravadins divided Form,
the material world, into 27 or 28 parts ; Sensa-
tion into 3 or 5 ; Conception into 6 ; Mental
Qualities into 52 ; and Consciousness into 89
parts.
These divisions were the result of introspective
analysis, but they were considered absolute and
14 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
final. These several divisions constituted the
unchanging elements of existence from which all
phenomena are compounded. Buddhism was
thus transformed from an agnostic and positivist
system, concerned only with suffering and the
alleviation of suffering, into a realistic and
materialistic philosophy, though the transforma-
tion was gradual and could hardly have been
recognized at the time, for early Buddhism per-
mitted the analysis of subjective states, and the
elements of existence of the Sthaviravadins were
enunciated by merely subdividing the divisions
of early Buddhism, while maintaining the sub-
jective or psychological point of view.
The Sarvastivadins are to the Sthaviravadins
what the Sthaviravadins were to primitive Budd-
hism. The materialism and realism of the Stha-
viravadins was made more explicit and categori-
cal ; the agnostic and psychological aspect was
largely lost sight of. Buddhism thus became a
definite and rigid philosophic system, instead of
remaining a body of truths which were effective
irrespective of metaphysics. A most important
step was made when the elements of existence
were classified from an external or objective as
well as from a subjective point of view. The older
or subjective classification was retained (though
INTRODUCTION 15
the subdivisions of each skandha were somewhat
different from those of the Sthaviravadins), but
the subdivisions were re-arranged in such a way
as to constitute a complete analysis of the
external universe.
According to the Abhidharma Ko§a these
elements (or dharma) are 75 in number, classified
in the following way : —
1. Unconditioned Elements {AsamsJcrita Dhar-
ma) or simple elements, so called because they do
not enter into combinations with other elements.
They are three in number, of which Space or
Ether, and Nirvana are two.
2. Conditioned Elements {Samskrita Dharma)^
or complex elements, so called because they
enter into combinations, though themselves sim-
ple and permanent. Their compounds constitute
the phenomena of the universe. These elements
are 72 in number, divided into : —
1. Material elements, 11 in number.
2. Mind, 1 in number.
3. Mental Qualities, such as love, hate, etc.,
46 in number.
4. Miscellaneous elements, such as life, decay,
etc., 14 in number.
These elements were considered permanent and
unchanging, as were the eighty odd physical
16 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
elements of the scientists of a generation ago.
In their present state all phenomena were sup-
posed to be impermanent and unstable, but
consisted of stable and unchanging rudiments.
TJie Transition from Hinaydna to Mahdydna.
In its finished form Hinayana laid great em-
phasis upon two doctrines. These were : — (1)
It is necessary for all men to strive after Arhat-
ship, or salvation from the wheel of life and death.
This was the religious phase. (2) All phenomena
are unstable compounds of a certain fixed number
of stable elements. This was the philosophic
phase.
Neither one of these doctrines can be said to
be in strict conformity with the principles of
early Buddhism. As regards the first, in Hina-
yana a distinction in hind was made between the
Arhat, he who has merely attained Nirvana or
salvation, and the Buddha who had also attained
supreme enlightenment, or, more correctly, three
stages were enunciated : — (1) Arhatship, or mere
salvation ; (2) PratyeJca Buddahood, or private
Buddhahood, supreme enlightenment for oneself
alone ; and (3) Buddahood proper, supreme en-
lightenment gained in order to teach the world.
According to Hinayana not only is there an
INTRODUCTION 17
immense difierence between each stage, but for
the average man the only possible goal is Arhat-
ship ; only one out of many millions may aspire
to Pratyeka Buddhahood, and only one in many
cycles may attain Buddhahood. In primitive
Buddhism, on the other hand, little distinction,
save one of degree, is made between the Buddha
and his illuminated disciples, and the highest
goal is open to all.
As regards the second point, the thorough-
going anitya or impermanency doctrine of primi-
tive Buddhism is presumed to apply to all parts
of the universe. Every thing, even the com-
ponent parts of being, are in a perpetual flux or
becoming, so that the doctrine of a number of
fixed and changeless elements, constituting an
eternal being, seems a departure from the original
outlook on life. To be consistent even the
dharmas or elements should be considered com-
plex, caused, conditioned, subject to change.
On both these points Mahayana rose in revolt
against Hinayana, and attempted to revert to
the spirit of the original teachings. They
claimed that their own teachings more perfectly
expressed the meaning of the Buddha's teach-
ing, just as the Protestants wished to revert to
the ideas of Primitive Christianity. It must be
18 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAyANA BUDDHISM
confessed, however, that this desire for reform
resulted only in the formation of a new system
of religion and philosophy, which retained
something of the spirit but little of the letter of
the earlier faith. Let us take for example the
question of the universality of the Buddha goal,
whereby the distinction in kind between the
Buddha and his disciples was obliterated.
Mahayana, appealing as it does to the emo-
tional and devotional elements, regarded the Arhat
ideal as selfish. It was enamoured of the idea
of self-sacrifice and proclaimed that those who
were content with self-salvation or self-enlighten-
ment might aim only at Arhatship or Pratyeka
Buddhahood, but insisted that its own followers
preferred to abandon these lower aspirations in
order that they might become all-saving Buddhas.
Once this doctrine had been formulated great
emphasis was laid upon it, and we find many
passages breathing the noblest altruism.
Accordingly in early Mahayana all its own
followers were called Bodhisattvas, Buddhas-to-
be, as opposed to the adherents of Hinayana,
who were termed (Jrdvalcas, or aspirants only
after Arhatship.
Later Mahayana, the so-called true Mahayana,
carried this idea still further, and taught that
INTRODUCTION 19
supreme and perfect enlightenment (Buddha-
hood) was the final goal of all. The first half
of the famous Mahayana scripture, the Lotus of
the Good Law (Saddharma Pundarika Sutra),
is given up to shewing that in reality there is but
one road, that the other goals are but updya —
devices — on the parts of the Buddhas for the
purpose of leading the world away from sensu-
ality and materialism.
Strangely enough, however, though throwing
the gates of Buddhahood open to all, Mahayana
took great pains to exalt the dignity and powers
of the Buddhas. In Hinayana the Buddhas are
men pure and simple, while in Mahayana they
are looked upon as divine incarnations, or as
material expressions of the Universal Buddha,
whose existence Mahayana gradually came to
teach.
In Hinayana Sutras sermons are delivered
by ^akyamuni, generally speaking in simple
and unaffected phrases so as to make the auditor
feel the presence of a fatherly and serene old
philosopher, advising those in the battle of life
as one who has just emerged victorious himself.
In Mahayana SUtras, on the other hand, we find
a mysterious and transcendent person far re-
moved from the levels of ordinary humanity,
20 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
who is listened to and worshipped by countless
hordes of beings, celestial, human, and demoniac,
who shower flowers upon the sage while he per-
forms his stupendous supernatural deeds. In
the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra, for example,
Qakyamuni sits for long ages in meditation. He
is the Supreme Euler who has himself led count-
less thousands to Enlightenment during countless
ages, and who never really dies and who is never
really born. The only explanation of this is
that ^akyamuni and all the other Buddhas, as
well as the Universal Buddha, are one.
The Mahdydna Buddhism of India.
The religious aspect of Mahayana developed
some time immediately prior to the Christian
era, but its philosophical aspect was formulated
during the period extending from the first to
the fifth centuries A.D. Two main schools
came to be differentiated. One was the Madhya-
mika school, founded by Nagarjuna and Arya
Deva in the first and second centuries A.D.
The other was the Yogacarya school, founded
by Asanga and Vasubandhu in the fourth
century A.D.
The Madhyamika school, which was thus some
centuries earlier, largely devoted itself to the
INTRODUCTION 21
consideration of the second point on which
Mahayana claimed that Hinayana had departed
from the original teaching — the question of the
existence of certain permanent stable elements
which composed the universe. In accepting
this doctrine, Hinayana, as we have said, almost
abandoned its spirit of insistence upon change
and becoming, and approached the standpoint
of Western philosophy. The root instinct of the
religion was too strong, however, and in the
Madhyamika philosophy a return was made,
to the principle of eternal transience and im-
permanence.
The basis of this undeveloped or early Maha-
yana is (Junya (literally emptiness or the Void).
This doctrine has been frequently totally mis-
understood in the West and taken to mean the
theory of the non-existence of the universe or
purely Nihilistic Idealism. In reality Qunya is
simply an insistence that all things have no self-
essence ; that they are compounds, unstable
organisms even in their elemental stage. The
science of the present generation believes that
the supposedly rigid physical elements are not
necessarily permanent ; that they may be broken
down ; that the elements may themselves prove
to be compounds possessing the essential quali-
22 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
ties of transformation and decay. In like
manner the Qtinya school supposed that the
Dharmas (elements) are impern^anent and have
no existence-unto-themselves ; that they may be
broken down into parts, parts into sub-parts,
and so on eternally. Accordingly all phenomena
have a relative as opposed to an absolute
existence. All of life was once more reduced
to a single underlying flux, a stream of existence
with an everlasting becoming.
In a word, then, the Madhyamika doctrine of
^unya is that there is no thing-unto-itself,
nothing with a self essence, nothing that cannot
be broken up until we reach the great
transcendent reality which is so absolute that it
is wrong to say that it is or that it is not. This
underlying reality — the principle of eternal re-
lativity, non-infinity — permeates all phenomena,
allowing expansion, growth, and evolution, which
would otherwise be impossible.
It is easy to see that this early and undeveloped
Mahayana idea of the Eternal Flux was the germ
of the later doctrine of the Absolute. The
doctrine of the Madhyamika school, however,
was largely a negative one. It reduced all
phenomena to a constantly changing stream of
INTRODUCTION 23
life, but concerning the nature of this stream of
life it tells us little or nothing.
The next stage of doctrinal development, as
found in the Yogacarya school, was a very
important one, and resulted in the formulation
of a remarkably complete system of idealism.
The stream of life was supposed to be the Essence
of mind, a fundamental Mind substance that was
permanent and yet ever changing like the ocean.
From this all the elements (and the 75 elements
of the earlier school became 100 in the Yogacarya
doctrine) and therefore all phenomena are de-
rived. It was called the Alaya Vijndna, re-
pository consciousness, yet it was considered to
be neither matter nor mind, but the basic energy
that was at the root of both.
It is the imperceptible and unknowable
noumenon behind all phenomena. To quote
Kuroda : "In contradistinction to the fallacious
phenomena of existence there is the true Essence
of Mind. The Essence of Mind is the entity
without ideas and without phenomena and is
always the same. It pervades all things, and is
pure and unchanging . . . so it is called
Bh utatatJidta — permanent reality . ' '
It would be easy to exaggerate the importance
of this doctrine and falsely to identify it with
24 INTRODUCTION TO M AH AY AN A BUDDHISM
more developed systems, but undoubtedly it lia8
many points of contact with certain phases of
modern Occidental philosophy. The Alaya
Vijnana is like the Elan de Vie of Bergson, the
Energy of Leibnitz, or the Unconscious of Von
Hartmann. Like the last, though it is the
essence of consciousness, it is not itself conscious
in its earlier stages. It is mental, and yet there
is a certain objective reality about it. Each
unit of life may be regarded as a vortex in the
sea of life. The action and interaction of these
units one with another and with the common
stream brings about the phenomenal appearance
of the Universe.
Accordingly the Alaya Vijnana is regarded in
three aspects, viz: — (1) as active, or the seed of
percipient consciousness ; (2) as passive, as the
sensibilia of consciousness ; (3) as the object of
false belief, inasmuch as being the root of self-
consciousness, each person comes to regard him-
self as an eternal ego unity.
The Early 3Iahdydna Buddhism of
China and Japan.
Buddhism was introduced into China in the
first century A.D., and was firmly established
by the fourth century. It was introduced into
INTRODUCTION 25
Japan in the sixth century, and was firmly
established there in the seventh. The important
sects of Indian Buddhism were introduced into
those two countries, and we find a Bidon or
Kusha sect corresponding to. the Sarvastivadin
school, a Sanron sect corresponding to the
Madhyamika school, and a Hosso sect correspond-
ing to the Yogacarya school. These were all
eclipsed, however, by a number of schools which
developed in China and Japan itself. In these
schools we may distinguish two phases, an
earlier and theoretical or philosophical phase,
and a later or practical and religious phase.
The early or philosophic phase is best repre-
sented by the two schools of Tendai and Kegon.
The Tendai school is in some ways a further
development of the Madhyamika school, the
Kegon of the Yogacarya, but both are synthetic
philosophies, and have borrowed largely from all
available sources. The doctrines of the two
schools closely resemble each other, differing
chiefly on points of emphasis, so that for the time
being they may be considered together.
Their most valuable contribution to Buddhist
philosophy was the development of the idea of
the Absolute, which was latent in both the
Madhyamika and Yogacarya schools. The
26 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
Essence of Mind, or the Sea of Life is regarded as
the one fundamental reality. It alone can be
said to have a permanent existence, all phenom-
ena being merely ephemeral manifestations there-
of. It is very frequently called the Middle
Principle (Chu), since it transcends both Being
(Ke) and Becoming (Kii). Chinese Mahay anists
answer the question of Being and Becoming by
the simile of the ocean. The ocean is the Ab-
solute, the waves are life's phenomena. The
ocean is always changing. Waves are constantly
arising, and no two waves are ever alike. So does
the stream of life ever go surging past, never
remaining the same. Yet there is a certain
stability, a certain being, a fixity, a changeless-
ness in this very changeability.
The doctrine of the Absolute of most Western
philosophies is based upon the idea of pure
Being. The Mahayana doctrine of the Absolute
(Bhutatathata) evolved from the idea of be-
coming, yet the two doctrines are strangely v/
similar. In both the Absolute is the sufficient
reason of the universe ; it is the principle of
existence which transcends but includes matter
and mind, life and death, sameness and difference,
Samsara (the phenomenal world) and Nirvana
(the noumenal world). The Bhutatathata of
INTRODUCTION 27
Mahayana is the norm of life, the acme of being,
the warp and the woof of the universe. It
comes near to Hegel's conception of the Absolute,
inasmuch as it is not only the force behind
evolution, but also the very process of evolution
itself.
Eetaining, as Chinese Mahayana does, the
conception that all existence is derived from the
Alaya Vijnana, which, in turn, has its essence and
supporting principle in the Bhutathata, it
declares that the Absolute is both identical and
non-identical with the material universe. It is,
to quote the ocean simile again, as if the water
were stirred up by the winds of ignorance where-
by the waves are produced. The water there-
fore is both identical and not identical with the
waves. To quote scholastic verbiage, the Uni-
verse is but a mode of the Universal.
Preceding systems had formulated, as we shall
presently see, the doctrine that every Buddha
has three bodies, the DharmaMya, the Body of
the Law, the Sambhogalcdya, the body of Com-
pensation, and the Nirmanakdya, or the body of
Transformation. In developed Buddhism the
Bhiitatathata is regarded as a sort of Universal
Buddha- Accordingly it was likewise considered
to be possessed of the three bodies, so that we
28 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
find in the later stages an almost Christian idea
of the Trinity. The Dharmakaya corresponds
to an impersonalized God the Father, the
Abstract order of the universe, or better, Mr.
Well's Unmanifested Deity, the Sambhogakaya
a more personalized ideation of the Absolute the
symbol of moral perfection and the object of
devotion — Mr. Well's God the Invisible King,
and the Nirmanakaya is equivalent to the
Christian God the Son, or the Absolute as
manifested in the world in the guise of a human
Buddha.
The Later Mdhdydna Buddhism of China and
Japan.
The later schools of Chinese and Japanese
Buddhism are not so much doctrinal develop-
ments as various adaptations of the foregoing
philosophical foundation. The most important
sects were the Shingon or Mantra sect, the Zen
or Dhyana sect, and the Jodo or Sukhavati sect.
All of them agreed in accepting the older philo-
sophical foundations but gave them a religious,
and to a large extent mystical bias.
The Shingon school claims to be the hidden
or esoteric doctrine of which all outward or
exoteric doctrines are but symbols. The full
INTRODUCTION 29
truth, or the inner mysteries are revealed only to
those who have been initiated into the order. For
the uninitiate the Shingon speaks only in terms ol
parable and symbol. The Absolute and the
various aspects of the Absolute are represented as
celestial Buddhas and Bodhisattyas, each one
with a mystic name, form, colour, and sign —
each represented by a certain sound. The
Bhiitatathata itself, as a whole, is generally
represented as Vairocana or the Sun Buddha.
The noumenal aspect of the universe is called
the Diamond World ; the phenomenal aspect the
Womb World, and sacred charts (mandala) are
drawn illustrating the nature, attributes, and
relations of each. The Shingon sect corresponds
very closely to the Lamaism of Tibet and
Mongolia. Both are derived from the later
phases of the Yogacarya sect in India, about the
sixth century A.D,, when esotericism became
rampant in both Hindu and Buddhist circles.
The Zen Dhyana school represents a different
type of esotericism or mysticism. The basic idea
of Zen is that all formulated doctrines, whether
exoteric or esoteric ; all books ; all speech ; and
even all thought are inadequate to express the
full nature of absolute truth. Consequently
Zen refuses to place complete credence in any
30 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
one book, or collection of books, Buddhist or
otherwise. It refuses to tie itself to any doctrine
or creed. It accepts the philosophy of the Tendai
and Kegon schools from a relative point of view,
but insists that absolute truth must be found by
each man for himself by means of intuitional
realization to be gained through meditation.
The only definite teaching to be found in the
Zen sect is that every man is possessed of the
Bodhicitta (the heart of wisdom) or the seed of
Buddhahood. Every man is a sleeping Buddha.
Consequently a man has but to awaken his
Bodhicitta by meditation for him to gain a
direct insight into the nature of reality. The
Zen sect was introduced into China by Bodhid-
harma in the sixth century, and into Japan by
Eisai in 1191.
The Sukhavati doctrine, more particularly as
represented by the Shin sect, the reformed
branch of Mahayana Buddhism may be called
the mysticism of exclusive adoration. In this
school the Absolute or Universal Buddha is
symbolized as Amitabha the Buddha of Infinite
light, or Amitayus, the Buddha of Infinite Time,
and as such is the object of fervent devotion.
Enlightenment, or Nirvana, or Buddhahood is
symbolized by the Paradise, SukhSvatl, or JMo
INTRODUCTION 31
of Amitabha. Eebirth in this paradise is to be
gained by self-forgetting adoration of the
supreme. In early days Amitabha may have
been regarded as an historical Buddha, and his
paradise a place to be gained by death, but, in
the developed doctrine of Chinese and more
especially Japanese Buddhism, we are told that
Amitabha is without beginning and without end,
that he is but a symbol for an inexpressible
reality, that rebirth into his paradise is nothing
more than the awakening of the Bodhicitta here
on earth, and that this Bodhicitta is to be
awakened by love and by faith. At the present
time both Chinese and Japanese Buddhism is
dominated by the Zen and Jodo ideas — Zen
being an embodiment of absolute truth for the
educated, and Jodo its relative symbol for the
mass of the people.
f
CHAPTER 1
EPISTEMOLOGY AND LOGIC
All understanding of Buddhist metaphysics
must be based upon a comprehension of its theory
of knowledge. This theory we had best consider
under three aspects : — (1) The nature of truth,
(2) The methods of ascertaining truth, and (3)
The methods of demonstrating truth.
1. The Nature of Truth.
In Buddhism we find great emphasis laid upon
the two-fold and the three-fold aspects of truth.
In a primitive form the two-fold division is to be
found in Hinayana Buddhism, and probably
dates back to the time of Qakyamuni himself,
but was first emphasized by the Madhyamika
school of Mahayana.
According to this there are two forms of truth,
Relative Truth (Samvritti-satya or Zokutai)
and Absolute Truth (Paramartha-satya or
Shintai). In earlier days this distinction was
applied to differentiate those doctrines which
were an essential and fundamental part of
EPISTEMOLOGY AND LOGIC 33
Buddhism (such as the Four Noble Truths,)
which were absolutely true and changeless, and
those doctrines which were merely adopted by
Buddhist metaphysicians to fill out a philosophic
conception of the universe, and which would
necessarily be modified as new information came
to light. To this category belong the various
theories of cosmography, etc.
Later Buddhism slightly modified this con-
ception. Absolute Truth was equivalent to
complete and perfect enlightenment. Words
being but symbols are incapable of describing
adequately or defining it. Thought consists of
a number of concepts, and any concept being
equally a symbol and therefore inadequate, it
follows that a knowledge of Absolute Truth
cannot be gained merely by a process of ratiocina-
tion. While, however. Absolute Truth is in-
conceivable it is not unrealizable for through
spiritual development we may gain direct
illumination, more or less adequate, according
to our nature and the stage of our development.
Once we have thus acquired a direct insight into
truth we may inadequately attempt to clothe it
in words and concepts, and crystallize it into
dogmas, as a guide to the later seekers after
truth. It is, however, like trying to describe
34 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
the colours of the rainbow to a man blind from
birth.
This crystallization of truth by formulation of
doctrine is what the Mahayanists call relative
truth. Absolute Truth is ever the same, while
relative truth is ever advancing, coming nearer
and nearer to an approximation of Absolute
Truth, as each generation taking the doctrine of
its predecessors is able more succinctly to
interpret it and compare it with new realizations
of Absolute Truth. While, however, the smaller
circle of relative truth is constantly expanding
and thereby approaching in size the greater circle
of Absolute Truth, the two can never coincide,
since the latter is infinite, and the former must
ever deal with finite instruments, such as the
brain or speech.
Mahay ana declares that all theories, hypo-
theses, doctrines, whether verbal or incorporated
in scriptures, whether scientific, philosophical or
religious, and including its own doctrines of
Nirvana, the Universal Buddha, etc., belong to
the body of relative truth, and must, therefore,
be modified with the course of time. This
conception of the nature of truth greatly facili-
tates the doctrinal development of later Budd-
hism, allowing for the evolution of new theories
EPISTEMOLOGY AND LOGIC 35
and interpretations, while the simpler theory of
truth maintained by the Southern Buddhists
caused them to stick fast to the letter of the law
as taught by ^akyamuni.
The three-fold division of truth is nothing
more than a restatement of this in other terms.
The three classes are (1) illusion (parikalpita),
(2) relative knowledge (paratantra), (3) absolute
knowledge (parini§panna). The first is abso-
lutely false, as when a rope lying in the road is
mistaken for a snake. The second is a pragmatic
comprehension of the nature of things sufficient
for ordinarj^ purposes, as when the rope is seen
to be a rope. The third deals with the real and
ultimate nature of things, when the rope is
analysed and its true nature understood. The
only real difference between the two -fold and
the three-fold divisions of truth is that finite
knowledge is separated into falsehood and that
which is relatively true, and the latter exalted
to its proper position, since otherwise, by neglect
of this important phase, intellectual progress
would be barred.
2. Methods of Ascertaining Truth.
Early Buddhism had no elaborate epistemology
or logic, but in the period of the full development
36 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
of Mahayana Buddhism we find the following
classification of the means of evaluating know-
ledge : —
7. INDIRECT.
1. Tradition.
a. Exoteric.
b. Esoteric.
II. DIRECT.
1. Experience.
a. Empirical.
b. Intuitional.
2. Reason.
a. Pure reason.
b. Practical reason.
A word must be said concerning each of these
points.
Buddhism has both an external and an internal
standard of truth. The saints and sages of the
past have had a direct insight into the nature of
reality, and in consequence the truth which they
expounded must be accepted by all. On the
other hand such sages have only achieved en-
lightenment through means which are open to
us all. By process of experience, both material
and spiritual, and by reason, both pure and
practical, we may test the validity of each of
their positions and reinterpret their meanings
EPISTEMOLOGY AND LOGIC 37
into closer accordance with the knowledge of
the time.
Tradition is of two kinds, exoteric and esoteric.
The first is embodied in the external dogmas of
Buddhism as expounded in the Sutras, Vinayas,
and the Abhidharmas, which are open so that all
the world may read, while many branches of
Mahayana insist that beyond this there is a
secret tradition which may never be written
down, which requires proper training and
initiation before it can be understood.
Experience was likewise divided into two
phases. The first is merely the ascertainment of
truth through ordinary physical sense organs
and sense objects. Provided the sense organs
and the sense perceiving aspects of consciousness
are normally constituted the data which they
furnish may be taken as valid, at least for the
establishment of relative as opposed to Absolute
Truth. Owing to the limitations of the physical
senses and the brain machine, Absolute Truth
can only be glimpsed by transcending them and
gaining knowledge through intuition or direct
realization. For such purposes all doctrines,
theories, and scriptures are but fingers pointing
to the moon, and have no inherent validity.
This doctrine is called the doctrine of Ton or
38 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
suddenness, i.e., the means whereby knowledge
may be gained at one stroke through transcen-
dental apperception without waiting to piece
together, one by one, the data of empirical
knowledge.
Reason is the means whereby we piece to-
gether the separate and unconnected sense data,
whether empirical or transcendental, and thereby
make a system or a new co-ordination of facts,
enabling us to lay down generalizations and
broad formulae. Owing to the whole trend of
its philosophy Buddhism could not place such
great stress upon the importance of abstract or
pure reason as could Plato and Aristotle. Never-
theless even the Hinayana sutras proclaim that
nothing is to be accepted that is not in accordance
with reason, and in the metaphysical systems of
Mahayana the process of abstract reason was the
method most frequently employed, more
particularly in such schools as the Tendai and
the Avatamsaka or Kegon.
Yet, inasmuch as Buddhism taught that the
ephemeral nature of external reality and of
consciousness was an obstacle to the ascertain-
ment of Absolute Truth by sophism or bare
deductive reasoning, we early find a tendency
towards pragmatism, or a substitution of practic-
EPISTEMOLOGY AND LOGIC 39
al for pure reasoning, or a tendency to judge of
the validity of a doctrine by its effect upon human
life. Thus for example in the Hinayana sutras,
in discussing what we might call the freedom of
the will, we find the Buddha saying " Some
Qramanas and Brahmins there are who maintain
that whatever a man has in this life ... is
purely due to predestination. Others say that
it is due to the will of Igvara (God), others
again that it is due to blind chance. Now, O
monks, when I find Qramanas and Brahmins
holding or preaching such views I . . . say to
them, ' So then, you must acknowledge that
men become murderers, thieves, etc. . . on account
of Fate, Igvara's will, or blind chance. Accord-
ingly all attempts at improvement or distinction
between right and wrong, become of no avail.
Such being the case the moral regeneration of
the fallen becomes impossible.' This sort of
reasoning must silence those who hold any of the
three views mentioned above ." The pragmatic
nature of this argument is obvious.
In Mahayana we find the doctrine carried
somewhat further, and associated with what we
might call the symbolic theory of truth, i.e., that
the nature of absolute truth is so great and so
infinite that it can never be completelj' and
40 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
adequately grasped by finite logic, yet neverthe-
less it may be expressed or indicated by a
symbol which teaches us something of its essence
without limiting it by definition.
Thus the nature of the Absolute (Bhfttata-
thata) can never be properly formulated, yet
by symbolizing it as the universal Buddha,
as Amitabha, Infinite Light, or Amitayut^,
Infinite Time, we may have a focus for devotion
which may remain as a living and vital stimulus
towards the spiritual life even when increasing
knowledge may cause us to reinterpret our sym-
bols. This is the doctrine of upaya or hoben,
means or devices, or accommodations of truth
to the minds of the hearers, which is really the
basis of the Sukhavati or Paradise doctrine.
3. Methods of Demonstrating Truth.
Buddhist logic which is comprised in a sort of
inverted syllogism passed through a very inter-
esting evolution. From the first it was obviously
a logic of demonstration of ideas already enter-
tained, rather than a pretence of deduction of
previously unknown facts, as was claimed, and
now considered falsely claimed, by Aristotelian
logic, with which it baa otherwise much in
common.
EPISTEMOLOGY AND LOGIC 41
Again the frankly Becoming and consequently
anti-rational position of Buddhism hindered the
evolution of its logic. Hinayana Buddhism, in
fact, never produced any logical system, and even
the reasoning of the early Madhyamika and
Yogacarya scholars with their five-fold syllogism
is largely based on analogical reasoning, the
citing of individual homogeneous and hetero-
geneous examples rather than the proof of a fact
by citing a universal and invariable law.
Dignaga or Mahadignaga was the first to
devote himself almost exclusively to logic, and
with him Buddhist logic, properly so called,
begins. His syllogism is as follows : —
Thesis, e.g. — Socrates is mortal.
Reason, e.g. — Because Socrates is a man.
Example, e.g. — And all men are mortal.
With this may be compared the Occidental
formula : —
Major Premise. — All men are mortal.
Minor Premise. — Socrates is a man.
Conclusion. — Therefore Socrates is mortal.
Let us examine each of these features some-
what more in detail : —
1. The thesis is divided into the subject or
minor term (pakga) e.g., " Socrates," and pre-
dicate or major term (sadhya) e.g., " mortal."
42 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
Neither subject nor predicate is itself to be
disputed, but only the thesis or proposition
concerning their relationship.
2. The reason or premise must be a known
truth, or a truth accepted by all. Consequently,
Dign^ga wiU place here only those facts known
directly, i.e., through reason or experience, and
not those facts which are known indirectly, e.g.,
by tradition, exoteric, or esoteric.
3. The same thing must hold true of the
Example, which is of a more abstract nature.
The word example (drstanta) is singularly un-
fitted to denote the idea of the major premise,
and is derived from the period when the universal
law of necessary concomitance was unknown,
and in its place there was cited one or two
analogous examples. Thus the old syllogism
would have run : —
Thesis. Sound is non-eternal.
Reason. Because it is produced.
Example. Like a pot, and not like space,
while with Dignaga it is of course : —
Thesis. Sound is non-eternal.
Reason. Because it is produced.
Example. All produced things are non-eternal,
to which might bo added, purely for purposes
of elucidation, and not for proof, the homo-
EPISTEMOLOGY AND LOGIC 43
geneous example " like a pot," and the hetero-
geneous example " not like space."
Dignaga's rule for the formation of his new
example was to " take the reason for the subject,
and the major term for the predicate." Thus
for example : —
Thesis. AU A is B.
Reason. All A is C.
Example. All C is B,
or, in other words, to cite another syllogism :—
Thesis. All diamonds are combustible.
Reason. Because all diamonds are carbon. .
Example. And all carbon is combustible.
This brings us to a discussion of the famous
doctrine of the 3 phases of the reason or middle
term (hetu).
1. The first deals with the relation between
the middle term (C) and the minor term or
subject (A). 2. The second deals with the
relation between the middle term (C) and the
major term or predicate (B). 3. The third
deals with the relation between the middle
term (C) and the heterogeneous example (which
we will call D).
For a syllogism to be valid : — 1. 0 must
include the whole of A, e.g.^ the word carbon must
include all and not merely some of diamonds.
44 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
2. All C must invariably apply to B, but it need
not include all B, e.g., all carbon must be com-
bustible, though combustible things may include
other things than carbon. 3. C must include
no D or Non-B, e.g., carbon must possess no
non-combustible qualities.
Finally we come to the fallacies, the presence
of which in either the thesis, the reason, or the
example would make the syllogism invalid.
We are told that there are 9 fallacies of the
thesis, 14 fallacies of the reason, and 10 fallacies
of the example, but these as lying within the
realm of pure technicality, are outside the scope
of our present undertaking.
4. Absolute Truth, and Buddhist Doctrines.
Such then is the Buddhist theory of the nature
of truth, and the means of ascertaining and
demonstrating it. The question then arises, does
Buddhism claim a unique possession of truth,
does it state that its own doctrines are the sole,
final, and absolute embodiments of reality ?
Such is far from the case. Its doctrine of the
distinction between Absolute Truth and relative
truth, caused it to state that all of its own doc-
trines, and theories, as well as the sacred works
containing them, belong exclusively to the
EPISTEMOLOGY AND LOGIC 45
realm of relative truth, and are, therefore, liable
to error, and capable of constant improvement,
that other systems of thought no less than its
own are equally but the imperfect embodiments
of inadequate glimpses of absolute reality. This
idea, more or less common to all forms of Maha-
yana Buddhism, is emphasized by the Dhyana
sect.
The mode of expression adopted by a modern
leader of the school, Kaiten Nukariya in his
" Religion of the Samurai " is very interesting : —
" The scripture is no more nor less than the
finger pointing to the moon of Buddhahood.
When we recognize the moon and enjoy its
benign beauty, the finger is of no use. As the
finger has no brightness whatever so the scripture
has no holiness whatever. The scripture is
religious currency representing spiritual wealth.
It does not matter whether the money be gold
or sea-shells or cows. It is a mere substitute.
What it stands for is of paramount importance.
" Away with your stone knife. Do not watch
the stake against which a running hare once
struck its head and died. Do not wait for
another hare. Another may not come forever.
Do not cut out the side of the boat from which
you dropped your sword to mark where it sunk.
46 INTRO DUCT IO\ TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
The boat is ever moving on. The canon is the
window out of which we observe the grand
spiritual scenery of spiritual nature. To hold
communion directly with it we must get out of
the window. It is a mere stray fly that is always
buzzing within it struggling to get out. Those
who spend most of their lives in the study of the
scriptures are religious flies, good for nothing but
their buzzing about nonsensical technicalities.
It is on this account that Einzai declared ' The
twelve divisions of the Buddhist canon are
nothing better than waste paper.' "
After outlining the " Relative Truth " re-
garding the Absolute Nukariya goes on to say : —
" Has then the divine nature of the Universal
Spirit been completely and exhaustively re-
vealed to our Enlightened Consciousness 1 To
this question we would answer in the negative,
for so far as our limited experience is concerned
Universal Spirit reveals itself as a being with
profound wisdom and boundless mercy ; this
nevertheless does not imply that this conception
is the only possible and complete one. It goes
on to disclose a new phase, to add a new truth.
The subtlest logic of old is a mere quibble of now-
a-days. . . . New theories are formed, new
discoveries are made only to jfive way to newer
EPISTEMOLOGY AND LOGIC 47
theories and newer discoveries. New ideale
realized or new desires satisfied are sure to
awaken new and stronger desires. Not an instant
life remains the same, but it rushes on amplify-
ing and enriching itself from the dawn of time
to the end of eternity."
CHAPTEE II
THE NATUEE OF THE ABSOLUTE A^'D
ITS EELATION TO THE UNIVEESE
1. The Outlook on Life
Questions concerning the outlook on life have
always played an integral part in Buddhist
philosophy. In fact, in its essence, Buddhism is
not an analysis of the ultimate nature of existence
or an explanation of the noumenon which lies
behind phenomena, but it is an interpretation
of the good and bad of life, taken as a whole and
unanalysed.
Like all other phases of Buddhist thought its
theory of the proper evaluation of life has
undergone great evolution and modification.
Its various ramifications may best be considered
under three stages, which, for want of better
terms, we may call, (1) absolute pessimism, (2)
absolute optimism, and (3) relative pessimism.
The first is associated with primitive and Hina-
yana Buddhism ; the second with the doctrines
of the various schools of unreformed Mahay^ua ;
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 49
the third with the reformed branch of
MahSyana.
[a). Absolute Pessimum.
Primitive Buddhism began by saying, as we
know, (1) all is impermanent, (2) all is lacking a
self, (3) all is sorrowful. The very nature of
phenomenal life is transient, and consequently
all joys are transient. Where there is birth
there is necessarily old age, disease, and death.
Those whom we love are estranged, or are taken
from us. Achievement is disillusionment. The
few benefit at the expense of the many, and even
the few find no real enjoyment in life.
This state of affairs holds true not merely for
the present earthly existence, but for all possible
forms of life, whether in heaven or hell, whether
in the past, present, or future. Consequently
for primitive Buddhism, and for Hinayana
Buddhism life, qua life, has no fascination. It
can find peace and satisfaction only in emancipa-
tion from all known forms of existence, in com-
plete escape from the phenomenal world, in the
annihilation of bodily and mental existence,
namely Mrvana.
Nirvana, to be sure, is purely a state of mind
obtainable anywhere and at any time, and is to
50 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
be achieved while still in the flesh, but as life or
the corporate personality is only formed as the
result of ignorance and desire in the past, when
the Arhat, he who has attained Nirvana, dies no
new personality can be formed, and certainly,
from our material point of view, the personality
is wiped out of existence.
This is what is known as the 8hd1cyoku-teki no
Nehan or the negative view of Nirvana, where
life is compared to the waning of the moon.
Here the moon is compared to the sins and
sorrows of life. Gradually it wanes until finally
there is nothing left.
(&). Absolute Optimism.
All this was changed by the formulation of the
doctrine of the Absolute, the Universal Buddha,
or the Essence of Mind, the supreme ideal
which is behind all life and from which all things
draw their sustenance.
Every sentient being is possessed of the
Bodhicitta (the wisdom heart) or the seed or
kernel of enlightenment. This is the spark of
Buddhahood which has only to be awakened to
spring into the flame of perfection or Buddhahood.
Consequently all forms of life spring from the
noumenon which is itself good, which is possessed
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 51
of the four-fold qualities of Jo purity, raku
pleasure, ga self essence, and jO permanence.
All phenomenal life is bad only because it is
relative, incomplete, imperfect, because it in-
adequately expresses the absolute, because it is
bounded and conditioned, for latent within each
phenomenon is supreme bliss.
Nirvana consists not in escape from the world,
but in the unlocking of the hidden nature, the
development of the sleeping Buddha, the un-
folding of potentialities. It is the fruition of
life rather than its denial. Sin and sorrow are
not so much exterminated as transmuted into
holiness and joy.
This is known as the Shakkyoku-teki no
Nehan or the positive Nirvana, in which Nirvana
is compared to the waxing of the moon. The
moon is the Bodhicitta, which steadily grows in
intensity until the full moon of Buddhahood be
reached.
(<j). Relative Pessimism.
Later followed the inevitable reaction. When
the world is considered all perfect, men cease to
strive for the cessation of the imperfect. Sin,
sorrow, and misfortune are brushed aside as
52 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
aspects of the whole by which its absolutivity
may be more adequately judged.
Shinran, the founder of the Shin school of
Buddhism (13th century A.D.), accepted the
philosophy of unreformed Mahayana Buddhism,
but gave it a practical turn. Though the world
be potentially good and all men possessed of
the Bodhicitta, yet do grief and doubt assail us.
Meditation upon the Absolute may suffice the
metaphysician, but the man in the street is left
disconsolate. Weak mortality is unable to
awaken the Bodhicitta, and for such the older
philosophies give no help.
Though acting on these ideas Shinran did not
deny the validity of the older doctrines, but he
devoted his life to formulating them in such a
way that they might serve as a comfort and a
stimulus. Looked at from the relative point of
L/view, so long as our hearts are bent upon
external pleasures, or are in dependence upon
material things, there is no true happiness or
peace of mind. Anguish seizes upon us, and we
find ourselves forlorn and hopeless.
I .Salvation, however, may be found in under-
standing the true meaning behind the words
Amida, Tariki, and Ojo. Amida, (Sanskrit
Amitabha) is a symbol of the Infinite, the sum
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 53
total of our highest aspirations. Tariki (liter-
ally other power) is a complete setting aside of
personal motives, of self- aspiration in a complete
adoration of the supreme. It is, as we have
said, a mysticism of exclusive adoration. This
awakens the Busshin or Buddha heart (Bodhi-
citta) which results in Ojo, rebirth in Paradise,
a rebirth which takes place not merely at death,
but at the moment in life of complete self-
abnegation, thereby differing from the older
Sukhavati doctrine, which gave a purely material
and post-mortem position to Paradise.
Life then is relatively evil, that is, evil so long
as we place our trust in anything save Amida,
but becomes a resting place, a temporary abode
of the Bodhicitta, when once the latter has been
awakened by unselfish adoration. As Amida is
eternal, so is the Bodhicitta eternal, but whether
after death it retains its discreteness, or is lost in
the sea of perfection, only the awakened one can
know.
2. The Nature of Reality.
On no point is the diversity of Buddhist
philosophy so exemplified as on that of its
various theories of the nature of ultimate reality.
There is, of course, the marked line of cleavage
54 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
between the Hinayana and Mahay ana philoso-
phies, but, in addition, each of these schools
is several times subdivided. The principal
stages may be summarized as follows : —
1. Primitive Buddhism^ or psychological
agnosticism, in which no attempt is made to
explore the recesses of the noumenal world, and
no theories concerning ultimate reality are
postulated.
2. Hinaydna Buddhism teaches a material-
istic realism, that the universe consists of a
certain small number of elements, uncreated,
which enter into combination in accordance
with causal law, unconnected with any super-
natural law giver.
3. The Mddhyamika School of Mahaydna
broke up these elements into component parts,
and stated that there is only a fluid, fluctuat-
ing stream of life, and that therefore all seemingly
unchanging phenomena have only a conceptual
existence.
4. The Yogdcdrya School of Mahdydna called
this stream of life the Essence of Mind or the
Alaya Vijnana, which is no less fluid or devoid of
eternal particularity. The evolution of this
Essence of Mind brings about the formation
of the phenomenal universe.
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 55
6. Chinese and Japanese Mahdyana (especi-
ally the Tendai and Kegon sects) has developed
the theory of the Absolute latent in the fore-
going conceptions, and states that the Bhtita-
tathata is both the Norm or Pure Form, or
Supreme Idea, and also the fundamental essence
of all life.
This theory of the Absolute or Bhtitatathata
is so important that a few words of elucidation
are necessary. It is the doctrine which most
sharply distinguishes Mahayana from Hinayana,
and, on the other hand, the peculiar line of
development which the theory underwent causes
it to be essentially different from most other
doctrines of the Absolute as found in either
Europe or Asia.
Classification of Theories Concerning the
Absolute.
It is important to understand quite clearly
just what relationship exists between the
Mahayana and other theories concerning the
nature of the Absolute. In attempting to
explain their own position, modern Mahayana
scholars have classified the various forms of
monotheism In the following way : —
1. Tran$oendental Monotheism, under which
56 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
Orthodox Christianity and Islam are included.
In this the Deity and the world are entirely
separate and distinct. Spirit and matter were
created by God out of nothing and henceforwards
exercise their functions in accordance with His
Laws. This school has three divisions, (a)
anthropomorphic in which a definite form is
assigned to the Deity, (b) anthropopathic in
which the Deity is without body or parts, yet has
semi-human emotions, and (c) the school in
which the Deity though more or less personal
yet is " without body parts, or passions."
2. Emanational Monotheism is a modified
form of pantheism which teaches that God and
the World are not the same, yet the world is of
a similar nature and is an emanation from the
Deity. In this school the Divine is the parent as
well as the ruler of the Universe. This theory
which found much favour with the Hindus and
the Sufis, and which has had a revival amongst
many members of modern Liberal Christianity is
usually associated with the idea that the world
when first emanated was pure, but that it has
become corrupted, though finally the universe
and the human soul will once more be purified,
whereupon it will be reabsorbed into the Divine
Essence.
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 57
3. JDevolutional Monotheism. With the third
form of monotheism we definitely enter the
limits of pantheism strictly so-called. In this
system God and the world are absolutely synony-
mous, one word being used for the other. There
are two forms of this idea, one is that the Divine
is simply the sum total of the atoms which com-
pose the universe, the other which has been
termed panentheism, is that God while the sum-
total is yet something more, a something in
itself.
In either case this school teaches that in the
manifestation of the universe the Divine has
changed His essence — that the nature of the
Absolute was at first pure and undefiled like
clear water, but that subsequently it became
polluted as if some mud were mingled with it
but that at some future time it is to be hoped that
this mud will be strained off and the water will
once more resume its clarity.
4. The Mahay ana Conception stands in con-
tradistinction to all the other teachings. To be
sure Mahayana is, philosophically at least,
monotheistic, and at the same time it is Pantheis-
tic in teaching that the divine and the universe
are indivisible, though with the Panentheista
Mahayana asserts that the Universal Buddha is
58 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
far more than the sum-total of existence. The
fundamental difference is that according to
Mahayana the essence of the Divine remains un-
changed throughout all eternity, and the basic
nature of one phenomenon is exactly the same
as another, though the mode of expression or
manifestation may be widely different.
We are given two illustrations of this idea.
The first is that of pots of clay. There are, we
know, pots of many shapes and sizes, some used
for good purposes and some for bad, though they
may all be of the same underlying substance.
The other illustration is that of the ocean which
we have already pointed out. The pots and the
waves are the different phenomena of the
universe, while the clay and the ocean are the
Absolute. While, to use the simile of the ocean,
no two waves are alike, they are all of the same
essence, the water, and that essence remains
unchanged, though it is constantly assuming
new and different shapes and transformations.
In like manner, says Mahayana, does the
Absolute express itself in the Universe without
in the least affecting its own essence. The
Bhfltatathata therefore is the Eternal Being and
yet th« Eternal Becoming. Furthermore ai
tbare can be an ocean without waves but no
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 59
waves without ocean, so, Mahayana declares, that
no life would be possible without having for its
essence the Bhutatathata.
The Mahayana Theory of the Nature of the
Absolute.
A careful examination of the Mahayana
theory of the Bhutatathata or Absolute shews
that it combines two widely different concepts.
These are (1) the norm of life, and (2) the essence
of life.
(1) On the one hand it is not the Universe,
but the sufficient reason of the Universe, the
abstract idea of law and causality, the such-
as-it-is-ness of life. It thus combines something
of the Aristotelian conception of the Pure Form
of the Universe as opposed to its content, with
the Platonic theory of ideas. In this aspect
it is the symbol of intellectual and moral per-
fection. It is for this reason that we find the
Absolute described as Bharma (Law), or Bhar-
makdya (The Body of the Law), as the Essence
of Buddha, since it constitutes the reasons of
Buddhahood, Bodhi (Wisdom) or the source of
intelligence, Prajna (Enlightenment), Baramarthd
(Absolute Truth), etc.
(2) On the other hand,\in addition to being
60 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
the Norm or the Pure Form of the Universe,
it is also its ultimate essence. The Bhiitatathata
is identical with the Essence of Mind, and so it
is called the seed of life, or the TathdgatagarbJia
(the womb of the Tathagata) when it is thought
of in analogy to Mother Earth where all the
germs of life are stored. The Alaya Vijhana
is but a development of this aspect of the Bhiita-
tathata. In the early days the word MahayS.na
was used in a similar connection.
In the famous Mahayana ^raddhotpada ^astra,
which is accepted as Orthodox by all branches
of Mahayana, we find the following general and
detailed explanation of the Buddhist theory of
the Absolute : —
(a). General Explanation.
The Absolute can be considered in two ways,
(1) Its Substance, and (2) Its Attributes. (1)
Its Substance. The author of the Qraddhotpada
^astra, who is usually supposed to be A5vagho§a,
declares the Absolute to be " the soul (or heart)
of all sentient beings and constitutes all things in
the universe, phenomenal and supra-phenome-
nal." (2) Its Attributes. The Absolute has a
triple significance, (i) greatness of quintessence
or essential nature — an essence which " knows
no diminution or addition, but remains the same
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 61
iu ordinary people, ^ravakas, Pratyeka Buddha>s,
Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas. It was not created
in the past, nor is it to be annihilated in
the future ; it is eternal, permanent, absolute ;
and from all eternity it sufRcingly embraces in
its essence all possible merits." (ii) greatness
of manifestations, " that is to say (the Absolute)
has such characteristics as . . : — the effulgence of
great wisdom ; the universal illumination of
the dharmadhatu ; the true and adequate
knowledge ; the mind pure and clean in its self
nature ; the eternal, the blessed, the self-regulat-
ing, and the pure." (iii) greatness of activity,
because as a result of its activity all the innumer-
able phenomena of the universe came into exist-
ence, and also because through its influence
aspiring mankind feels a deep compassion for all
beings, " Bodhisattvas treat others as their own
self ; wish to work out a universal salvation of
mankind in ages to come . . . and do not
cling to the individual existence of a sentient
being."
(h). Detailed Explanation.
The Absolute has two phases or aspects : —
(1) the Unmanifest or Transcendental phase
(literally the soul as Pure Form) or the Absolute
62 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
proper, and (2) The Manifest or Immanent phase
(hterally the soul as birth and death) or the
Absolute become limited.
(1) The Unvianifested Phase, is the Ideal
World the underlying unity, the quintessence
of all being. It is the eternal sameness
under all apparent difference. Owing to our
subjective activity (nen) we build up a
vision of a discrete, particularized universe, but
in reality the essence of things ever remains one,
void of particularity. Being absolute " it is
not nameable or explicable. It can not be
rendered in any form of language. It is without
the range of perception." It may be termed
^iinya or the Void, because it is not a fixed or
limited entity but a perpetual becoming, void of
self-existing component parts. It may likewise
be termed A^iinya, the Full or the Existent
because when confused subjectivity has been
destroyed " we perceive the pure soul manifest-
ing itself as eternal, permanent, immutable, and
completely comprising all things that are pure."
(2) The Manifested Phase is the Womb World
where are stored all the potentialities of every
form of life. It is identical with the Alaya
Vijnana, the repository consciousness, or the
Essence of Mind. This Essence of Mind has
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 63
likewise two aspects, (a) that of Enlightenment
in which it is regarded as the focus of purity in
the phenomenal world, (b) Non -enlightenment
in which the Alaya Vijnana becomes entangled
by ignorance, and as the result of consequent
confused subjectivity gives rise to the formation
of the phenomenal world, which is, of course, at
bottom subjective.
(a) Enlightenment consists of supreme
wisdom and purity. In one sense it is latent
in all sentient beings however low their state.
This is known as Potential Enlightenment, or
enlightenment a priori. The majority of man-
kind, however, have still to develop this seed of
Buddhahood until this enlightenment be made
manifest and conscious. Enlightenment is then
known as Active Enlightenment or enlighten-
ment a posteriori. The various ranks such as
Common People, Qravakas, Pratyeka Buddha,
Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas are but stages
leading to Active Enlightenment.
(b) N on- enlightenment consists of the fecunda-
tion of the Essence of Mind by Ignorance which
results in blind activity and the subsequent
evolution of units of consciousness, which,
interacting with one another create for themselves
the image of the phenomenal world. " There-
64 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
fore the three worlds are nothing but the mani-
festation of the Alaya Vijnana — separated from
the mind there would be no such things as the
six objects of sense." In order to explain the
evolution of the phenomenal world the Mahayan-
ists have brought in the Pratitya Samutpada
or the twelve Nidanas, which in Hinayana refer
almost exclusively to personal origination, to
explain the evolution of the external world.
First comes ignorance, which, acting upon the
Absolute, brings about action, which results in
the formation of consciousness — and so on
through the list.
An examination of the details of this theory
lies outside the scope of our present undertaking,
but the following points should be of interest.
The Bhutatathata quickened by ignorance and
ready to be realized in the world of the particu-
lars is known as Tathagatagarbha, literally the
Tathagata's womb, or store house. It may
rightly be called the womb of the universe
which gives birth to the stream of consciousness.
The stream of life being set flowing, from the
action arising therefrom we find the beginning of
the individualization of the particular units of
latent consciousness. Thus is the Alaya Vijnana
which as Suzuki says, " is a particularized ex-
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 65
pression in the human mind of the Tathagata-
garbha. It is an individual, ideal reflex of the
cosmic garbha. It is this psychic germ, as the
Alaya is often designated, that stores all the
mental possibilities which are set in motion by
the impetus of the external world."
The Alaya Vijnana ( Vijndna means conscious-
ness, and Alaya repository) is not waking or
normal consciousness. In itself it is more like
the unconsciousness which is behind matter and
spirit, thought and extension. Although it is
individualistic, or the centre of blind activity, it
has not yet reached the stage of self-consciousness,
or distinguished itself from other such centres.
It is but the seed from which the flower of
consciousness will blossom, or the material
out of which the world of subject and object
wUl be constructed.
Gradually, just as the Unconsciousness of
Von Hartmann evolves into the Conscious in
mankind, so does the Alaya Vijndna evolve into
the Kligtomano-vijnana. Kligto-mano -vijndna
is literally " Soiled Mind Consciousness " and
means the state in which the unit of life begins to
be aware of itself, to distinguish itself from other
such units, to become a co-ordinated organism.
As this organism comes more and more into
66 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
contact with the stream of life around it, it
begins to react to its external environment, to
distinguish sensations, to group them together,
to abstract them into ideas and to associate ideas
into memory and reason. Instinctively, follow-
ing the line of self-preservation, it likes certain
sensations and dislikes others, to crave for the
pleasant and to avoid the unpleasant. In this
way the Mano-vijnana (Mind consciousness)
comes into being.
The external world has, in its essence, a real
existence. It is a part of the stream of life
based in the Essence of Mind. The world as it
appears, to us, however, is the result of action
of the Alaya, Kli^to-mano, and Mano-vijndna,
stimulated by contact with the real external
world, which in turn is but a phase of the uni-
versal Alaya.
Sectarian Views on the Relation between the
Absolute and the World of Phenomena.
The foregoing may be said to represent the
views of all branches of Mahayana irrespective
of sect. Most of the schools, however, were very
fond of metaphysical hair splitting, and it may
be of interest to see something of the manner
in which they carried on their discussions. As
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 67
an instance let us examine, for a moment, the
manner in which some of the sects have vied
with one another in formulating examples of the
unity of life, and the identity in essence of all
phenomena.
The argument employed is somewhat compli-
cated, and to understand it at all it is necessary
to bear in mind two things, one, the old distinction
between the noumenon and phenomena (the
Samskrita and Asamskrita Dharmas of the older
Buddhist phraseology), the other, the three
states of being, or the three philosophies of life,
Ke, Kii, and Chu.
A. In China and Japan the noumenon or
the Essence of Mind is sometimes called Ri or
Eeason or Principle, as opposed to phenomena,
Ji or Thing. These terms should be remembered
as discussions concerning the nature of the Ab-
solute, the relationship between the Absolute
and the material world, and the relation of one
thing to another, were carried on solely in these
terms.
B. The three states of being, it will be re-
membered, referred to the metaphysical stand-
point of different stages of Buddhist develop-
ment.
1. Ke, stands for Eealism, where the various
68 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
phenomena of the universe are disintegrated into
a number of real and self-existing permanent
elements.
2. Ku, or Qunya, has no direct European
equivalent. It is usually expressed by Nihil-
istic Idealism, but in reality it is neither nihilistic
nor idealistic. The ^iinya doctrine simply
asserts that there is nothing-unto-itself, that
there is nothing changeless and eternal, but that
every thing is in a state of flux, that there is
never a Being but only a Becoming. Modern
European science is nihilistic in asserting that
there is no changeless and self-existing table,
as every table is a changing concatenation of
elements. The Qtinya doctrine, as we have
already observed, goes on to say that these
elements are in turn composite, and continues its
process of desintegration until we reach the
ceaselessly flowing stream of life.
3. C?iu, or Madhya is the ontological de-
velopment of this stream of life. Madhya in its
metaphysical aspect is equivalent to the Absolute
or the Essence of Mind, the Bhutatathat§«. It
is the norm of existence which is ever the same
and yet ever changing. It is thus the union
of opposites. In the light of the Madhya
doctrine we are able to say that the Universe
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 69
both exists and non-exists. The universe has
no final existence per se, i.e., it may be broken up
into component parts, so that to regard it as a
fixed reality is an illusion. On the other hand
it has a relative existence. As a complex it
does exist and being derived from the Essence of
Mind its existence is based upon ultimate reality.
The Universe is but a passing phase of the
Universal Life Essence.
So much by way of introduction. Now for the
discussion itself. In Chinese or developed
Mahayana we find two main systems of thought,
one that of the Avatamsaka or Kegon school,
which was adopted by the Mantra school, the
other that of the Tendai school which was taken
over by the Dhyana School.
According to the Avatamsaka School the
teachings of its rival consists of the Ri-ji-muge
doctrine and its own the Ji-ji-muge doctrine.
Let us see exactly what this means.
Ri-ji-muge Ji-ji-muge.
_/f/
Ri it will be remembered stands for reason,
Principle, the Noumenon, or the Absolute j
70 INTRODUCTION 10 MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
Ji for the particular, phenomena, the various
objects of the universe. Muge means undivided.
Now in Mahayana, as we know, the Absolute
or the Noumenon and the World of Life and
Death or the realm of phenomena are identical.
Accordingly, to use the technical phrase, the
Ri and the Ji are undivided, the greater including
the less. The followers of this school try, by
means of meditation, to unlock the secrets of
all phenomena (Ji) by fathoming the real nature
of the one noumenon (Ri).
We know moreover, that it is not the case
only for one phenomenon, but that all things
are one in essence with the essence of mind.
In consequence, following out the idea on logical
lines, we have.
If A =x
and B =i
then A =B.
Substituting for x the Ri, and for A any pheno-
menon (Ji No. 1), and for B any other phenomenon,
(Ji No. 2), we have
Ji No. 1 -Ji No. 2.
or in other words, the fundamental essence
of any phenomenon is the same as all other
such objects. In this school of thought (the Ri-
ji-muge), however, one thing equals another
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 71
thing only indirectly, i.e., only because the two
things are both identical with the one transcend-
ing Ri and not because of their own essence.
The Kegon School declares that this doctrine
is not that of the true immanence of the Uni-
versal Buddha, which is only to be found in the
theory of the Ji-ji-muge. Literally, of course,
Ji-ji-muge means " Phenomena-phenomena-
undivided " or more freely, the direct identity
(in essence) of all phenomena. This doctrine
insists upon what we may call the a priori unity
of all the material objects of the universe.
The line of argument employed in working out
this system is the very opposite of the preced-
ing :—
By investigating their basic nature we discover
that one object is of the same substance with all
the others, or let us say,
If Ji No. 1 =Ji No. 2
And Ji No. 2 =Ji No. 3, etc.,
then we must postulate a universal noumenon
which is at the back of them all.
In this system phenomena are emphasized at
the expense of the noumenon, or let us say that
instead of trying to understand the nature of the
particular by comprehending the universal, as is
done in the Tendai School, we must attempt to
72 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
understand tlic universal by studying the par-
ticular.
It can readily be understood from this that
while the Ei-ji-muge idea tends to make one seek
(he Buddha in the mind, the Ji-ji-muge concep-
tion causes us to look for the Universal Buddha
in the body. Following out the former idea the
flesh is regarded as a shackle imprisoning the
enquiring spirit, so that by retiring from the
world one should reduce it to proper submission
and thereby obtain enlightenment, while with the
Ji-ji-muge School illumination can only be
found through perfecting the flesh by bringing
out its latent potentialities, and thereby un-
covering the Buddha hidden in the human heart.
As a matter of fact, however, the Tendai and
the Kegon school have much the same idea on
the subject, since not only are the two doctrines
not fundamentally different, but, in addition,
the Tendai school really teaches the Kegon
conception of the Ji-ji-muge under another name,
which it calls Enyu or the doctrine of complete
identity.
This introduces the question of the three
states of being, Ku, Ze, and Chii^ and also the
fact that later metaphysicians like to distinguish
between the shallow Tendai and the profound
THE NATURE OF THE ABSOLUTE 73
Tendai doctrine. From the fact that the pro-
found doctrines developed in the home of the
school (Mt. Tendai, or T'ient'ai) it is called the
Sange (mt. home) doctrine. The shallow
doctrine developed in various temples away from
the centre, so it is called Sangai (outside the
mountain) doctrine. These names, sange and
sangaif should be noted for future reference.
Mahayana scholars like to codify the two
doctrines regarding the nature of identity in the
following way : —
I. The Shallow (Sangai) Doctrine of
Identity.
Abso/ufe Trufh / J1_ \ A/oa/ryenon
/fe/crffoe Traf/i „ /^ „ P/?e/7ome/7ff ^ TAeJOOO l^cr/c/j
II. The Profound Doctrine (Sange) of
Identity.
!/<cy ■ . /fi} >
/(e .^^--^^/fe J
Another way of presenting the^same idea is : —
I. The Shallow Doctrine.
f A/ourr/enon j
"6"
/ie
f/^enon7e/y<rJ
74 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
II. The Profound Doctrine.
Those who have followed the line of thought
hitherto presented will not find these graphs
difficult to understand. In the Sangai school
Absolute Truth is associated with the principles
of Qiinya (Ku) and Madhya (Chu), which in
turn represent the nomenal side of the universe
as opposed to the phenomena as represented by
Relative Truth and Illusory existence (Ke).
In the Sange system all of these various sets of
opposites are found to be separate aspects of the
same thing.
CHAPTER III
THE TEIKlYA— THE BUDDHIST DOC-
TRINE OF THE TEINITY
I. TTie Evolution of the Trilcdya Doctrine.
The doctrine of the Trikaya, the three bodies,
or the three aspects of the Buddha, is one of the
most fascinating features of Mahayana, and the
relationship that exists between it and the
Trimurti of Hinduism, and the Trinity of
Christianity, etc., is of especial interest to students
of comparative religion.
Certain scholars have supposed that the triune
doctrine, certainly as found in the West, is the
result of the idealization of the human family of
Father {e.g., the Egyptian Osiris), Mother {e.g.,
Isis), and Son {e.g., Horus). Certainly as far as
Buddhism is concerned, this supposition proves
fallacious, for the present doctrine of the Trikaya
is the result of a long and intricate line of
doctrinal evolution.
Needless to say, in Hinayana the doctrine is
entirely extraneous, though, as with other points,
careful study shews that it contains the rudi-
F
/.Z'
76 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
ments of eacli of the Kaya or bodies individually,
though naturally in an entirely undeveloped
form.
The Trikaya are : —
1. DharmaJcdya, or the Body of the Law,
practically synonymous with
the Bhutatathata.
2. SambhogaMya, or Body of Compensation.
The symbol of the Buddha
ideal.
3. NirmUnakdya, or Body of Transformation,
the Universal Manifested in
the World.
1. Nirmdnakdya.
The Nirmanakaya is of course, ^akyamuni,
and the other human Buddhas, having aU the
qualities of mortals, subject to disease, old age,
and death. (Hence the name Transformation).
Being, however, the voice of the Universal
Buddha they are one with it. The Mrmanakaya
might be more freely rendered as the Body of
Incarnation.
Gradually, if we trace the history of the
evolution of the Buddha legend, the human
Buddhas came to be glorified and elevated far
beyond the possibilities of corporal persons.
They are possessed of the thirty-two major and
THE TRIKAYA 77
eighty minor physical marks of excellence.
They are endowed with the supermundane powers
of clairvoyance, clairaudience, increase and de-
crease of stature, etc. They have power over
the whole universe, and over all sentient beings.
They are the quintessence of holiness, wisdom,
purity, mercy, and all other ideal qualities.
This process is visible in Hinayana, as well as
in Mahayana, but it is not carried to the same
extreme. Furthermore, the Hinayanists have
tried to keep more or less within the bounds of
possibility, and all the marvels recorded refer
to the human Buddha. In Mahayana, however,
the limits of a single personality were trans-
cended, and believers soon began to expend
lavish poetical adornment upon the ideal of the
Buddha. He is attended by myriads of Devas
and Bodhisattvas. He sits for long kalpas in
meditation. His death is only an illusion, an
wpdya, and in reality he is ever alive helping
on the progress of the world.
2. Sambhogakdya.
The Buddha of the Mahayana Siitras, then, is
an idealized Buddha, and has the same relation
to the historical Buddha as the Christ, or the
Logos to the historical Jesus, or perhaps to the
glorified Christ of the resurrection. It is this
78 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
aspect of the Buddha which is known as the
Sambhogakaya.
Strangely enough, the Occidental idea which
comes nearest to the Buddhist doctrine of the
Sambhogakaya, is Mr. Well's theory of God the
Invisible King. Wells contrasts the God behind
the Veil, the God of Abstract Justice, with the
conception of God as the Ideal, as the object of
devotion, as the symbol of the Christ spirit. The
God behind the Veil is the Bhtitatathata, or the
Dharmakaya, and the Invisible King is the
Sambhogakaya, the Body of Glory, the Buddha
Spirit behind all human Buddhas.
i The Buddha of most of the Mahayana Siitras
is this Sambhogakaya, who merely uses the
Nirmanakaya as his mouth -piece, and though he
is one with all the Buddhas, and not merely
Qakyamuni, he is often called by this name.
Thus for exami)le, the Saddharma Pundarika
Sutra speaks of the Buddha as being the loving
father who rescues his children (all sentient
beings) from the burning house of the three
worlds. For this reason do the innumerable
Bodhisattvas appear to testify to the fact that
all through eternity the Buddhas have at various
times appeared to teach all mankind the Law.
" Every drop of water in the vast ocean can
THE TBI KAY A 79
be counted, but the age of ^akyamuni iioue can
measure : crush Mt. Sumeru into particles as
fine as mustard seed and we can count them, but
the age of ^akyamuni none can measure . . .
the Buddha never entered into Parinirvana,
the Good Law will never perish. He shewed an
earthly death merely for the benefit of sentient
beings."
The meaning of all this is obvious. Mahayana
does not deny the earthly career of Qakyamuni
lasting for some eighty odd years, and subject
to the usual frailties of human existence, but
teaches that the latter was only the Nirmanakaya,
the Body of Transformation, behind which was
the eternal Sambhogakaya, or the Body of
Glory.
3. Dharmakdya.
While then the Nirmanakaya is the human
Buddha, and the Sambhogakaya the glorified
Buddha ideal, the Dharmakaya is the essence
of Buddhahood, the norm of existence, and ig
therefore synonymous with the Bhtitatathata of
which it is but a devotional symbol.
The idea of the Dharmakaya probably origin-
ated in the fact that shortly before his death
^akyamuni is supposed to have told his disciples
80 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
that though after his decease no longer person-
ally would he be with them, yet (metaphorically
speaking) he, like all other Buddhas, would
continue to exist in the Law of Dharma. Now
in the first place, by " existing in the Law " he
may have meant merely existing in the doctrine
Avhich he taught, but to quote Suzuki, " Dharma
is a very pregnant word, and covers a wide range
of meaning. It comes from the root dhr, which
means to hold, to carry, to bear, and the primitive
sense of dharma is that which carries, supports,
or bears. Then it came to signify that which
forms the norm or regulates the course of things,
i.e. the Law, institution, rule, doctrine . . .
essential quality, substance, that which exists
in reality, being."
Accordingly, though originally the spirit of the
Buddha may have been synonymous with the
doctrines of the Buddha it was not long before it
became synonymous with the root of life, the
essence of being, the norm of the universe.
In a word, then, comparing the Trikaya with
Western ideas we may say that Bhiitatathata
stands for the Essence of Godhood, the ultimate
and unmanifested Deity, the Dharmakaya to
the norm of the manifest world, the Christian
God the Father, the Sambhogakaya to a com-
THE TRIKAYA 81
pound of the Logos, the Resurrected Christ, and
Well's Invisible King, and the Mrmanakaya to
the incarnation of the divine.
II. The Three Bodies in Detail.
Later Mahayana scholars considerably
amplified these ideas and subdivided each kaya.
In the Orthodox Tendai system the arrange-
ment of the Trikaya is as follows : —
1. Dharmakdya Eeason
2. SamhhogaMya . . .... Wisdom
a. Body of self enjoyment
b. Body for the enjoyment
of others.
3. NirmdnaMya Love
a. Ojin — complete incarnation
i. superior sho-ojin
ii. inferior reff ojin
b. Keshin — ^incomplete incarnation
1. The Dharmakdya.
In this arrangement the Dharmakaya is the
Heart of Life devotionally considered. It is
the co-ordinating principle of existence, the acme
of perfection, the fountain head of intelligence.
All the other aspects or kaya are included in it,
but in itself it is primarily the personification of
82 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
Reason or Intelligence. It is, par excellence, the
Universal Buddha symbolized in various ways
and under diverse names, and as such is the
background of all the Buddhas, and even of the
glorified Buddha-ideal, the Sambhogakaya. All
sentient beings find their raison d^etre in the
Dharmakaya and are based on the fundamental
nature of its essence. It has been the object of
adoration, and in the religious literature of
Mahayana we find numberless passages devoted
to its praise.
According to certain schools the Dharmakaya
is divided into two aspects. One is the Hosshd
HossMn (The Dharma nature Dharma body ) which
is the Dharmakaya in its normative and abstract
sense. This is, to quote Lloyd, " the spiritual
Body of the Buddha as he is which is still con-
sidered as an integral part of the Shinnyo Hosshd
(Bhtitatathata). This is formless and incapable
of description, and answers more or less exactly
to God as he is hinted at rather than described in
certain passages in the Old Testament. But it
is impossible for men with their finite thoughts
and still more finite language to speak of God
except under some form with which they are
themselves familiar. Hence we get in the Old
Testament the anthropomorphic language about
THE TRIM AY A 83
God, His holy arm, His feet, etc. Such language
the Japanese would call hdben (upaya) an
accommodation of the truth to the capacity of
the hearer and Buddhist Theology speaks not
only of Hossho Hosshin which it is beyond the
power of man to describe but also of Edben
Hosshin a spiritual body of God accomodated
to the capacity of man, and spoken of under a
human shape." **
This Hoben Hosshin or second aspect of the
Dharmakaya is nothing but the personification
or symbolization of the idea of the supreme ideal
inherent in the Shinnyo Hossho (Bhiitatathata)
and the Hossho Hosshin. But it has an objective
as well as a subjective existence. Just as the
waking consciousness, the Mano-Vijndna
gradually evolves from the KUgto-mano and the
Alaya Vijndna so does the essence of Buddha-
hood gradually manifest or crystallize itself
from the Hossho Hosshin and the Shinnyo
Hossho. The latter two are essentially self
existing principles, the former an active ideal
revealing itself to the world in many guises
suitable to the needs of the times.
A passage from the Suvarna Prabhasa on the
nature of the Trikaya gives some idea of the
relationship between the Dharmakaya, and the
♦•A. Lloyd. Shinran and His Work.
84 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
other two Kaya or Bodies : —
" The Tathagata when he was yet at the stage
of discipline practised divers deeds of morality
for the sake of sentient beings. (Through this
practice) he finally attained perfection, reached
maturity and by virtue of its merits he acquired
a wonderful spiritual power. He revealed him-
self in the right place assuming various bodily
forms. These bodily forms are called the
Nirmanakaya of the Tathagata.
" But when the Tathagatas, in order to make
the Bodhisattvas thoroughly conversant with
the Dharma . . . manifest themselves to
the Bodhisattvas in a form which is perfect with
the thirty-two major and eighty minor features
of excellence and shining with the halo around
the head and back, the Tathagatas are said to
have assumed the Body of Bliss or Sambhogakaya.
" When all possible obstacles arising from sins
are perfectly removed, and when all possible
good dharmas are preserved there would remain
nothing but Suchness (the Bhutatathata) — this
is the Dharmakaya. The first two forms of the
Tathagatas are provisional (and ephemeral exist-
ences) but the last one is a reality, wherein the
former two find the reason of their existence." **
*♦ Trans, by Suzuki, Outlinesjp. 256,
THE TRIKA YA 85
2. The Sambhogakdya.
There is little distinction between the Hobcn
Hosshin or the personalized Dharmakaya and
the Hoshin or the Sambhogakaya. At the most
the Sambhogakaya is a still further personaliza-
tion, an attempt to make the Universal more
vivid and intimate.
We see from this that the Sambhogakaya is an
embodiment of the Buddha ideal, a permanent
ideal which is not affected by the passing away
of any human Buddhas which are but fleshly
counterparts of the quintessence of perfection.
It is in this sense that we have compared it to
Well's Invisible King. The relationship between
the two may be seen from the following passages : —
" The writer believes that the centuries of
fluid religious thought that preceded the violent
ultimate crystallization of Nicea was essentially
a struggle . . to reconcile . . two separ-
ate main series of God-ideas . . . These
two antagonistic typical conceptions of God may
be best contrasted by speaking of them as God-
as-nature or the Creator, and of the other as
God-as-Christ or the Eedeemer. One is the
Outward God ; the other is the Inmost God*
The writer's position . . is, firstly, complete
ganosticism in the matter of God the Creator, and
86 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
entire faith in God the Redeemer . . . God
presents Himself as finite, as struggling against
and taking a part against evil. . . . He will
assert that his God is a god of salvation, that he is
a spirit and a person, a strongly marked and
knowable personality, knowing, loving, inspir-
ing, and lovable, who exists or strives to exist
in every human soul."
In Wells we find a strong antagonism between
the Infinite God and the Redeemer God. Mahay-
ana recognizes the difference, but asserts that
their counterparts, the Dharmakaya and the
Sambhogakaya are but different aspects of the
same reality.
Nor must the other aspect of Sambhogakaya
be forgotten — ^it corresponds to the Christian
conception of the resurrected Christ. This view
has been voiced by Arthur Lloyd in the following
words : —
" The Body of compensation is the body in
which Amida Butsu (the universal Buddha) the
glorified Saviour who has worked out man's
salvation is now set forth as the personal object
of worship for the believer. It is, as it were, the
counterpart of that glorified humanity in which
we believe that our Risen Saviour Jesus Christ,
having passed into the Heavens, is sitting in his
THE TRIKAYA 87
meditorial kingdom ' at the right hand of God.' "
This perhaps helps us to understand two points,
first the name of the Body, for it is the Body of
Compensation or the glorious reward of the long
ages of self-sacrifice for the benefit of sentient
beings, and second the two-fold division of the
Sarabhogakaya. These are : —
1. The Ji-jiyu-hoshin, or the body of self-
enjoyment.
2. The Ta-jiyu-hoshin, or Body for the En-
joyment of Others.
The first is the Body of Compensation proper,
that which each Buddha has gained by dint of
his religious discipline through the long ages of
the past. It is the recipient of ceaseless devotion
which is constantly being offered by worshippers.
It may therefore be called the immediate object
of worship, for when one wishes to worship the
divine in any aspect, the devotion is received by
the Body of Bliss.
The second, or Ta-jiyti-hoshin, on the other
hand, is supposed to be that aspect of divinity
which is constantly shedding its illumination
over all the world. These spiritual rays are
thought to be for the benefit of all men imparti-
ally, the sinner as well as the saint, the ignorant
as well as the wise. It is obvious, however,
88 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
that it is the spiiitually minded who benefit the
most by them, since it is the latter who are
the most conscious of them and are the most
willing to profit thereby.
This Ta-jiyu-hoshin has many ways of re-
vealing itself to man, but one especially in which
it assumes an apparitional body in the various
Sukhavatis or Paradises for the instruction of the
Bodhisattvas. Descriptions of this body are
to be found in many devotional scriptures, e.g.,
the Amitayus-Sutropadesa.
One point deserves especial attention. Every
Buddha is supposed to possess this Sambhogakaya
and yet each Sambhogakaya is considered
infinite in space and time, co-extensive with the
universe. It is obvious that in order to prevent
the theory of innumerable eternals and omni-
presents, Mahayana was forced to state that in
reality there was but one great Sambhogakaya
of which those of individual Buddhas are but
different aspects. The same thing, of course,
holds true with regard to the Sukhavatis. The
view held by most philosophic Mahayanists is
expressed by Suzuki when he says : —
" The reader must not think that there is but
one Pure land which is elaborately described in
the Sukhavati-Vytiha Siitra as the abode of the
THE TRIKAYA 89
Amitabha, situated innumerable leagues away
in the West. On the contrary, the Mahayana
texts admit the existence of as innumerable Pure
Lands as there are Tathagatas and Bodhisattvas,
and every single one of these holy regions has no
boundary and is co -existent with the universe
. . . It would look to every intelligent mind
that those innumerable Buddha countries exist-
ing in such a mysterious and incomprehensible
manner cannot be anything else than our own
subjective creation." **
3. The NirmdnaJcdya.
Though the Sambhogakaya provides for the
enlightenment of Bodhisattvas and earnest as-
pirants after Truth, a still more concrete and
material expression of the Absolute is required for
the masses who still slumber in ignorance. This
the Mahayanists find in the Nirmanakaya or the
physical bodies of the human Buddhas, who by
their example and instruction lead men to the
Path of Light.
Mahayana looks upon the Buddhas as both
divine and human. They are human in that
they are persons who have gained their positions
as the result of a long period of spiritual develop-
ment. Potentially they are of the same nature
** Suz. Outlines p. 269.
90 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
as ourselves, since we too have the Buddha
nature within us and every one of us shall at
some future time attain to the supreme goal.
They are divine, however, in as much as in them
the Buddha seed has come to fruition. They are
not only potentially but actually one with the
Dharmakaya and Sambhogakaya. Their advent
to earth is merely to make manifest the wisdom
and perfection of the absolute.
Later Mahay ana goes more into detail. The
Nirmanakaya is of two classes, which are called
(in Japanese) the Ojin and Keshin, which may
somewhat inadequately be called the Complete
and Incomplete Incarnations. The Ojin is
divine a priori, the Keshin is divine a posteriori.
The Ojin is identical in essence with the Samb-
hogakaya, no distinction can be made between
the two ; the Keshin is merely a man in whom
the spirit of the universal Buddha dwells, in-
spiring his teaching and elevating his personality.
The latter is frequent and universal, whereas the
only two examples of the Ojin in recent times are
Qakyamuni, and the Buddhist Messiah, Maitreya
(Miroku) whose advent Cakyamuni prophesied.
The Ojin has again two bodies or aspects, the
superior or Sho-djin and the inferior or Rettdjin.
The Bodhisattvas are suflQciently enlightened
THE TRIKAYA 91
to be able to receive their instruction directly
from the Sambhogakaya, while the Sho-ojin is
for Pratyeka Buddhas, those who aim at en-
lightenment for themselves alone, selfish yet
capable of deep theoretical understanding,
while the Eettojin or Inferior Body is for the
purpose of instructing the Qravakas, those who
merely aim at freedom from the wheel of life and
death.
According to Mahayana the doctrines of
Hinayana were revealed by the Eettojin (the
inferior aspect) while its own system was taught
by the Sho-ojin, though many schools of Mahay-
ana prefer to state that the deeper aspects were
taught by the Universal Buddha directly, which,
however, we know was the same as Qakyamuni
in his highest Samadhi.
III. Sectarian Views on the TriTcaya.
So far the theory of Trikaya has been in accord
with the teachings of all the various schools of
Mahayana. As on other points, however, later
discussion gave rise to certain points of doctrinal
differentiation, chiefly concerning the mutual
relationship of the Three Bodies and their
connection with the world as a whole. These
we may classify under the teachings of the
92 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
Kegon school, and the Tendai school, the last
being again divided into the shallow (sangai)
and the profound (sang^) doctrine.
1. The Kegon and Teyidai Doctrines.
The difference between the Kegon and Tendai
schools of Mahayana is usually expressed in
the following manner : —
The Kegon Doctrine.
/%e,
'nomena
The Tendai Doctrine.
A/a/jmenar? / Dharma/fai/a
\ A//r/77ana /fat/a
In the Kegon school the Dharmakaya alone
is the Noumenon {Ri) and the other two bodies
belong to the Ji or world of phenomena, though,
since the noumenon and phenomena are united,
the three Bodies are likewise indirectly united.
In the Tendai school, on the other hand, they are
directly identical.
THE TRIKAYA
93
As a matter of fact, since the Kegon school
teaches the doctrine of the Jijimuge (vide page
69 supra), the doctrines of the two sects are
not very different.
2. The Sangai and Sange Doctrines.
Coming now to the two schools of the Tendai
order, the Sange and the Sangai, we find that
their relationship has been expressed thus : —
The Sangai Doctrine.
So^^/^oc^a/fai/a
A//r/r?a/7a/rc/i/a
The Sange Doctrine.
Sa/T?b/?o^a/rai/a
/\/jr/rfa/7a/f6/,
'C/£T
The Sangai or less developed doctrine teaches
the separation and independence of the Trikaya.
94 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
Since all things are ultimately derived from the
Dharmakaya, both the Sambhogakaya and the
Nirmanakaya are in reality one in essence with
it, and hence indirectly united one with another,
but from the phenomenal point of view their
functions and attributes are different. They are
in a word separate entities with a common basis
rather than one entity with three phases. The
Sangai doctrine is perhaps comparable to the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity " three persons
but one God."
The Sang6 doctrine teaches that in reality
the three Kayas are absolutely identical, aie but
three ways in which the Absolute reveals itself
to the world, or even but three ways of regarding
the Absolute. In certain respects the Sang6
doctrine approximates the Sabellian heresy in
Christianity, which of course held that there is
but one god with three aspects rather than one
God with three persons.
3. The Shodomon and Jodomon Doctrines.
The slight distinction which exists between the
Shodomon (Arya-marga-dvara) and Jodomon
(Sukhavati-dvara) concerning the Trikaya
should also be noticed. Roughly speaking the
Shodomon consists of the older and philosophic
THE TRIKAYA 95
sects, and is the unreformed section of Mahayana.
The Jodomon consists of those who seek enligh-
tenment through the grace of Amitabha, and
since the most powerful branch of this school,
the Shin sect, has considerably modified the older
rules of organisation, the Jodomon is usually
known as the reformed branch of Mahayana.
The Shodomon includes the Kegon (Avatarasaka),
the Tendai, the Mantra (Shingon), the Dhyana
(Zen), and the Nichiren sects, with other
similar schools in China. The Jodomon is
divided into the Jodo or Sukhavati sect proper,
and the Shin or True Sect, The Shodomon
seeks Buddhahood by being reborn upon earth
until perfection be gained, the Jodomon hopes to
attain the supreme goal by means of being re-
born into the Sukhavati or Land of Bliss, through
the great love of the Universal Buddha. The
Shodomon is based upon reason, the Jodomon
upon wisdom, faith, and mercy.
It is but natural therefore, that the Shodomon
should lay especial emphasis upon the reason
side of the Absolute, which is, as we know, the
Dharmakaya, while the Jodomon gives especial
deference to the Sambhogakaya which is the
wisdom or mercy aspect. While theoretically
the two schools do not differ in their interpreta-
95 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
tion of the two bodies, the fact that the object
of especial worship in one is the Dharmakaya,
in the other the Sambhogakaya has necessarily
resulted in somewhat different theological
attitudes, so much so in fact that in Shodomon,
the Dharmakaya almost corresponds to the
Christian God the Father, and the Sambhogakaya
to the Holy Ghost, while in the Jodomon the
roles are exactly opposite.
One last word about the Trikaya must be
added. In the earlier sects of Mahayana, such
as the Avatamsaka and the Tendai schools, the
Trikaya was a purely philosophic conception
unconcerned with the devotional life. In the
slightly later Mantra sect, however, the three
bodies were personified or symbolized and
given the names of ideal Buddhas. The Dhar-
makaya was known as Vairocana (Dainichi
Nyorai) the Sambhogakaya as Amitabha (Amida)
while the Nirmanakaya was personified by
Qakyamuni. The Mantra (Shingon) sect be-
longs to the Shodomon, so that Vairocana is
the chief object of worship, but in the Sukhavati
or Jodo school where the Sambhogakaya is the
object of worship it is Amitabha who is exclusively
adored. In this school, however, Amitabha is
not merely the Sambhogakaya but the other
THE TRIM AY A 97
two bodies as well, so that except for Amit-
abha's two manifestations Avalokitegvara
(Kannon) and Mahasamprapta (Daiseishi), the
symbols of Love and Wisdom respectively, the
worship of other beings is either prohibited or
deprecated.
This may be said to represent the final stage
in the development of the Trikaya doctrine
proper, but this in turn led to still further
doctrinal formulation. The three bodies of
the Universal Buddha were regarded as Upaya
(hoben) accommodation of truth, three ways of
regarding an indivisible unity. Such being the
case, it is obvious that there is no inherent reason
why this three-fold division of the functions of
the Absolute should be the only one. Should
circumstances render it advisable the Absolute
could be symbolized in fifty, a hundred, or a
thousand ways.
Under these circumstances the multiplicity
of the representatives of the Universal Buddha
should cause no surprise. On the contrary it
is remarkable that they are not more numerous,
and more inconsistent, for in Chinese and Japan-
ese Buddhism practically all the important
symbolizations of the Absolute may be classified
under the ten bodies of the Avatamsaka sect,
98 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
and the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the two
mandalas of the Mantra sect. Into these,
however, the limits of time and space prevent
our going.
CHAPTEE IV
THE NATUEE AND POWEES OF
BUDDHAHOOD
I. The Roads to Buddhahood
^akyamuni is supposed to have said, " Only-
one doctrine do I preach : — suffering and the
cessation of suffering." Certainly the whole
essence of Buddhism is bound up in those words.
AU sentient beings led astray by ignorance and
desire undergo perpetual birth and rebirth in
one or another of the six realms of,
1. The ISTarakas or Hells.
2. The Preta Eealm.
3. The Animal Eealm.
4. The Asura Eealm.
5. The Human Eealm.
6. The Heavens.
In all of these worlds there is more or less
pleasure or pain, but in none of them is there
supreme bliss or perfect enlightenment. Dura-
tion of bliss in these worlds varies, but in none
of them are the inhabitants free from decay,
change, and death.
100 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
The total cessation of sorrow and change is
to be obtained by the complete suppression of
ignorance and desire, the attainment of Nirvana.
Transcending the six realms is the Path of Holi-
ness, marked by the following stages : —
1. The (JrdvaJca Stage. This is divided into
four sub-stages : —
i. ^rotdpanna, he who has entered the
Path, or a beginner in the way of
enlightenment.
ii. SaJcridagdmln, he who has progressed
sufficiently to enable him to gain
Nirvana in the next rebirth. Ac-
cordingly he is known as one who
returns but once to the three
worlds (of Kama, Eupa, Arupa).
iii. Andgdmin, he who returns no more to
the three worlds, acquiring Nir-
vana in the next life (i.e. in heaven).
iv. Arhat, he who has freed himself com-
pletely from the wheel of life, and
who is to reincarnate no more.
2. The Pratyeka Buddha Stage. One who has
understood the chain of causality (the 12
Nidanas). This state is one of enlighten-
ment as contrasted with the mere salvation
of the Arhat, but enlightenment for one-
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 101
self alone, no attempt being made to
influence or assist mankind.
3. The Bodhisattva Stage, The Bodhisattva
is he who renounces the attainment of
of Arhatship and Pratyeka Buddhahood,
and having become a candidate for com-
plete Buddhahood strives for the welfare
of all sentient beings, making the four
great vows, and practising the six trans-
cendent virtues (paramitas). a. The
four vows are : — (1) to save all beings,
(2) to destroy all passions, (3) to know
and teach others the truth, (4) to lead
others to the path of Buddhahood.
b. The six paramitas are : — (l)almsgiving
and teaching the ignorant, (2) keeping the
Qilas or moral Laws, (3) patience and long
suffering, (4) diligence in keeping the
vows, (5) meditation or contemplation,
(6) wisdom.
4. The Buddha Stage. He who has attained
the goal, achieving supreme and final
enlightenment and emancipation, possess-
ing the three bodies of Nirmanakaya,
Sambhogakaya, and Dharmakaya.
To each of these stages are assigned certain
spiritual prerogatives, the possession of certain
102 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
transcendent virtues, and the ability to perform
certain supernatural acts. With these we are not
concerned for they play a comparatively small
part in philosophic Buddhism.
What is of more importance is the question
of the limitation of the attainment of the supreme
goal. Hinayana asserts that for the majority,
the vast majority of people, the attainment of
the higher stages is out of the question, and the
ordinary person must content himself with
arhatship. Undeveloped Mahay ana declares
that all who desire to take the vows of the
Bodhisattva and continue therein will sooner or
later attain to Buddhahood, yet that many do
not do so, and aim merely after Arhatship or
Pratyeka Buddhahood, so that for them the
supreme goal is forever closed. It is possible,
however, for the aspirants after the lower stages
whose course has not yet been definitely fixed
to modify their goal, and to enter the path of the
Bodhisattva.
Developed Mahayana, such as the Kegon and
the Tendai and later schools declared that in
reality there are not three goals but only one
goal — the highest, Buddhahood, which sooner or
later everyone must attain. The other seeming
goals are but upaya (devices) which the Tatha-
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 103
gata has used for the purpose of bringing his
children (all sentient beings) from the burning
house of the three worlds.
On this point all schools of true Mahayana are
essentially agreed, though the Tendai and Kegon
sects choose to emphasize different aspects of the
same idea. The Tendai Doctrine is known as
the Dokyo or doctrine of Sameness, the Kegon as
the BeTcTcyo or the doctrine of Difference. The
former insists upon the unity of the goal, the fact
that all paths lead to the same gateway. The
latter declares that though the goal is one, the
paths are many, and that there is a different path
for every type of mind, that each school of
thought, in fact each religion, is but a different
path, and that accordingly we are to seek for
the underlying unity in aspiration of all.
The different branches of Buddhism differ
even more decisively upon the means of attain-
ing Buddhahood.
Three principal methods are inculcated : —
1. Salvation by Works,
2. Salvation by Knowledge,
3. Salvation by Faith or Devotion.
1. Salvation by Works.
Hinayana with its insistence upon the doctrine
of Karma declared with St. Paul, " as ye sow so
104 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
shall ye reap " — that by the performance of
good deeds a man reaps his rewards and gradu-
ally attains a higher and higher state until the
'^supreme goal is reached. Do so many good acts,
and in your next life you will be a king. Acquire
so much more merit (though of a somewhat
more transcendental type) and Buddhahood will
be achieved. This is the message of Hinayana.
This idea has its benefits in encouraging
charity and discouraging evil living, but, on the
other hand, it leads to hypocrisy and " dead
letterisnh" The bestowment of alms will com-
pensate for a neglect of the development of the
spiritual faculties.
2. Salvation by Knowledge.
Mahayana, keeping in mind the fact that
Buddhahood is a state of mind and not a place of
existence, has insisted that much depends upon
the condition of the mind and soul, and that
consequently more importance is to be placed
on their development than upon the acquirement
of merit through any external means. Though
there is no sharp distinction to be made, in
Hinayana in calculating the reward of an act of
charity, the amount given is largely taken into
consideration, in Mahayana emphasis is laid
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 105
upon the spirit in which the alms are bestowed/-"^
As an example of this we find the Japanese
(Mahayanist) Emperor Seimu had engraved upon
a bronze pillar the sentence " a light bestowed by
a poor man will be of much more worth than a
million lights offered by a rich man," and " If a
man approves a good thing in another man it
will have the same effect as if he had done it
himself." Accordingly, like the Vedanta
school of Hinduism, the Shodomon school of
Mahayana teach that Enlightenment is to be
gained chiefly through philosophic insight, and
realization.
3. Salvation by Faith.
The later Shin sect declares that the chief
fault with this idea is that if people are persuaded
that they will be " saved " by knowledge they
will indulge in logical hair-splitting and useless
metaphysics rather than engage in the cultivation
of spirituality. Accordingly the Jodomon and
more especially the progressive Shin sect teaches
that the only means of acquiring the Buddha
state is through devotion or faith in the Universal
Buddha typified by Amitabha. This " faith "
might be better expressed by the words " de-
votional realization," or self -surrender. As in
Protestant Christianity, which holds a similar
106 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
conception, faith will always be followed by good
works.
The real meaning of this, of course, is that man
catches a glimpse of the true Buddha nature,
which results in the awakening of faith in his
own heart. This results, first, in the increase in
the knowledge of Amitabha and further increase
of faith, etc., and second, in the Jio-on or the
performance of good works out of thanksgiving.
Faith and works are therefore identical, as are
also faith and the object of faith (this is a typic-
ally Mahayana conception) since in Mahayana
the subject and object, the Universal Buddha and
sentient beings are one.
Each of the two great schools of Mahayana,
the Shodomon and the Jodomon, is again
divided into two, Zen, the gradual and Ton, the
sudden schools, i.e.,
Hinaydna (Indirect) 1. Qrdvalcas (aspirants
after Arhatship).
2. Pratyeka Buddhas.
Mahdydna (Direct) 3. Bodhisattvas.
j. Gradual.
a. Shodomon, Shilshutsu.
b. Jodomon, Oshutsu.
ii. Abrupt.
a. ShodOmon, ShUchO.
b. Jodomon, Ocho.
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 107
The gradual schools of Shodomon, consisting
chiefly of the Madhyamika and Yogacarya
schools of Indian Mahayana, teach that a
man continues to be reborn on earth until he
gradually passes one by one through the various
stages of discipleship and Bodhisattvahood, of
which the last ten and most important stages
are : —
1. Pramudita.
2. Vimila.
3. Prabhakarl.
4. Argismati.
5. Sudurjana.
6. Abhimukti.
7. Diirangama.
8. Acala.
9. Sadhumati.
10. Dharmamegha.
The abrupt school of the Shodomon, consisting
chiefly of the Avatamsaka, Tendai, and more
especially the Shingon (Mantra) and Zen (Dhy-
ana) school teaches that it is not necessary to
pass through each one of these stages successively,
for proper realization may enable one to jump
over or leave out several stages or even to pass
at one step from the lowest to the highest degree.
H
108 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
The Jodomon teaches that salvation by one's
personal effort is difficult and useless, since we
have at our command the omnipotent and all
embracing Tariki (other power) of Amitabha,
the Universal Buddha who is, however, the true
self of each one of us. Accordingly, if we
practise the Tariki and have a deep devotion to
the one Buddha we shall enter at death into the
Pure Land of Amitabha, which is the surest and
quickest way to gain Buddhahood. Consequently
in the view of the Gradual school of the Jodomon »
to which belong the Jodo sect proper, the Pure
Land is but a stepping stone to Buddhahood,
while the Abrupt school, to which belongs the
Shin sect, teaches that entering Jddomon is
equivalent to becoming Buddha.
II. The Attributes of the Buddhas.
The path to Buddhahood having been dis-
cussed we are now free to consider the nature and
the powers of the Buddhas. In HInayana the
Buddhas, though the highest of all beings were
yet men pure and simple. Gradually an interest-
ing development took place. Even in Hinayana
the Buddhas are regarded as embodiments of
the Dharma or Law. As the conception of the
Dharma body or kaya evolved, so did the idea
that the Buddha is an embodiment of the
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 109
noumenal world amplify. Even in the un-
developed Mahayana systems where we find the
theory of the Absolute in its first form, the view
that the human Buddhas are one in essence with
it, and consequently its material representatives,
is strongly brought out.
In developed Mahayana the doctrine of the
unity of the Absolute and the human Buddhas
has been given added emphasis. The Buddhas
are supposed to so perfectly manifest the divine
essence that their appearance on earth is equiva-
lent to an appearance of divinity. The origin
of the Buddhas is indeed human. They have
only gained their high station through a
long process of evolution, yet once they have
brushed away the mists of ignorance the
Buddha seed within the heart of each becomes
apparent — " the word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as the
only begotten Son of the Father full of life and
truth." (i.e. all Buddhas are forms of one
Nirmanakaya, or are one aspect of the divine.)
On the nature of the unity of the human
Buddhas with the Universal Buddha the Tendai
school again distinguishes between the Sangai
and Sang4 conceptions. The Sangai doctrine,
as in other cases, has a slight tendency towards
110 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
separateness in contradistinction to the doctrine
of the absolute unity as we find it in the Sang^
system.
1. The Sangai Conception.
The doctrine of the Shugensoku or " assuming
the appearance of the Noble Form."
5 A//r/r7an<y/f3e/a
In this arrangement the Nirmanakaya,
^akyamuni or the human Buddha, is equal to
the Sambhogakaya, Amitabha the glorified
Buddha only indirectly, i.e. through the Dhar-
makaya which unites all things. Qakyamuni,
however, the preacher of the Saddharma Pund-
arika Siitra, while he is not really identical with
the Glorified Buddha assumes his appearance or
claim to be equal and undivided for the sake of
instructing the ignorant, just as public officials
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 111
in reading the proclamations of sovereigns
assume the place of or represent for the time
being the sovereign.
The chart representing the Sange doctrine has
already been given in another place (page 93)
but it will be perhaps as well to repeat it here.
II. The Sange Conception.
The doctrine of the FusJmgensolcu or " IS'on-
assumption of the appearance of the Noble
Form."
l^/iar/na/rai/o
Sa/776/?og£rA£/i/a A//r/r7a/7a/rac/(Sr
In this arrangement the Nirmanakaya,
^akyamuni, and other physical Buddhas are
absolutely and directly equal, so that the human
Buddhas are as perfectly and absolutely divine
as the Christian of the most orthodox section
would make the Christ, the only difference being
that the Buddhas according to Mahayana have
attained their position by gradual development.
112 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
and also that such incarnations are not unique
but comparatively frequent in their occurrence.
Moreover, in the Sange doctrine the Nirman-
akaya is both the Dharmakaya and the Samb-
hogakaya ; The Sambhogakaya is both the
Nirmanakaya and the Dharmakaya ; and the
Dharmakaya is both the Nirmanakaya and the
Sambhogakaya, so complete is their identity.
This is as far as the idea evolved in China, but
in Japan where Buddhism has reached the highest
form the logical corroUary has been brought out,
viz., that in every phenomenon of the Universe
each of the three Kayas is to be found immanent,
so that in a flower there is dormant the three
persons of the Buddhist trinity.
While the human Buddhas were being thus
deified it was but natural that the conception
of their power became amplified. A century
or so after the death of Qakyamuni, before
Mahayana proper came into existence Hinayana
Buddhism was divided into eighteen schools,
grouped together in two main sections the
Sthaviravdda (literally " the Way of the Elders,")
and the MaJidsdnghilca (literally the " Great
Council School "). The first was that which
retained the true Buddhist orthodoxy. Its
descendant (in Pali, Theravada) is the oflBcial
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 113
Hinayana of to-day. Tlie second was the more
heretical, bolder in speculation, and more com-
prehensive in aim. It was from this that the
later Mahayana probably arose. Especially
in matters concerning Buddhology do we find
the Mahayana views foreshadowed, e.g. : —
1. The Mahasanghika school taught that the
body of the Buddha is transcendent and free
from " original sin " to use a Christian term for
the Sanskrit Bhava§rava while the Sthavirav-
adins said that though the Buddha is " enlight-
ened " he is not free from " concupiscence " or
taint of bodily existence.
2. The Mahasanghika taught that every-
thing the Tathagata said was full of spiritual
meaning, while the opposite school declared that
though the words of the Blessed One were never
false yet that he said many things in the course
of ordinary social life which had no interior or
metaphysical significance.
3. According to the Mahasanghika school the
Buddha needed no rest or sleep. His life is as
long as he desires it, while the Sthaviravadins
admitted that the body of the Holy One was
subject to the usual frailties of the flesh.
It should be remembered, however, that after
glorification of the Buddha had reached a certain
114 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
point the mystic powers of the Buddhas were
relegated to the Sambhogakaya, the symbolic
Buddha, and in later Mahayana the physical
body of the Buddhas were regarded in a more
normal light.
The great question which all Occidental
students of Mahayana propound is whether or
not Buddhahood means personal annihilation, or
the extinction of the individuality. In Hinayana,
except for certain rudiments of the idea of
continued existence in the Law, extinction of
personality is necessarily absolute, since owing to
the distinction between Asamskrita and Sam-
skrita Dharmas already observed (vide page 15)
continued existence is an evil which must be
eliminated. In Mahayana, however, with its
doctrine of the Absolute and the Trikaya, since
the Nirmanakaya (the human Buddha) is com-
pletely equal to the Dharmakaya and the
Sambhogakaya which are eternal, it follows that
the Nirmanakaya is also eternal, but whether
or not this means that the separate individual-
ities of the Buddhas persist apart from the
whole, Mahayana is not emphatic on either side.
In a general way it may be said that true Maha-
yana with the possible exception of the Dhyana
or Zen school favours the idea of the persistence
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 115
of the individuality. In the Saddharma Punda-
rika Sutra and many others we read of the
" totally extinct " Buddhas who re-appear
before ^akyamuni in their perfect form. The
Sambhogakaya is the ideal form of all the Budd-
has, yet while it comprehends them all, the
individual facet exists and can not be annihilated.
One other feature which has received a great
deal of attention in Mahayana is the doctrine of
the turning over of merits. The idea is not
peculiar to Northern Buddhism. It is found in
Hinayana and is discussed at length in " The
Questions of King Milinda." While a man may
not transfer bad karma to others he may refuse
to accept the fruit of his good karma, which is
then inherited by the world at large. In
Mahayana this point has been especially empha-
sized. Bodhisattvas are supposed to perform
innumerable good deeds and to turn this karma
over to all sentient beings. (Compare in this
connection the Eoman Catholic doctrine of
superogatory acts). This is an act which is
strongly encouraged and many Mahayana
treatises end with the phrase " May the merit
gained by the composition of this work be taken
by all sentient beings, and aid in the awakening
of their Buddha Heart." Its equivalence to the
116 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
Christian doctrine of atonement is, of course,
marked.
III. The Life of the Buddha.
Finally a few words must be added concerning
the Buddhist doctrines relating to ^akyamuni
himself, the historical founder of Buddhism.
In the early stages of the development of the
Mahayana faith a great deal of attention was
paid to the incidents of the Buddha's life. Details
were embellished, legends were invented, and all
the lavish adornments of a poetic imagination
were called in to aid in glorifying the founder's
name.
Once the conception of a Universal Buddha
had been attained, however, less emphasis came
to be laid on the historical Buddha, so that the
study of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism throws
little fresh light on biographical points.
An excellent epitome of the main features of
Qakyamuni's life as systematized by later Maha-
yana is to be found in Nanj5's " Short History of
the Twelve Japanese Buddhist Sects ". The es-
sential points there brought out are as follows : —
Birth. Cakyamuni was born in the Kingdom
of Kapilavastu in Central India, 1027 B.C.
His father was the Maharaja Quddhodhana and
his mother the Devi Maya. Many miraculous
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 117
incidents are related of his early life. A story
frequently represented is that at the moment of
birth he arose and taking seven steps in each
direction and pointing one hand to the heavens
above and the other to the earth below, he pro-
claimed in a loud voice " I alone of all beings in
heaven or below am worthy of honour."
Early Life. At the age of seven he was master
of Astronomy, Geography, Arithmetic, and
Military Science, the four branches of ancient
education. At ten he had surpassed all other
princes in shooting through seven iron targets.
At fifteen he was formally recognized as the
heir apparent. At seventeen he was betrothed
to Yagodhara.
All measures were taken to prevent him from
coming into contact with sorrow and misery,
but at the age of eighteen he began to think of
leaving home realizing how inherent in mundane
existence were the pains of birth, old age, and
death. On the seventh day of the second month
of his nineteenth year he forsook the world and
entered the jungle in order to attain enlighten-
ment.
EnligJitenment — Preaching the Law. More
than ten years were spent in fruitless search, but
exactly eleven years afterwards he awoke to
118 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
perfect knowledge under the Bodhi tree. After
his enlightenment the Buddha sat for seven days
absorbed in meditation wrapped in the beatitude
of the Law. He then set about proclaiming
his gospel. Needless to say, at the time of his
enlightenment the Buddha comprehended the
profound truths of Mahayana as well as the
doctrines of the simpler Hinayana. At first
he attempted to expound the whole body of truth
in the Avatamsaka Sutra preached in the second
week after the attainment of Buddhahood.
Finding, however, that his auditors were unable
to comprehend him he decided, for the time
being, to confine himself to the Hinayana system
and gradually to lead his followers into the more
complete comprehension of the law. According-
ly after the second week of his enlightenment
for twelve years he taught only the pure Hinayana
Sutras. After that, for another eight years he
taught the Vaipulya or developed Sutras
which revealed the first stages of Mahayana.
Subsequently for another twenty years he
taught a still further stage of wisdom emphasiz-
ing the ^unya doctrine in the Prajnaparamita
Sutra, and others of the same type. Finally,
for the last eight years of his life he returned to
the complete position of truth in the Saddharma
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 119
Pundarika, the Nirvana, and the Sukhavati
Sutras.
Conversion to the Faith. In the mean time the
even tenor of Qakyamuni's life was disturbed
by few incidents of striking importance. The
years were spent as an itinerant mendicant
teacher, and time was marked chiefly by the
retreats of the rainy season, and the conversion
to the new faith of various notable people. In
the fourth week of his enlightenment he con-
verted the Nagaraja Macilinda On the seventh
day of the third month he won over Devapala.
On the following day we journeyed to Varanasi
where Kaundinya and others were converted.
At the age of thirty-one he converted the Qre§-
thin or wealthy merchant Ya^as. Then he went
to the powerful Kingdom of Magadha, then the
home of Indian Culture, and converted Uruvilva
Kagyapa and others. Then proceeding to
Eajagriha, the capital, he converted the king
Bimbisara and his retainers. From this
period dates the recognition and popularity of
Buddhism as a religion. In the same year the
wealthy merchant Kalya presented to the
Buddha and his order of monks the famous
monastery of Venuvana, or the Bamboo Grove.
At the age of thirty -two he converted the nagas
120 INTRODUCTION TO MAN AY AN A BUDDHISM
and yaksas at Mt. Gajagir^a. The next year
Qariputra and Mahamaudgalyayana, later his
foremost apostles, became his disciples. At
this period those of his disciples who had attained
to Nirvana numbered twelve hundred and fifty.
In the same year Mahakagapa, the sage of the
order, later revered as the chief apostle of
Mahayana, became a disciple of the Buddha,
presenting to the Lord a robe of incalculable
value.
At thirty-four the members of his monastic
order having increased in number it became
necessary to formulate rules for their organiza-
tion. Accordingly in this year, while at Vaisali,
^akyamuni established the Vinaya or the Laws
of Discipline, and year by year, in accordance
with the growing needs of the order, the rules
were amended and amplified. At thirty five
the Qresthin Sudatta of Qravasti together with
Prince Jeta presented to the Holy One the
Jetavana Anathapindada arama where many of
the most important discourses of the Buddha
were delivered.
In this year the Lord returned to his native
Kapilavastu, not having visited it since his
flight from the palace many years previously.
His father, King t^uddhodana sent his retainers
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 121
and subject people to meet him at a distance of
forty miles. Great was his reception as befitted
a Prince of the Law, and upon his entrance into
the city he discoursed upon the chain of causa-
tion.
At thirty-seven Ananda his cousin and later
his beloved disciple, the Buddhist St. John,
entered the Order when only eight years old.
At thirty-eight Eahula, his son by Yagodhara,
became his disciple, when only nine years of age.
At thirty-nine the Buddha once more visited
Magadha and converted King Pusya (?). In
this year a votive altar, the first of many, was
erected in Jetavana grove.
At forty Qakyamuni discoursed to Maitreya,
he who is to be the next Buddha, upon the deep
meaning of the Law. At forty-one he returned
to Kapilavastu a second time whereupon his
father and his father's court advanced in the
comprehension of the truth. In this year his
aunt Mahaprajapati left the world and became a
Bik§uni or Buddhist nun.
Later Life. The next few years are chiefly
noted for the famous sermons which were
delivered during this period. At forty-four he
preached on Mt. Lanka in the Southern Seas.
From forty-five to forty-nine he discoursed at
122 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
intervals to Buddlias and Bodhisvattvas assemb-
led in the ten quarters of the Universe upon a
miraculous staircase made between the world
of desire, (the kamadhatu) and world of form
(rupadhatu). Thereafter the Buddha gradually
led his followers into the path of Mahayana.
At the age of seventy-five, his father died. At
the age of seventy-nine which was in 949 B.C.
the Buddha ascended to the Trayatimsa Heaven
and discoursed to his mother Queen Maya.
Eeturning to earth he gave his last sermon.
At midnight of the fifteenth day of the second
month of the same year the Buddha entered
Parinirvana, lying down in an avenue of Qala
trees near the city of Ku^inaga. He was
mourned by all the sentient beings of the
Universe.
These may be said to represent the main points
in the popular Mahayana legends of the Buddha.
A comparison of it with the Southern accounts
is full of interest, but lies outside the scope of
our present undertaking.
What is of especial importance is the way in
which an attempt has been made to insert the
preaching of the various Mahayana Siitras into
the different periods of the Buddha's life. Ma-
haynna, at least as a definite system, was un-
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 123
doubtedly the result of several centuries of
philosophic development probably in contact
with alien influences. The language and style
of the Mahayana stitras differs greatly from those
of Hlnayana. Its doctrines present even greater
divergence.
Since, however, Qakyamuni was retained as the
historical founder and as the ultimate source of
all the ahaylater Mana doctrine, it became
necessary to evolve some explanation of how such
different views originated in one person, for it
must be remembered that while Hinayana re-
gards Mahayana as a corruption of the original
Buddhism, or at best as a false and decadent
branch, Mahayana regards Hinayana not as
false or contrary to true Buddhism, but
simply as incomplete or the superficial doctrine
which Qakyamuni taught to those who were
incapable of comprehending the more profound
truths of Mahayana.
In the early days several different and mutu-
ally contradictory syntheses of the Buddha's
life were formulated which would allow room for
all aspects of Buddhism. The most plausible
and the one which eventually came to be con-
sidered the Orthodox explanation was that
expounded by the Chinese Chiki, the founder
124 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
of the Tendai school of Mahayana. This con-
sisted of the theory of the five periods of Qaky-
amuni's life, the four classes of doctrine which he
delivered, and of the four styles of teaching.
Their mutual relationship is shewn in the
following chart : —
t-JuMen
£..CnTtfua/
Ji.Secrrf ^..i/hdfftrfminnf
/.. ^uala/njaAa
2.^^ama J_ l&i/Ju/^i
/.. Atafra
2 .Me/me,//a/e J U>///e/-enfiafei^ 4./iffeef
This graph appears far more complicated
than in reality it is. The three categories when
taken separately are simplicity itself.
{a.) The Five Periods.
The five periods have already been examined
in our brief review of the Buddha's life. They
are named after the principal stitras which were
preached in their respective periods.
The first period beginning in the second week
of the Holy One's enlightenment was that in
which he delivered the Avatamsaka Sutra
containing the Mahayana philosophy in all of its
profundity. This work is one of the most im-
portant in the whole Mahayana canon. Upon
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 125
it was founded one of the two great Mahay -
ana metaphysical schools of China. Textual
criticism shews it to be undoubtedly of late
composition, but it is an invaluable storehouse
of information concerning the development of
the Buddhist philosophy. It is a great pity
that up to the present time no attempt has
been made to translate it into English.
The Buddha, finding this incomprehensible
to the masses, next preached the Agama Sutras,
containing the fundamental principles of Hina-
yana. There are four Agamas which are
practically identical with the four Nikayas of
Southern Buddhism, which (sometimes with
the addition of an added fifth) compose the
Sutta (Sutra) Pitaka or division of the Pali
Canon. Much of the Pali version has been
rendered into English, so that an important task
for future scholars is to compare it with the
Chinese translation of the Agamas.
The majority of his pupils having at length
passed beyond this stage the Master then de-
livered the Vaipulya Sutras. Literally these
mean the Expanded Discourses and betray an
afflorescence both as regards style and doctrine.
Practically none of these are to be found in the
Southern canon, but in most of the Vaipulya
126 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
sutras the Mahay an a teachings presented are
in a decidedly rudimentary state.
They are chiefly marked by the growth of the
Buddha legend, and the introduction of many
supernatural elements, though the later theories
of the Bodhisattva ideal and of the Universal
Buddha are set forth in a more or less undevelop-
ed state. To this period belong the important
Sutras the Vimalaklrtti Nirde§a Sutra, the
Lankavatara Sutra, and the Maha vaipulya
Sannipata Sutra. These sutras are frequently
cited even by the developed Mahayana schools-
The next or fourth period was occupied in
delivering the Maha-prajiia-paramita SUtra and
others of a like nature. In these the doctrine
of Qtinya was fully developed, and by negating
negation the idea of the transcending Middle
Principle (Madhya) above existence and non-
existence was formulated.
The fifth and final period was once more de-
voted to the pure and undiluted Mahayana
doctrine. To this belong the Saddharma
Pundarika Sutra, perhaps the most important
of the Mahayana Sutras, and the Nirvana Stitra
which is much studied in China and is not to be
confused with a Hinayana Stitra with a similar
name. Finally there was also the two most
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 2
famous Sukhavati Sutras, tlie Amitayur Dhyana
Stitra and the Sukhavativyuha Sutra, on which
are based the Paradise seeking sects which play
such an important part in later Mahayana.
(6,) The Four Classes of Doctrine
The synthesis expounded by Tendai Daishi
(as Chikti was later called) goes on to state
that all the teachings of Buddhism may be
classified into four groups, different aspects
of which were revealed during the above men-
tioned five periods of Qakyamuni's life.
The first of these is the Zo or Tripitaka
doctrine, meaning in this instance by the Trip-
itaka only the orthodox Hinayana system
expounded in the Abhidharma Ko§a, and also
the primitive ^unya school founded on the
Satya Siddhi ^astra. This class corresponds
exactly to the Agama period of the Buddha's
life though occasionally touched upon by the
Vaipulya Siitras.
The next in the order of development is the
Tsu, or intermediate school, so-called because it
is the system which is intermediate between the
Tripitaka doctrines and the later and more
perfect doctrines of true Mahayana. To this
class belong the Dharamalaksana or Yogacarya
and the Trigastra or the Madhyamika school.
128 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
The Tsu or intermediate doctrine was taught
both in the Vaipulya and the Prajna-paramita
periods.
With the third class, the Betsu or Differ-
entiated doctrine, we at length reach real Maha-
yana. In this school, which is perhaps most
characteristic of the Avatamsaka sect the Trans-
cending Middle Principle (Madhya) is formulated ;
but in this case it is the transcendality which is
insisted upon. It is above all things and can be
attained only by going through ten stages of
1. The Naraka or Hells ; 2. The realm of the
Pretas, or Goblins ; 3. Animals ; 4. The realm of
the Asuras ; 5. Mankind ; 6. The Devas ;
7. The stage of the Qravaka ; or hearers (as-
pirants after Arhatship) ; 8. Pratyeka Buddhas ;
and 9. Bodhisattvas leading up to the tenth and
last stage of true Buddhahood, which is synony-
mous with the Middle Principle. This root of
existence though above the Universe or rather
though far more than the universe yet ever aids
at making all sentient beings attain emancipation
and so instead of revealing only the one road
{dohyd) it uses many updya (means) and teaches
in many different manners, (Betsu-kyo or
Bekkyo) to suit the exigencies of the times. Ac-
cordingly it is called the Differentiated school.
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 129
This was inculcated in the Vaipulya, Prajiia
paramita and Avatamsaka periods, but most
purely in the last.
The fourth and highest doctrine is that of
En or Completeness. This is the teaching
which emphasises the immanence as well as the
transcendence of the Absolute and seeks to find
the Universal Buddha in the lowest inhabitant
of hell as well as in the supremely illuminated sage.
The doctrines of Completeness as taught in the
Avatamsaka Sutra (the shaJcu-en or old complete-
ness as it is called) is merely the highest of the
four classes of doctrine, while the En of the
Saddharma Pundarika Sutra (the Icon-en or the
new completeness) is the only doctrine in which
all the others are included.
(c.) The Four Styles of Teaching.
The four modes of Qakyamuni's instruction
require but little attention. The first or Ton
means suddenness and is the method whereby
the learner is told directly and immediately the
whole truth. The second, the Zen or the
Gradual method, was to lead the student step by
step through all the stages on the path. The
first belongs exclusively to the Avatamsaka
period, and the second to the Vaipulya, Agama,
and Prajna paramita periods.
130 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
The third method is that of Himitsu or
Secrecy, and may be said to be the esoteric
transmission of truth. In this the aspirant
is initiated into the inner mysteries which
cannot be adequately expounded in exoteric
doctrines.
The fourth and highest is the Fujo or Undeter-
mined. In this the Law is expounded in such a
way that every person may understand it
according to his capacity. The same sutramay
be used for persons of different profundity,
the less intelligent receiving therefrom the same
stimulus as the most enlightened though the
actual substance extracted therefrom will differ
with each individual.
Both the third and the fourth styles of teach-
ing belong to the first four periods, while the
fifth period is in reality beyond all manners and
styles, though more particularly connected with
the Fuj5 or Undetermined Style.
The doctrine of the five periods, four classes
of doctrine, and four styles of teaching is the
most important synthesis of Qakyamuni's life,
but it is by no means the only one. The only
other two which require attention are the three
doctrine, and five doctrine classification of
the Buddhas' life.
THE NATURE AND POWERS OF BUDDHAHOOD 131
According to the three doctrine theory which
is taught by the Dharmalak^ana, or Yogacarya
school, Qakyamuni taught, first, the doctrine
of the existence of all phenomena, or the doctrine
of Being {Jce), second, the doctrine that all such
existence is purely relative or the doctrine of
Becoming (lit., Tcu or non-existence) and third,
the doctrine of the Middle Principle (chu)
which transcends both existence and non-
existence.
The five-fold division of Gautama's life is
made by the Avatamsaka (Kegon) school and
consists of (1) Sho or the doctrine of smallness,
in which the primitive EQnayana doctrines are
inculcated, (2) Shi the doctrine of beginning,
in which the undeveloped Mahayana doctrines
are unfolded, (3) Ju or the end in which the
purely metaphysical aspect of Mahayana
reached its final development, (4) Ton or sudden-
ness, the doctrine of the immediate intuition
of Truth without words or symbols associated
with the teachings of the Dhyana school, and
finally (5) En or the doctrine of Completion,
associated with the Avatamsaka Sect in which the
perfection fruition of all the other schools is
to be found.
CHAPTEE V
PSYCHOLOGT-^ELEMENTS OF
EXISTENCE
I. The Analysis of the Personality
One of the most difficult points for Western
students of all forms of Buddhism to understand
is the doctrine of Anatman, which is unusually-
translated " soullessness." Buddhism insists
that the soul is not a rigid unchanging,
self-constituted entity, but a living, complex,
changing, evolving organism. Non-Buddhistic
philosophers have usually supposed that the
soul is a simple substance which inhabits the
body and which after death is rendered free
from the shackles of corporeality. This is the
core of the Hindu theory of the atman.
In Buddhism the theory of anitya or im-
permanency is applied even to the psychic life,
largely on the analogy of the human body.
The body exists but it has no self essence, i.e.
it is made up of component parts which, in many
PSYCHOLOGY 133
cases, are constantly replaced. There is no one
centre of the body which is its ultimate essence,
for neither the heart nor the brain, etc., could
function without the other organs. Since the
material parts of which it is composed are
continually changing, in one sense it may be
said that our bodies of to-day are not identical
with our bodies of yesterday, yet it is obvious
that they are not different since they have a
sequential, or causal, or what the Buddhists
would call a karmaic connection.
All this, says Buddhism, applies equally to
the soul. There is no atman for the personality
consists of five skandhas or aggregates, or
faculties, viz. : — (1) Rupay body or form, in
other words the physical body, (2) Vedana sen-
sation or perception, (3) Samjna conception or
ratiocination, (4) SamsMra mental qualities,
such as love, hate, etc., and (5) Vijnana con-
sciousness, more especially in this connection,
self-consciousness. None of these can claim
pre-eminence. One is not the basis around
which the others are grouped. They are all
co-ordinated parts, constantly changing, so that
at no two moments can the personality claim
to be identical, yet at the same tune there is a
constant Karmaic persistence.
134 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
This division of the personality into five
skandhas (Pali Khandhas) is undoubtedly very
ancient, and probably goes back to the time of
Qakyamuni himself. The keen pleasure which
the Indian mind takes in metaphysical analysis
and dissection, however, would not allow this
simple formula to stand alone and later systems
divided each skandha into a number of fundamen-
tal elements. In the Sthaviravada or Theravada
school of Hinayana represented by the Order in
Ceylon, Burma, and Siam, we find the following
classification of each of the skandhas : —
The Five 8kandhas and their Divisions.
1. Bupa, or material qualities, 27 (or 28) in
number. Four elements, earth, water, fire, and
air. Five sense organs, eye, ear, nose, tongue,
body. Four sense objects, form sound, smell,
taste. Two distinctions of sex, male and female.
Three essential conditions, mental action, vital
spirits, food. Two means of communication,
gesture and speech. Seven qualities of material
bodies, buoyancy, pliancy, adaptability, integra-
tion, continuance of integration, decay and
impermanency.
2. Vedand or sensation, 3 or 5 in number.
Three, pleasurable, painful, neutral. Two or
more are sometimes added, mental and physical
sensation.
PSYCHOLOGY ISS
3. SamjM {Sanna) or Conception, 6 in
number. One for eacli of the senses, and one
mental. " The Perception of * bine ' for instance
is classed under sight, or ' sweet ' nnder taste
75
4. SamsMra (SanJcJidra) Mental Qualities. 52
in number. Seven mental properties which are
common to every act of consciousness, viz : — (1)
contact (phassa), (2) sensation (vedana), (4)
conception (sanna), (5) volition, (cetana) (6) in-
dividualization of object (ekaggata), (7) mental
alertness (Jivitindriya), (8) attention (manasi-
kara).
Six mental properties which sometimes are and
sometimes are not present in consciousness,
\iz : — (1) initial application (vitakka), (2) sus-
tained application (vicara), (3) deciding as to
object (adhimokkha), (4) effort (viriya), (5)
pleasurable interest (piti), (6) impulse (chanda).
Fourteen evil mental qualities, viz : — (1) dull-
ness (moha), (2) impudence (ahirika), (3) reckless-
ness (anotappa), (4) distraction (uddhacca), (5)
greed (lobha), (6) error (dhittha), (7) conceit,
(mana), (8) hate (dosa), (9) envy (issa), (10)
selfishness (macchariya), (11) worry (kukkucca),
(12) sloth (thina), (13) torpor (middha), (14)
perplexity (vicikiccha).
136 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
Nineteen virtuous mental qualities, viz : — (1)
faith (saddha), (2) mindfullness (sati), (3) pru-
dence (hiri), (4) discretion (otappa), (5) dis-
interestedness (alobha), (6) amity (adosa), (7)
Balance of mind (tatramajjattata), (8) composure
(passaddhi) of body^ or (9) of mind, (10) buoy-
ancy (lahuta), of body or (11) of mind, (12)
pliancy (muduta) of body or (13) of mind, (14)
adaptability (kammaiiiiata) of body or (15) of
mind, (16) proficiency (Paguiinata) of body or
(17) of mind, (18) rectitude (ujukata) of body or
(19) of mind.
Three forms of propriety, viz : — (1) right
speech, (2) right action, and (3) right livelihood.
Two illimitables, (1) pity, and (2) appreciation.
One supreme possession, reason (paiina).
5. Vijndna {Vinndna) or Consciousness.
In the South it is usual to divide consciousness
into 89 classes from the point of view of the
merit or demerit resulting from different forms
of consciousness. These do not especially con-
cern us. The six-fold division of consciousness is
also found, these six forms are, one for each of
the senses, and one purely " mental conscious-
ness."
* Some would translate Kaya here by " Mental properties'*
rather than " Body " and so below.
PSYCHOLOGY 137
In the Sarvastivadin school of Hinayana, an
attempt was made to give a more comprehensive
view of the universe, and, as we have seen, all
phenomena were reduced to a certain number of
fixed dharmas or elements of existence. In the
Abhidharma Koga they are enumerated as
seventy-five in number. These are in reality
nothing more than the objectification of the
divisions of the skandhas, arising from the
examination of the parts of the universe rather
than merely from the human mind. The
Sarvastivadins admit, however, that this com"
prehensive analysis may also be approached
from the subjective as well as the objective
point of view, so that they present us with the
following two-fold classification : —
I. Subjective Classification of Phenomena.
A. The 5 Skandhas or the aggregates of being
which compose the " soul." As in the Southern
account they consist of Eupa or form, Vedana
or sensation, Samjna or conception, Samskara
or mental qualities, and Vijnana or consciousness.
These five Skandhas may be broken down into
seventy-five dharmas, of which in fact they may
be considered compounds.
B. The 12 Ayatanas or, the bases from which
mental action arises, Buddhists argue that before
lie INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
consciousness can function there must be present
twelve things, namely the five sense organs,
the five sense objects, manas or the percipient
mind, and dharma or things in general or ab-
Btract ideas.
C. The 18 Dhatus or Factors of Conscious-
ness, consist of the 12 Ayatanas plus the six
Vijnana or aspects of consciousness.
II. Objective Classification of Phenomena.
A. AsamsJcrita Dharmas, simple or uncon-
ditioned elements of existence. These are three
in number, namely (1) Space or Ether (aka§a),
(2) The unconscious cessation of existence
(apratisankya-nirodha) a form of deep trance,
and (3) conscious cessation of existence, {prati-
samkya nirodha) which is equivalent to Nirvana.
B. Samskrita Dharmas or conditioned ele-
ments of existence, so-called, it will be remember-
ed, because though themselves simple and primal
they enter into combinations one with another.
They are 72 in number, divided in the follow-
ing w^ay : —
1. Rupa Dharmas or material elements, 11
in number, consisting of the five sense organs
(eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body), the five sense
PSYCHOLOGY 139
objects (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch),
and avijnapti-rupa, or latent or unmanifest
matter.
2. Citta Dharma or mental element, only-
one in number, consisting of mind itself, though
the one mind is divided into six vijnana and the
three modes.
3. Caitta Dharmas, or mental qualities,
corresponding to the Samskara Skandha of the
South. This has 46 divisions, classified in the
following way : — 10 Mahabhumika Dharmas^ or
neutral elements which are always present in
consciousness, (1) Vedana or Sensation, (2)
Samjiia or Conception, (3) Cetana or motive, (4)
Sparca or contact, (5) Chanda or Conation, (6)
Mati or intellect, (7) Smriti or memory, (8)
Manaskara or attention, (9) Adhimok^a or
determination, and (10) Samadhi or contempla-
tion. Next follow the 10 Eugala mahdb-
humilcd dharmas or good elements which are
always present, (1) ^raddha or faith, (2) Virya
or diligence, (3) Upek§a or indifference, (4)
Hri or shame, (5) Apatrapa or modesty, (6)
Alobha or noncovetousness, (7) Adve§a or non-
hatred, (8) Ahimsa or harmlessness, (9) Pra.
gabdhi or serenity and (10) Apramada, tem-
perance or non-slackness. Next come the 6
K
140 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
Klega maliabliumika dJiarmas, or great evil
elements, (1) Moha or nescience, (2) Pramada
intemperateness or carelessness, (3) Kausidya
or indolence, (4) Agraddha or disbelief, (5)
Styana or idleness, and (6) Andhatya or rash-
ness, Next come the 2 ATcugala mahabhumikd
dharmas or non- virtuous great elements, (1)
Ahrikya shamelessness, and (2) Anapatrapa
or immodesty. Next come the 10 UpaTcle-
gabJiumika dharmas or the lesser evil elements
so called because they are not present in all
forms of sentiency, but only in those forms of
life which are possessed of self-consciousness.
These are (1) Krodha, or wrath, (2) Mrak§a or
hypocrisy, (3) Matsarya or envy, (4) Ir§ya
or jealousy, (5) Paritapa or anguish, (6) Vihimsa
or injury, (7) Upanaha or rancour, (8) Maya or
deceit, (9) Qathya or trickery, and (10) Mada or
arrogance. Finally there are the 8 Aniya-
tabhumika dharmas or the miscellaneous minor
mental qualities, which are (1) Kaukritya or
repentance, (2) Middha or torpor, (3) Vitarka or
judgment, (4) Vicara or investigation, (5) Raga
or cupidity, (6) Pratigha or anger, (7) Mana or
pride, and (8) Vicikitsa or doubt.
4. Citta ViprayuTcta Dharmas or miscell-
aneous elements, 14 in number, viz : — (1) Prapti
PSYCHOLOGY 141
or attainment, (2) Aprapti or non-attainment,
(3) Sabhagata or general characteristics, (4)
Asamjiiika or unconsciousness, (5) Asamjni-
samapatti or ecstacy with the loss of conscious-
ness, (6) Nirodha-samapatti or a continuation
of the above equivalent to the cessation of
existence, (7) Jivita or life, (8) Jati birth or
origin, (9) Sthiti or continuance, (10) Jara or
decay, (11) Anityata or impermanency, (12)
Namakaya or words, (13) Padakaya or sentence,
(14) Vyanjanakaya or letters.
The subjective and objective classifications
are supposed to be equivalent one to another,
to be but different ways of enumerating the
same phenomena.
In the later schools, such as the Satyasiddhi
sect with its 84 Dharmas, and the Yogacarya sect
with its 100 Dharmas, the essential relation-
ship between the subjective and objective
classifications is not changed though the onto-
logical background was radically modified. In
the Satyasiddhi and Madhyamika schools the
dharmas, the skandhas, and the component
parts of the skandhas are themselves all im-
permanent, complex and reducible to finer
sub-divisions ad infinitum. In the YogacSrya
school the whole of life was reduced to the
142 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
stream of life, and all the dharmas are but
vortices or centres in this universal substance.
All the phenomena of life including the Dharmas
are but mental ejects or objectivizations of
various aspects of the essence of mind. This
point brings up the question of the nature of
Vijnana or consciousness and the part which it
plays in the appearance of the external universe.
The Abhidharma Ko^a knows nothing of the
89 divisions of Vijnana taught in the Pali tradi-
tion, but only the six-fold aspects of conscious-
ness. The first five of these, it will be remem-
bered, correspond to the five sense organs and
sense objects. The last or Mano vijnana may
be called the faculty of ratiocination which
produces thought and reason from the data
received from the purely passive five vijnana.
II. The Nature of Perceptio n.
The Abhidharma Koga is realistic. It believes
that there is an external universe closely corres-
ponding to the sense data which we experience,
but it realises that in its present form the world
as we see it is subjective, the result of the
action of the percipient consciousness (vijnana)
acted upon by external stimuli.
Accordingly, from the individual point of view,
the origin of the experienced universe, as opposed
PSYCHOLOGY 143
to the Universe in itself — to use Kantain phrase-
ology is as follows : —
The Five Sense Objects. The Five Sense Organs.
Vedana (sensation or perception.)
Vijnana (self consciousness.)
Samjna (consciousness of the external
universe.)
Samskara (the fully developed world of
subject and object, life and death.)
We see from this that the Sarvastivadin
school of Hinayana teaches a philosophic as
opposed to a crude realism. Necessarily, the
world as we see it is subjective, even though it
is based on an external reality. Being Hinayana,
and therefore more in accordance with the
primitive Buddhism, no attempt is made to
elucidate the real nature of the external universe
or to premise its origin or end, but with the uni-
verse as perceived it is closely concerned. We are
told how it came into existence and how it
will come to an end when Parinirvana, final
emancipation, is achieved.
The epistemology, ontology, and phenomen-
ology latent in this system should be carefully
thought out before we pass to the Yogacarya
system, since the latter, though antithetical,
is yet derived from the earlier teaching. In the
144 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
Yogacarya school there are eight forms of
consciousness or Vijnana postulated. The
first six are more or less in accord with the six
vijnana of the Hlnayana doctrine, save that the
Mano-vijnana or the Abhidharma Ko^a is
divided into two, Mano-vijhana proper or normal
waking consciousness, and Kligto-mano-
vijnana which is more subjective, and corresponds
to self-awareness. The eighth Vijiiana, Alaya
Vijiiana, or receptacle consciousness, so called
because it contains the seed of all things, is, as
we have said, like the Unconscious of Von-
Hartmann, the sea of life from which both
subject and object are derived, for it is at once
that which sees and that which is seen.
The Alaya Vijiiana has four aspects or faculties
viz : —
I.
Form
Outer or Objective.
2.
Perception
3.
Batiocination
Inner or Subjective
4.
Eeflection.
In Hinayana the external world is taken for
granted and we start with the percipient con-
sciousness fully developed. In the Yogacarya
school, we are told that both the external
world and consciousness are ultimately reducible
to the Alaya Vijnana. The Alaya Vijnana
PSYCHOLOGY 145
in its as yet non-dividuated phase is the energy
behind inanimate life, the world of minerals,
etc. It is also the life force behind life in the
vegetable world. As such it is the Form or the
essence of the objective world.
Eventually this life force attains the power of
sensation and percipiency It is latent in the
vegetable world and is fully developed in the
animal world. It becomes aware of the other
currents in the stream of life, or, if you prefer,
the other phases of the Alaya Vijnana, from
which we understand why it is said that it is
both subject and object.
As this sensatory or perceptive faculty de-
velops, there arises the ability to retain impress-
ions, to compare and associate them, and so the
third faculty, thought or normal consciousness
comes into being. This is to be found only in
the higher animals and in man, etc. This in
turn develops into self-consciousness or re-
flection, the fourth faculty only to be found
in the highest order of sentient beings.
This may be called the cosmic evolution of
the Alaya Vijnana, or the evolution of the
Universe in itself, or the universe as it really is,
as compared with the experienced universe,
which each person creates for himself.
146 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
As regards the latter we are told that the
stages in the formation of the microcosm are
as follows : —
1. The Alaya Vijhana gives rise to the
Seed Alaya proper — the basis of consciousness —
and to the sense organs, and the sense objects or
the external world. The actual world has thus
already been created, but its replica has not
yet been created by the mind. This is the stage
at which Hinayana begins. From the inter-
action of these three there comes into being the
essence of the world as perceived, the basis
of the empirical world.
In the meanwhile the seventh Vijnana, the
Kli^to-mano-Vijiiana, or self-consciousness,
that which firmly distinguishes between subject
and object, having developed, it is fecundated
by the Seed Alaya, and becoming aware of the
external universe, proceeds to take it into its
comprehension and so gives to it form and shape,
which are, needless to say, secondary or sub-
jective qualities, and not inherent in the real
external world.
2. The sixth Vijnana, Mano- vijnana, I^ormal
Consciousness, or the faculty which discriminates
between the various phenomena of the universe
is then developed and, fecundated by the Seed
PSYCHOLOGY 147
Alaya, adds to the gradually evolving germ the
concept of like and dislike associating with it
other objects in terms of cause and effect, etc.
3. There then develop the remaining five
forms of consciousness corresponding to the five
sense organs. These are : —
1. Calcsu Vijndna, visual consciousness,
mental action depend-
ent on the eye, etc.
2. (Jrotra Vijndna, oral consciousness.
3. Ghrdna Vijndna, nasal consciousness.
4. Jihvd Vijnand, cognition of objects
of taste.
5. Kay a Vijndna, cognition of the objects
of touch.
When these are developed and impregnated
by the Seed Alaya which may be called the seed
of personality, they give, on coming into contact
with the germ of objectivity the final touches
of the experienced world. Thus, for example,
the first vijnana or Visual Consciousness, gives
the sense of colour, and presents the
phenomenon in question in the form which our
ordinary sense impressions make familiar to us.
By means of the interaction of these various
Vijnana, a man builds up for himself the external
world which he experiences. The absence of
any of them would destroy the completeness.
148 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
Without the first Vijnana he could not see,
without the sixth he could not understand
the relative value of the various phenomena
presented to him. Without the seventh he
could not formulate a conception of shape or
size, while without the eighth neither he nor the
external object could exist.
One last word concerning certain details. The
eighth Vijfiana is the root or essence of all things
80 that all other seven Vijnanas are derived
from it. The Seventh and Eighth Vijnana are
closely associated and so maintain a direct and
immediate relationship. The sixth Vijnana serves
to co-ordinate the remaining five. Among the
ignorant and the unenlightened the sixth
Vijnana or normal consciousness is aware of the
existence of only the seventh Vijnana. This
they suppose to be their real selves and to be an
eternal and unchanging reality. Bodhisattvas
are able to see the true state of affairs. They
are able to penetrate to the core of the seventh
Vijnana, and thus come into contact with the
eighth or Alaya Vijnana the ever fluid medium
which is the true cause of all existence.
'-' 7 ^h 1a \ ^^ ( Cone/' f/ on)
ne£xferna/(<i .UL /f^ #:^~^/7^ J -
PSYCHOLOGY 149
Buddhism distinguishes two elements in
causality, the In (hetu) the seed or cause
proper, the En (pratyaya) environment or
attendant circumstances, and the Ka (phala) or
the result or fruit. Thus for instance a mango
seed is planted, the sun, rain, and the earth act
upon it, and a mango tree springs up, the mango
seed is the In, the sun, rain, and earth are the
JE7w, and the mango fruit the Ka.
From the epistemological point of view, says
the Togacarya school, in the origin of the
experienced world, the sixth Vijnana is the seed,
the seventh and eighth Vijnana the condition,
and the experienced world the fruit. This,
of course, is obvious. That which really formu-
lates the eject of externality is the normal
waking consciousness, though this is based upon
the discriminating faculty of the seventh Vij-
nana, and the essence of mind as expressed in
the Alaya Vijnana.
III. Immortality.
Finally the question of the survival of the
personality must be examined. Having no
fixed unchanging atman, Buddhist immortality
is somewhat different from that taught in other
religions, yet actually the difference in outlook
is less than might be supposed. The personality
150 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
as a complex and changing organism persists
from year to year. The component parts vary
in each incarnation, there is no underlying
substance which is retained throughout, yet
there is a Karmaic connection which allows us
to say that it is the same personality.
If the deeds in this life have been evil, at the
the moment of death a new personality (which
is yet the same) will be formed in one of the hells;
if a man has been virtuous he will be reborn in
one of the heavens, or, according to his Karma
in one of the other realms, possibly as a man
again.
This idea, common to all forms of Buddhism,
the Yogacarya school expresses in the following
way :—
/^reje^/^ Pas/
C
r^
8:1///.
'nana
f 7 . l//J/7ana V
( 6 ^ yiynancf \
( /_ l^///73na
( 6 - I////? 3 /7 a
Wor/c//e/ Ojffa/rj
PSYCHOLOGY 151
The state of the sixth Vijnana at the moment
of death, moulds from the plastic mind substance
a new sixth Vijnana, and the same is true of
the seventh and eighth Vijnanas. The con-
dition or stage of development of the new eighth
Vijiiana is supposed to be greatly affected by
the activity of the sixth Vijnana during the
previous existence, which in turn is strongly
influenced by the external conditions and
previous observance of the various moral com-
mandments.
The new Vijiianas having thus come into
existence, the creation of the new experienced
universe goes on as before. In this way the
wheel of life and death continues for ever, or
until Nirvana be gained.
It should be observed that in both the heavens
and the hells, man does not exist as a dis-
embodied spirit as is presumably taught in
Christianity, but that he has a body with the usual
sense objects and sense organs, etc. (the only
exception to this are the Artipa Heavens, where
there is, of course, no form) correlated to the
eighth Vijnana, so that the chart for the method
of re-birth and the method of the creation of
the experienced universe applies to the super-
natural as well as to the physical worlds.
152 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
Finally, it should be added, that just as the
later Mahayanist philosophers considered these
supernatural worlds to be purely subjective,
/so did they come to think that reincarnation was
' general rather than particular, that there was no
specific survival of each personality, but that
the stream of life seen in the development of
the human race alone survived, that each person
added his quota to the general stream, and that
the individual Karma was added to the Universal
Karma which conditions the life of future
generations. This idea has been especially
emphasized by the Dhyana sect.
CHAPTEE VI
THE WHEEL OF LIFE AND THE BOAD
TO NIRVANA
Whether taken as objective realities or symbols
of subjective states, great emphasis has been
laid upon the various gati or realms of existence
in which men are for ever being born and die.
The gati are frequently symbolized by a wheel
of life, a symbol which is common to all forms
of Buddhism. A few words of explanation con-
cerning a typical chart, such a chart as the
Lama elucidated to Kim, will perhaps be found
useful.
(a.) At the centre are the three animals
symbolic of the three fundamental sins which
result in the formation of the phenomenal
world. These are the serpent (anger), the boar
(ignorance), and the dove (lust). They are
catching one another by the tail and so typify
the train of sins which produces the wheel of
life. In most Chinese and Japanese representa-
tions of the wheel the Buddha is placed in the
154 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
middle to show that in spite of the evil of existence
the Universal Buddha is latent in all. In the
Tibetan chart the Buddhas and Bodhisavattas
are placed outside showing that the phenomenal
world is regulated by and contained in the
noumenal world.
(b.) In the next circle are placed the symbols
of the twelve Nidanas, or the twelve links in
the chain of universal causality whereby all
things are evolved. The twelve, it will be
remembered are : —
1. Ignorance represented by a blind woman.
2. Action represented by a potter at work
or a man gathering fruit.
3. Consciousness represented by a restless
monkey.
4. Name and Form represented by a boat.
5. Sense Organs represented by a house.
6. Contact represented by a man and woman
sitting together.
7. Sensation represented by a man pierced
with an arrow.
8. Desire represented by a man drinking
wine.
9. Craving represented by a couple in union.
10. Birth represented by child birth.
THE WHEEL OF LIFE 155
11. Life represented by a man carrying a
a corpse.
12. Disease, old age, and death, represented
by an old woman leaning on a
stick.
These twelve nidanas have played an im-
portant part in Buddhist phenomenology and
have been carefully explained in various
works on all forms of Buddhism.
(c.) The next circle typifies the whole body of
sentient beings including the inhabitants of all
the six realms though here represented in human
form. This is divided into two parts, Sugati
(on the left) the state of happiness, and Durgati
(on the right) the state of misery.
Sentient beings however, never exist in a pure
or unembodied form but are inhabitants of one of
the six realms shewn in the six sections of the
outer circle, or for a short time in Bardo or
intermediate state between death and rebirth.
In this arrangement, the first gati is the
realm of human beings, for though in pleasure and
duration of life it is far inferior to the Devalokas
or Abodes of the Gods or the Etipa or Arupa
Heavens, it is here alone that progress in the
path of the Bodhisattva may be made. For this
reason rebirth as a human being is highly
L
156 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
prized and is considered difificult to achieve.
In the Tibetan chart we see a woman on account
of merit in a past life being reborn as a monk
who will in due course attain Nirvana. Im-
mediately above him are two Lamas or monks
of the exoteric school. The four armed deity-
is Avalokite9vara the symbol of Universal
Love or Mercy, leading men to emancipation.
On either side are two Bodhisattvas who by
following the esoteric school are soon to attain
Buddhahood. The other figures represent
various aspects of human life.
The second gati is the realm of the devas or
Gods in which are also included the inhabitants
of the eighteen heavens of the World of Form and
the four heavens of the World of Formlessness.
Here the meritorious are born to enjoy the fruits
of their good Karma. It is a place of enjoyment
but not of culture and progress in the way of
Bodhisattva perfection.
The third gati portrays the realm of the
Aeuras the Demons or Genii the ancient enemies
of the Devas. The fourth is the realm of the
animals, the fifth is the realm of the Pretas,
the hungry ghosts or the ghouls, the sixth is the
underworld, where are situate the Narakas or
HeUs.
THE WHEEL OF LIFE
157
The other kinds of supernatural beings of
which Buddhism speaks have no separate realm
of their own but are distributed among the six
gati, while in some accounts there are only five,
the Asuras being grouped with the Devas. It
should also be noted that no account is taken
of the vegetable world. Contrary to the teach-
ing of certain Hindu schools Buddhism does not
consider that vegetables belong to the world
of sentient beings, so that it is impossible to be
reborn in that state.
These realms are sufficiently important to
require slightly more detailed consideration,
(a.) The World of the Gods.
This includes the four Arupa or formless
heavens, the eighteen, (or 16) Heavens of Form
or Eupa or Brahma Heavens, as well as the six
Deva heavens of the World of Desire. The
duration of life as well as the average stature, etc.,
of the inhabitants of these heavens is as follows :
Average
Name of Heaven. Duration of life.
Ist Devaloka
2nd Devaloka
3rd Devaloka
4th Devaloka
9 million years.
36
144
576
5th Devaloka 2,304
6th Devaloka 9,216
Stature.
^ Kro§a
f
u „
>>
)>
158 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
Name of Heaven. Duration of life. gtature.
1st Kupaloka I mahakalpa \ yojana.
2nd Etipaloka \ „ 1 j>
3rd Eupalaka 1 „ li m
4th Rupaloka 2 „ 2 ,,
5th Rnpaloka 4 ,, 4 ,,
6th Rupaloka 8 ,, 8 ,,
7th Eupaloka 16 ,, 16 ,,
8th Rupaloka 32 „ 32 ,,
9th Rupaloka 64 „ 64 „
10th Rupaloka 125 „ 125 „
11th Rupaloka 250 „ 250 „
12th Rupaloka 500 „ 500 „
13th Rupaloka 500 „ 500 „
14th Rupaloka 1,000 „ 1,000 „
15th Rupaloka 2,000 „ 2,000 „
16th Rupaloka 4,000 „ 4,000 „
17th Rupaloka 8,000 „ 8,000 „
18th Rupaloka 16,000 „ 16,000 „
1st Arupaloka 20,000 mahakalpas. \
2nd Arupaloka 40,000 „
3rd Arupaloka 60,000 „
4th Ariipaloka 80,000 „
(b.) The World of Men.
Men are to be found in all the innumerable
Cakravala (worlds) scattered throughout the
The inhabitants
of the Arupa-
lokas have no
bodies.
THE WHEEL OF LIFE 159
universe. In each Cakravala there are four
continents one lying on each side (North, South,
East, and West) of the great central mountain
and the seven rocky circles.
1. In the Northern continent called Uttara-
kuru the inhabitants live for a thousand years,
none die young and there is no pain, yet owing
to the difficulty of treading the Holy Path there
it is called one of the evil places.
2. In the Western continent called Apara-
godaniya the inhabitants live for five hundred
years, but some die younger, and anxiety is
sometimes experienced.
3. In the Eastern continent called Pur-
vavideha the inhabitants live for two hundred
and fifty years or less. Here also is there
sorrow and anxiety.
4. In the Southern continent which includes
all the known worlds and is called Jambudvipa,
the age of the inhabitants, varies from ten years
to an asamkeya. From the purely hedonistic
point of view it is inferior to the other continents;
but it is the best place to train for Bodhisattva-
hood.
" Among the beings of the three worlds
(Kama, Eupa, and Ariipa Eealms) men are more
160 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
full of thought than the others. Therefore is
human existence to be sought."
(c.) The World of Asuras.
The Asuras are semi-divine demons who are
usually credited with the power of transformation.
We find it frequently stated that though the
Asuras have much in common with the Devas
occasionally there is conflict between the two
classes in which the Asuras are always eventually
beaten. The story of this conflict is very ancient
and can be traced to pre-vedic days when the
Aryans had not yet reached India. In Persia
the Ahuras (Asuras) are the conquerors and the
Devas are the evil beings, in direct contrast
to the Indian conception. Many Chinese
Buddhists divide the Asuras into four classes,
viz., 1. Animal Asuras, whose abode is in the
depth of the ocean and deep sea caverns. 2.
Preta Asuras, who are very much like the ordinary
Pretas or Ghouls but are of a somewhat higher
order and are endowed with certain fundamental
virtues and powers. 3. Human Asuras, who
have fallen from virtue in Heaven and reside
near the sun and moon. 4. Deva Asuras, the
divine asuras who resemble and are but little
below the dignity of the Gods (Devas) them-
selves.
THE WHEEL OF LIFE 161
(d.) The World of Animals.
In Nan jo we have the following description
of the animal kingdom :** — " There are insects
whether flying quickly or moving slowly, such as
wasps and caterpillars, there are animals of the
scaly tribe, and those covered with shells or
crusts. There are some animals which are
covered with hair or naked. Some are one horned
and others are two horned. Some are two-
footed and some are many footed. Some have
wings with which they fly and others have talons
with which they seize their prey. There are
large animals called whales ; the ferocious are
tigers and wolves ; the poisonous are vipers
and water bugs ; and the cunning are foxes
and badgers ; there are horned owls which eat
their mothers. There are some animals called
owl cats which eat their fathers. There are
several different kinds of animals of which the
weaker is always injured by the stronger. Such
is the state of beings who have entered into the
nature of animals." (Page VIII).
(e.) The World of Pretas.
Those who are born as Pretas or hungry ghosts
undergo great suffering. Some have " bellies
as large as a hill while their mouths are as small
as the eye of a needle, so that they can neither
** 12 Sects of Japanese Buddhism.
162 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
eat nor drink. There are Pretas for whom
water is always changed into fire as soon as they
desire to drink, so that they can never satisfy
their thirst. There are Pretas who eat nothing
but excrement and decaying matter. There
are Pretas whose bodies are pierced with their
own hairs, the points of which are as sharp as
swords. Again there are Pretas who eat their
own children. This state is not seen by human
eyes but among mankind there is often seen
something like the above." (Nanjo).
(f.) The Ndrakas or Hells.
In contradistinction to the one hell of Chris-
tianity, Buddhism postulates the existence of
innumerable places of torment though all of a
temporary nature. The most important are the
eight hot hells and the eight cold hells. These
are : —
A. Hot Hells. (1) Samjiva, (2) Kalasutra,
(3) Samghata, (4) Kaurava, (5) Maharaurava,
(5) Tapana, (7) Mahatapana, (8) Avici.
B. Cold Hells. (1) Arbuda, (2) Nirarbuda,
(3) Atata, (4) Hahava, (5) Huhuva, (6) Utpala,
(7) Padma, (8) Mahapadma.
Owing to the action of Karma man continues
to be reborn in these realms until at length he
succeeds in destroying ignorance, anger, and lust,
THE WHEEL OF LIFE 163
after which there is no cause for the creation of
the perceptual or experienced world and thus
Nirvana is attained.
All schools of Buddhism have placed much
emphasis upon the Eoads to Buddhahood and
the necessary stages which must be passed.
In the Chinese work entitled Esuan Fo P^u
(Senbtippu) translated by Timothy Richards as
" A Guide to Buddhahood " we find a very
systematic presentation of the usual ideas on
the subject, more particularly from the point
of view of the T' ien t 'ai or Tendai school.
In this work the stages to be passed are
arranged in three classes. The first is pre-
liminary, and is subdivided : —
1. Steps in the departure from evil.
2. Steps in the imperfect religious life.
3. Steps in doing good and suppressing evil.
When this stage has been reached the disciple
definitely enters upon the path which leads to
Buddhahood. This involves training in the
three practises common to all forms of Buddhism.
These are : —
1. Steps in the growth of (Jila (Kal) dis-
cipline, or moral law which is summed up in
the various commandments and rules and regu-
lations of the Buddhist order.
164 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
2. Steps in the growth of Samddhi (JO)
contemplation, meditation, or ecstacy.
3. Steps in the growth of Prajnd (E) or
wisdom.
Up to this point the path has been the same
for all disciples. But from hereon the aspirant
chooses one of the four paths or schools into
which the Tendai sect divides all aspects of
Buddhism. These are : —
1. Steps in the Pitaka or Z6 school, the
original Hinayana doctrine.
2. Steps in the Intermediate or Tsu school,
the undeveloped Mahayana doctrine.
3. Steps in the Differentiated or Betsu
school, represented by the Avatamsaka or Kegon
sect.
4. Steps in the Perfect or En school re-
presented by the Tendai sect itself.
All these four schools belong to the Shodomon
or Aryamarga school of Buddhism. In addition
there are the stages in the Jodomon or Suk-
havati school whereby one attains to Nirvana
by entering into the land of Bliss of Amitabha.
Though seemingly of little other than purely
technical importance the great emphasis laid
upon these matters necessitates our examining
the details of each one of the foregoing steps.
THE WHEEL OF LIFE 165
I. Preliminary Stages.
A. Steps in the Departure of Evil. These
consist of twenty-one steps which may be
classified into seven groups, viz : —
I. 1. The Ten worst crimes ; 2, the Ten
intermediary crimes ; 3, the Ten lighter crimes.
These three stages all consist of breaking to a
greater or lesser degree the ten Buddhist com-
mandments which are : 1, not to kill ; 2, not to
steal ; 3, not to commit adultery ; 4, not to lie ;
5, not to slander ; 6, not to indulge in vain
conversation ; 7, not to covet ; 9, not to bear
malice ; and 10, not to hold wrong views.
II. 4, Self-will ; 5, charity without love ;
6, convential virtue ; 7, formalism.
III. 8, The ten lower worldly virtues ; 9,
the ten intermediary virtues ; 10, the ten
higher virtues : These three consist in obeying
the above ten commandments to a greater or
less degree.
IV. 11. Indulging in superstition or false
views ; 12, dabbling in contemplation.
V. 13. Practice of the four Dhyanas or the
four stages of ecstacy ; 14, meditation on the
four infinite virtues, viz., love, pity, joy, and self-
166 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
sacrifice ; 15, meditation on the aspects of
immateriality, corresponding to the four realms
of the Artipadhatu.
VI. 16. Contemplation of human opinion ;
17, practice of religion for name and gain.
VII. 18. Transcendental happiness ; 19, the
transcendental moral commandments (Q)ila).
These are the precepts of the Buddhist order.
20, Transcendental contemplation (Samadhi) ;
21, Transcendental wisdom (Prajna).
B. Steps in the Imperfect Religious Life. He
who understood the foregoing steps has under-
stood the essence of Buddhism. In attempting
to follow them however, he must pass through
the following stages.
1. Breaking of the commandments ; 2,
breaking of the eight special commandments
(see below) ; 3, bringing the truth into disrepute ;
4, despising learning ; 5, Increasing in conceit.
C. Steps in Doing Good and Suppressing
Evil. Meanwhile the disciple must guard him-
self against relapse into evil ways and seek to
establish himself in the Holy Path by : —
1. Causing all sentient beings to hear the
doctrine of the Buddhas ; 2, by protecting the
Dharma ; 3, seeking instruction in the Dharma ;
THE WHEEL OF LIFE 167
4, mutual confession of sin ; 6, confession of
sin to all the Buddhas ; 6, stamping out the
need for confession.
II. Practice in the Three Sciences.
A. Steps in the increase of Discipline ( ^ila).
1. The Five Commandments of the Layman.
These are 1, not to destroy life ; 2, not to steal ;
3, not to commit adultery ; 4, not to lie ; 5,
not to take intoxicating liquors : These are
binding at all times on Buddhists.
2. The Eight Special Commandments for
Laymen. These are the preceding five plus : —
1, not to eat food at forbidden times ; 2, not
to use garlands or use perfumes ; 3, not to sleep
on high or broad beds (chastity). These three
are not obligatory on laymen but are undertaken
at various times to acquire merit.
3. The Ten Commandments of the Monlc.
These are the preceding eight plus : — 1, to
abstain from music, singing and stage plays ;
2, to abstain from the use of gold and silver
(money).
4. The Two Hundred and Fifty Rules for
Monies. These rules are an epitome of the whole
vinaya.
168 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
5. The Secondary Course of Rules Jor Monks.
Those who have successfully practised the two
hundred and fifty rules proceed to follow these
higher and more difficult precepts.
6. The Complete Observance of all the Rules
of the Vinaya. The foregoing constitute the
letter of the Law, the remainder constitute its
spirit.
7. Abiders in the Law. 8. Peacemakers.
9. Those who practise Purity. 10. Those who
practise superior Purity. 11. The rule of con-
scious Purity. 12. The rule of unconscious
Purity. 13. The unsurpassed Law or the
peerless wisdom which pervades all the lesser
commandments.
B. Steps in the Growth of Ecstacy {Samddhi).
These consist in a number of rules whereby a
peculiar form of ecstatic meditation may be
induced in many cases resembling a state of
trance or auto-hypnosis. Lack of space prevents
our more than enumerating the principal
stages :
1. Six transcendental gates of meditation.
2. The sixteen victories : These consist for
the most part of various breathing exercises,
correlated to various mental stages.
THE WHEEL OF LIFE I69
3. Comprehensive reflection. Reflection on
breathing, on matter, on mind, and on causation.
4. The ninefold mental perceptions. These
consist of thought on the various evils of cor-
poreal existence as compared with the purity
of the noumenal world.
5. The eight-fold mental perceptions : These
are called mental perceptions because one is
supposed to hold the mental image vividly
before one. They are 1, The Buddha ; 2, The
Dharma ; 3, The Order of the Monks ; 4, The
Vinaya ; 5, Sacrifices ; 6, The various Heavens ;
7, Sentient beings ; 8, Death.
6. The ten-fold mental perceptions. 7. The
eight-fold reflection on mortification. 8. Re-
flection on the eight victorious battles. 9.
Reflection on the ten Universal Ideas : These
consist of various subjects for meditation while
the aspirant is engaged in attaining Samadhi.
10. Contemplation on the nine preceeding
stages : As a result of this severe mental train-
ing, ecstacy ensues, of which we are given three
stages : —
11. The master's ecstatic contemplation.
This consists in eliminating desire and trans-
cending the four Arupa states.
12. Surpassing ecstacy.
170 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
13. Eoyal Ecstacy in which innumerable,
indescribable joys are experienced, more especi-
ally joy in transcending all twenty-five stages of
existence.
C. Stages in the Growth of Wisdom (Prajna).
By means of samadhi and ordinary forms of
reflection and contemplation, wisdom is at
length achieved. This also consists of several
stages : —
1. Inauguration of the Cravaka heart, where-
by one understands the four Noble Truths and
is able to attain Arhatship.
2. Inauguration of the Pratyeka Buddha
heart, whereby one understands the twelve
Nidanas, the chain of causation, and so attains
to complete wisdom.
3. Inauguration of the Bodhisattva heart,
whereby one makes the four vows and practises
the six paramitas.
4. Eeflection on ^unyata. Eecognition
that all phenomena are impermanent and have
no self-essence.
5. Eeflection on the three-fold nature of
phenomena, Kti, Ke, and Chu.
6. Transcending reflection on the Essence
of Mind, which is perfect and complete (En)
and immediate (Ton). The older forms of
THE WHEEL OF LIFE 171
Mahayana would have us stop here, but the later
branches add two more : —
7. Desire to be re-born in the inner mansion
of Maitreya. The Bodhisattva who is to be the
next Buddha to appear in this world at present
resides in the Tusita Heaven. Those who have
high aims are re-born there to garner wisdom
of him.
8. Desire to be re-born in the Sukhavati
of Amitabha Buddha.
III. Stages in the Four Schools.
The disciple is now able to enter definitely
some particular path which leads to Nirvana.
The Tendai school thinks that there are four
paths identified with the four principal phases
of Buddhism.
A. Steps in the PitaJca or Zo School.
1. The five heart rests consisting of med-
itation on 1, the evils of existence ; 2,
compassion and transcendality ; 3,
causality ; 4, the elements of existence ;
5, the methods of samadhi.
2. Thought on differentiation, or analysis.
3. Thought on Totality or Synthesis.
In practice these consist in the application
of the three or four marks to the body
and mind.
172 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
4. The Hot Zeal Stage. 5. The Mountain
top stage. 6. The stage of perseverance :
When this stage has been attained, there
is no return, no " falling from grace."
7. The highest stage in the phenomenal
world.
8. The Qrotapanna stage : he has entered upon
the stream, the lowest of the four supreme
stages of the Pitaka school.
9. The Sakridagamin stage : he who will be
reborn but once before attaining Nirvana.
10. The Anagamin stage, he who returns no
more to the world but being reborn in the
Arupa worlds there attains to Nirvana.
11. The stage of Arhatship : he who has
attained to the state of bliss and emanci-
pation from the phenomenal world. This is
the highest stage to which, according to
the Pitaka school, most men can attain.
12. The stage of Pratyeka Buddha : he who
forsaking mere emancipation aims at
complete enlightenment but for himself
alone.
13-14-15. Various degrees in the Bodhisattva
stage : who have undertaken the four vowa
THE WHEEL OF LIFE 173
and practice the six paramitas, working
through innumerable kalpas for the salva-
tion of all mankind.
16. Buddhahood.
B. Steps in the Intermediate or Tsu School.
These consist of the attainment of the follow-
ing : — 1, wisdom ; 2, spiritual nature ; 3,
eight forms of patience ; 4, spiritual per-
ception ; 5, indifference to pleasure and
pain, wealth and poverty ; 6, freedom from
desire ; 7, finished work : This is equi-
valent to Arhatship which is the highest
goal of Hinayana but which is itself but a
stage in the later schools ; 8, Pratyeka
Buddhahood. In undeveloped Mahayana
including the Intermediate school this is
the highest stage to which ordinary
humanity may aspire ; 9, Bodhisattva-
hood ; 10, Buddhahood.
C. Steps in the Differentiated or Betsu School of
Mahayana — 52 in number : —
1-10. The ten aims (literally the ten hearts).
These are 1, faith ; 2, thoughtfulness >
3, progress ; 4, wisdom ; 5, contem-
plation ; 6, perseverance ; 7, protec-
tion of the Dharraa ; 8, returning to the
174 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
source of things ; 9, Qila, morality ; 10,
the determination or vow to save others.
11-20. The ten grades.
1. The increase of spirituality. This is
equivalent to the stage of ^rotapanna.
2. Submission to rule. Equivalent to
preparation for the Sakridagamin
stage.
3. Cultivation of Virtue. Equivalent to
the attainment for the Sakridagamin
Stage.
4. Noble birth = preparation for the
Anagamin stage.
5. Perfect means = attainment of Ana-
gamin stage.
6. Eight mind = Preparation for Arhat-
ship.
7. The grade of no-retrogration = the
attainment of Arhatship.
8. Immortal youth = Pratyeka Buddha-
hood.
9. Sons of the King of the Law = the
Intermediate conception of Bodhi-
sattvahood.
10. The summit of attainment =the
Intermediate conception of Buddha-
hood.
THE WHEEL OF LIFE 175
21-30. The ten characteristics (literally
actions). Each stage is associated with
one of the ten paramitas (4 vows plus 6
paramitas), viz : — 1, joy ; 2, mercy ; 3,
absence of hatred ; 4, irresistible ; 5,
absence of fanaticism ; 6, power of mani-
festation ; 7, absence of self will ; 8,
reverence ; 9, the virtuous law ; 10, the
absolute truth.
31-40. The ten returns, so called because in
this stage man returns to his original
nature which is latent behind all evil : —
1, Eeturn from the absolute world to the
world of phenomena to save all sentient
being. 2. Eeturn to the indestructible.
3. Eeturn to equality with all the Budd-
has. 4. Eeturn to omnipresence, and
5, to inexhaustible treasures. 6. Eeturn
to the source of absolute virtue, and 7,
to primal equality. 8. Eeturn to the
Buddha nature, and 9. to deliverance from
bondage. 10. Eeturn to the infinite es-
sence of things.
41-50. The ten attainments. These are the
same as the ten stages of Bodhisattva-
hood, already explained (page 107).
They are : — 1, joy ; 2, purity ; 3,
176 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
brightness of intellect ; 4, brightness of
wisdom ; 5, difficult to surpass ; 6,
everpresent manifestations ; 7, far dis-
tant attainment ; 8, attainment of the
immovable state ; 9, holy wisdom ; 10,
the cloud of the Dharma.
51. Attainment of the Final stage of Bodhi-
sattvahood.
52. Attainment of the Buddhahood of
transcendent wisdom with the develop-
ment of the three bodies (Trikaya).
D. Steps in the Perfect or En School of
Mahayana. This is the highest of the four
schools and corresponds as we have seen to the
doctrine of the Tendai school itself. The names
of the stages is much the same as in the Differ-
entiated school, but the arrangement is slightly
different, and the Tendai sect clainas that the full
meaning of each stage is more profound, so that
the two sets do not correspond as closely as
would appear at first sight. The usual classi-
fication is as follows : —
(Outer Division).
1. The stage of reason and speculation.
2. The stage of names and letters or formal
learning.
THE WHEEL OF LIFE 177
3. The stage of contemplation. The five
arts.
(Inner Division).
4. The stage of the imperfect conception of
truth.
a. The ten aims.
5. The stage of the partial comprehension of
truth.
a. The ten grades.
b. The ten characteristics.
c. The ten returns.
d. The ten attainments.
e. Universal enlightenment.
6. The complete comprehension of truth.
Finally there is the Sukhavati school which
eliminates all the preceding stages and seeks to
attain Nirvana by entering directly into the
Pure Land of the Universal Buddha. With
some this pure land is taken literally, as a
material heaven to be attained by faith in
Amitabha. Among all philosophic Buddhists,
however, the Pure Land is a symbol, a state of
mind, an awakening of the Buddha seed, the
bursting into flame of the spark of spiritual life
to be obtained by means of mystic adoration and
devotional realization of the true nature of
reality. This rebirth into Paradise is to be
178 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
attained here and now, at the moment when the
Boul throws off the trammels of the lesser self,
and realizes its fundamental and ^ priori union
with the Greater Self.
Whether taken literally of metaphorically, the
Sukhavati Buddhists divide the Pure Land into
two sections, Hodo or the True Land for the
completely awakened, and Kedo, Apparent Land,
for those whose faith is tinctured with selfish-
ness and doubt.
One very important feature of the Jo do
theology which has often been overlooked by
Western students of the subject, is that it teaches
that even after being reborn in Jodo a man must
come back repeatedly to earth for the sake of
saving all creatures (This is called the doctrine
of genso eJco). Accordingly there is but little
real difference between the salvation by works
school and that by means of the Pure Land, for,
to quote a booklet by S. Kuroda : " Though
there are the two different passages of Shodomon
and Jodomon, mok§a (emancipation, here
equivalent to Nirvana) can be obtained equally
through both . . . Those who follow the
former division, though they obtain Buddhahood
in this world must still accomplish the excellent
deeds and vows of Bodhisattvas in the Pure
THE WHEEL OF LIFE 179
Land while the followers of the latter, though
they be born in the Pure Land must likewise
cultivate and practise them, being reborn in the
Impure Land (This world)."
CONCLUSION
A SHOET HISTOEY OF BUDDHISM AND
THE PEINCIPAL BUDDHIST SECT
I. India.
(a.) The Rise and Spread of Buddhism.
Most scholars have now agreed that Qakya-
muni must be assigned to the latter half of the
sixth century B.C. Then, as for a long time
thereafter, the civilization of India was confined
to the Ganges basin and the surrounding country.
Caste rules as regards marriage and possibly as
regards food already set in, but were not so rigid
and inviolable as in later times. There
seems to have been little over population, and
the people must have led an easy and fairly
comfortable existence. The country was broken
up into a number of small principalities, each
ruled over by an hereditary prince or king,
though democratic states such as that of the
Licchavi's, who elected their ruler were by no
means unknown. It is quite possible that
Prof. Ehys-Davids is right in asserting that
Quddhodana was not the king, but only a chiet
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 181
or senator in a democratic ^akya state. The
most powerful countries were Kogala and
Magadha. The rulers of both countries seem to
have been on favourable terms with the Buddha,
terms, however, which did not prevent them from
supporting other teachers, and seeking truth in
other religions.
Then, as in later times, it was the custom to
support various religious bodies ; to bestow alma
upon mendicant monks of various creeds, and
at no time did Buddhism possess exclusive
jurisdiction over the religious mind of India. ^^At
certain times owing to especial patronage in
royal circles, its influence was predominant, but
a new ruler might shed his favour in other
quarters without a serious hitch in the religious
world. The Brahmins seem to have gone on
with their daily rites unimpeded.
Although the orthodox accounts of the
success of the Buddha's ministry are probably
greatly exaggerated, Buddhism certainly met
with popular recognition during the life time of
its founder, though it is doubtful if it would have
become the great religion of India had it not been
for the impetus given it by A§oka, the Buddhist
Constantine, who lived some two centuries and a
half after Qakyamuni. A§oka was the son of
182 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
Bindusara and the grandson of Candragupta, who
was the founder of the famous Maurya dynasty,
and the first Indian Empire of any importance,
though, of course, even this was confined to
Northern India. Candragupta began his reign
sometime between 320 B.C. and 315 B.C. and
Agoka waded to his throne through the blood
of his relatives about 256 B.C.
The early Mauryas were certainly not Budd-
hists, and probably favoured Jainism. Agoka,
however, in repentance for his former misdeeds,
turned his mind to religion, and, though from his
edicts we know that he favoured the Ajivakas
and Nirgranthas as well as the Buddhists,
Buddhism claimed his chief sympathy, and he
despatched a number of Buddhist missionaries
to other kingdoms, so that Buddhism from being
confined to Madhyadeca, and Pragdega spread
to Mysore, Kagmira, Gandhara, etc. The most
famous mission was that of Mahendra, the son or
nephew of Agoka to Ceylon, which was quickly
converted to the faith, and has ever since been a
stronghold of Buddhism, even when it died out
in its native land. Buddhism reached Burma,
Siam, etc., from Ceylon, and consequently
remained faithful to Hinayana, for though
during the middle ages Ceylon seems to have
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 183
dallied with Mahayana for the most part it
was the headquarters of the more primitive
faith, i.e, Sthaviravadin Buddhism.
Agoka's descendants were weaklings and the
Maurya dynasty was overthrown by Pusyamitra,
a zealous Hindu, and for some generations
Buddhism suffered an eclipse in India, though
it maintained its activity in Central Asia,
Bactria, Persia, etc.
The next important stage in Indian Buddhism
began with Kani§ka, who founded a Sythian
dynasty, and, being converted to Buddhism,
re-established its prestige and importance.
Kani§ka's date has been the subject of much
dispute, but probably he must be referred to
the first century A.D. It was in his reign
that we first hear of Mahayana activities,
though Kaniska himself chiefly patronized
the Sarvastivadins. Mahayana, however, was
soon to become powerful, and owing to its
devotional aspect, and to the greater scope of
its philosophic activity, as well perhaps to
the fact that it incorporated many Hindu and
possibly Persian ideas, succeeded in greatly
overshadowing its rival, though Hinayana con-
tinued to exist as long as Buddhism remained
in India.
184 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
The next few centuries constituted the flower
of Indian Buddhism. Nagarjuna was born
about the end of Kaniska's reign, and was
quickly followed by a long line of eminent
speculators, including Arya Deva, Asanga, Vasu-
bandhu, Dignaga, Candragomin, Candrakirti,
Dharmakirti, etc. Soon after Nagarjuna's time
the famous Buddhist University of Nalanda
was founded and continued until the 9th century
to be the seat of great learning. Almost all
the great dynasties of India, with one or two
outstanding exceptions, either favoured Budd-
hism or permitted it to grow unchecked.
The decline of Buddhism in India dates from
the middle of the eighth century. Its downfall
was aided by the attacks of the great Indian
philosophers such as Qankara, but the more
important reason was the adoption by Buddhism
of Mantric, Tantric, and Esoteric forms and
beliefs. Hindu Tantrism developed at the same
time and along similar lines. In many cases it
became impossible to distinguish between them.
Hindu Tantrism absorbed many Buddhist
elements, as in fact did all forms of Hinduism
so much so that modern Hinduism might be
called a combination of ancient Brahmanism
and Buddhism. All this tended to decrease
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 185
the independent power of Buddhism, though
the Pala kings who ruled over Gauda and the
surrounding regions from A.D. 800-1050 were
Buddhists, during which time the Buddhist
University of Vikramagila was a renowned
centre of Tantric learning, replacing the ancient
Nalanda.
The Mohammedan conquests profoundly dis-
turbed all native Indian religions. Temples
were burnt, monks and priests massacred, and
" heathen " practises put down. At his time
Buddhism did not possess the recuperative
power of Hinduism, and the torch of the Dharma
became extinct in its native land. In Bengal
alone. Buddhism lingered until the sixteenth
century, when it became absorbed by Hinduism,
not without leaving strong traces of the original
tradition.
(6.) Councils and Canons.
The development of the different sects or
schools of Buddhism was strongly affected by
the Buddhist theory of the great councils.
Two great councils are acknowledged by all
forms of Buddhism. The first was supposed
to have been held immediately after the
Buddha's death, to recite the scriptures preached
by him, namely the Sutra and Vinaya pitakas,
186 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
to which some would add the Abhidharma pitaka.
Some northern accounts would hold that there
were two such councils held contemporaneously,
one for the Sthaviravadins, and one for the
Mahasanghikas. Others would say that there
were three, adding one in which the Mahayana
siitras were recited. For the most part. Western
scholars have rejected the story of the first
council as a myth. Certainly the scriptures in
their present form cannot have been recited
then, but it seems quite likely that an informal
meeting to discuss matters of policy took place.
This is known as the council of Eajagriha.
The second council or the council of Vai§ali,
took place some 110 years after the death of
the Buddha, in order to condemn certain practises
on the part of those monks who had broken away
from the ancient precepts. The Sthaviravadins
claim that the monks thus condemned were the
Mahasanghikas, but this seems improbable.
Eegarding the next two councils the Buddhist
records disagree. The Sthaviravadins or the
Theravadins, maintain that a thii'd council took
place during the reign of Agoka. Of this we
find no record in orthodox Northern accounts,
and probably it consisted only of a meeting of
the Theravadin worthies, who were already but
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 187
one among many conflicting sects. The Tliera-
vadins equally ignore the Northern account of a
council supposed to have been held in the reign
of Kani§ka, which composed Sanskrit com-
mentaries on the three pitakas, and was probably
under the control of the Sarvastivadins. There-
after Buddhism knows of no great councils.
Even the Mahayanists failed to convoke one.
The Hinayana stitra and vinaya pitakas were
probably composed from previously existing
materials, shortly before the time of A^oka.
Most likely each sect made its own redaction
which differed considerably in arrangement
among themselves, and also as regards the
language employed. The claim of the Pali
canon to be the original and only genuine
version, is almost certainly false, though it was
undoubtedly one of the first to be compiled.
The Chinese translations of the Nikayas or
Agamas seems to have been from an independent
but almost equally early source.
Each sect evolved its own commentary, and
exposition of the early writings, and these were
later crystallized into the third or Abhidharma
Pitaka. As far as we can judge from the two
which have come down to us, the Sthaviravadin
works in Pali, and the Sarvastivadin works
N
188 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
translated from Sanskrit into Chinese, they were
entirely independent creations, except for the
misleading similarity of certain titles. As re-
gards their age we can only say that the bulk of
the Pali or Sthaviravadin Abhidharma works
must have been in existence at the time of or
shortly after Agoka, while the seven main works
of the Sarvastivadin Abhidharma, were com-
posed some time before the time of Kaniska's
council.
Later and non-canonical commentaries and
expositions followed in great profusion until we
have the vast mass of Hinayana literature
which meets our eyes to-day.
The Mahayana sutras are unquestionably
much later than the main portion of the Hinay-
ana canon, and is evidenced by the language and
style employed. Many of them, however, must
have been composed at the time of Kani§ka
(1st century A.D.) as they are frequently cited
by Nagarjuna as authoritative, though there
were probably many later additions, inter-
polations, and emendations. The majority of
Mahayana sutras probably reached their settled
form between Nagarjuna (2nd cent.) and Asanga
(5th cent.) The very few Mahayana works
dealing with the Vinaya must have been com-
posed more or less at the same time.
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 189
Mahayana has no fixed or well defined canon
of Abhidharma works, such as we find with either
the Sthaviravadins or Sarvastivadins, but the
various works of the Mahayana Patriarchs were
accepted as the standard expositions of truth, and
as such were incorporated in the Chinese Canon
of the Mahayana Abhidharma. These works
sprang up in the first century A.D. As far as
China is concerned few were translated after the
seventh century (Hsuan Chuang was the last of
the great translators) and Dignaga was the last
author of any importance to be incorporated in
the Chinese Canon. Tibet, on the other hand,
though starting in the field much later than
China carried out the work of translation for
some time further, and for the Indian Buddhist
works from the seventh century down to the
extinction of Buddhism in India we have only
the Tibetan Tanjur to guide us, because with the
exception of a few works kept in Nepal, almost
the whole of the extensive Buddhist Sanskrit
literature has perished.
(c.) The Establishment of the Sects.
All accounts agree that Buddhism early
broke up into a number of different schools. In
Hinayana alone, before the time of Agoka we hear
of the eighteen (or twenty) sects of Hinayana.
190 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
The study of their differences is most interesting
and instructive, but unfortunately we can
secure no uniform or coherent account of them.
This is, no doubt, largely accounted for by the
fact that the sects were not what we mean
by the term, but correspond in their early
stages to the distinctions between High,
Low, and Broad Churches in the Church cf
England.
We have only three principal sources to guide
us, and none of these agree. The first of these is
the Southern account found in the Pali work,
Kattha Vatthu, one of the seven Pali Abhid-
harma works, a large portion of which was
probably composed about the time of Agoka.
The famous Mahavansa account of the schools is
based upon this. The second is Vasumitra's
account of the eighteen sects, three translations
of which were made into Chinese, and one into
Tibetan. This may be called the principal
Northern account. The third is Bhavya's work
on the subject, and exists only in a Tibetan
translation. It differs considerably from Vasu-
mitra's on several details, but is obviously
in accordance with the same general tradition
as contrasted with the quite different KatthS
Vatthu.
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 191
On one point, however, all traditions agree.
Hinayana was early divided into two great
schools, the Sthaviravadin, or the school of the
Elders, and the Mahasanghika, or the school of
the Great Council. These two schools were
chiefly divided on questions touching Buddhology
rather than on metaphysical grounds, the former
regarding the Buddha as essentially human, and
subject to the fraUties of the flesh, while the
latter considered the Buddha as transcendental,
as immune from human limitations, and even
approached the attitude of Christian Docetism in
teaching that the Buddha never really appeared
on the earth, but only created an appartional
form for the salvation of the world. The
Mahasanghikas were obviously the forerunners of
Mahayana.
According to Northern accounts the Mahasang-
hikas were divided into nine (or eight) divisions,
namely, (1) Mula-mahasanghika, (2) Ekavy-
avaharikas, (3) Lokottaravadins, (4) Kauru-
kuUaka, (5) Bahugrutiya, (6) Prajnaptivadins,
(7) Caityagailas, (8) Avara^ailas, (9) Uttara-
gailas. Of these the only one that is definitely
known to us is the Lokottaravadins whose
Mahavastu has been so ably edited by Senart.
To what branch of the Mahasanghikas the
192 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
Chinese Mahasanghika Vinaya, and the Sam-
yukta Agama belong, we do not as yet know.
The Northern accounts further state that the
Sthaviravadins were divided into eleven (or ten)
schools, namely (1) Haimavantas, or Sthavirav-
adins proper, (2) Sarvastivadins, (3) Vatsi-
putriyas, (4) Dharmottaras, (5) Bhadrayanikas,
(6) Sammitiyas, (7) Sannagarikas, (8) Mahi-
gasakas, (9) Dharmaguptas, (10) Kagyapiyas,
(11) Sautrantikas. Of these the most important
were the Sthaviravadins proper, who clung the
nearest to the psychological agnosticism of
early Buddhism, second the Sarvastivadins,
later known as the Vaiba§ikas from their Vib-
ha§as or great commentaries, closely related
with which were the Dharmaguptas, Kagyapiyas,
and Mahigasakas who formulated a completely
realistic philosophy from the analytical data of
earlier Buddhism ; finally the Sautrantikas so
called from their insistence upon the Sutras
themselves, as opposed to the Abhidharma
works. Though realistically inclined the
Sautrantikas taught that we have only an in-
direct (as opposed to direct of the Sarvastivadins)
perception of the external universe, and in
certain cases seem to have taught a pure con-
ceptualism, i.e. that aJl external objects are
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 193
merely conceptions in so far as they appear to
have an absolute self -existence. To some branch
of the Sautrantikas probably belongs the Satya
Siddhi ^astra which expounds an undeveloped
form of the Qunya doctrine, or the theory of the
purely relative existence of all phenomena.
Mahayana Buddhism probably arose from the
combination of the Buddhological ideas of the
Mahasanghikas, and the metaphysical theories
of the Sautrantikas, suitably modified in both
cases. There can be no doubt that the first
systematic presentation of the Mahayana
philosophy was in the Madhyamika school
founded by Nagarjuna. Its doctrine of ^tinyata
and the Middle Principle including and trans-
cending both existence and non-existence we
have already examined. The Madhyamikaa
were soon divided into several sub-sects, of which
the most important were the Svatantrikas, and
the Prasanghas of which the Prasanghas were
destined to become triumphant.
The influence of the Madhyamika sect was
enormous. Many of its doctrines were in-
corporated in the Yogacarya sect, and its
teachings form the basis of most of Tibetan
Buddhism, and the Sanron and Tendai sect of
China and Japan as well as the later schools
194 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
founded thereon. Even the later, more complete,
more elaborate, and more consistent Yogacarya
sect was unable to supplant it. The later
Madhyamika philosophers waged war on the
innovations of the Yogacaryas, claiming that
they were but ephemeral additions to relative
truth, and therefore already potentially included
in the absolute truth of their own teaching. For
this reason most Tibetan and Chinese histories
of Buddhism give the Yogacarya system as the
stepping stone from Hinayana to the perfect
Mahay ana represented by the Madhyamikas.
As far as China is concerned this slight to the
Yogacarya school is due to the fact that the
Madhyamikas, or their dependents had already
triumphed before the Yogacarya doctrines were
introduced, and, thus entrenched, lost no oppor-
tunity of belittling any possible usurper. What
influence the Yogacaryas did possess was chiefly
through the earlier and incomplete translations of
certain individual works such as the Mahayana
^raddhotpada ^astra, and the DaQabhiimika
^astra, etc., and even the schools based on these
works united with the Madhyamikas in con-
demning the full exposition of the Yogacarya
doctrine as contained in the translations of
Genjo (Hsuan Chuang).
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 195
Notwithstanding this fact the Yogacarya
school must be considered the full blossom of
Mahayana philosophy, the high water mark of
metaphysical Buddhism. Not content with
accepting the vague ^unya doctrines of the
Madhyamika school it formulated a remarkably
lucid and consistent doctrine of idealism, ex-
plaining how the universe was the product of
mind, and yet at the same time guarded itself
from the dangers of solipsism. As yet too little
is known of the Yogacarya metaphysics, but
when translations are made from their philo-
sophical works we shall be able to appreciate, for
the first time, to what a high level Indian and
Buddhist speculation had reached.
In its later and more degenerated stages the
Yogacarya school took up several forms of
mysticism and esotericism. Its several stages on
this path may be marked off in the following
way : — First came what we may call Man-
trayana, or the doctrine of salvation by spells,
exorcisms, and incantations. This includes the
use of dharanis and mantras. With the theory of
the mystic value of sound, there also arose the
idea of the value of certain colours, and the
symbolic meaning of certain positions of the
hands (mudra). With this evolved the whole
196 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
doctrine of an esoteric as opposed to an exoteric
tradition. The next stage, which is usually-
called Tantrayana, is marked by still further
symbolism and esotericism. The Absolute is
symbolized under various aspects, and in addi-
tion to the celestial Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of
earlier times, the feminine or Great Mother cult
was introduced. To each Buddha and Bod-
hisattva was added a feminine counterpart. In
certain cases Nirvana was mystically pictured as
Niratma Devi. She is to all intents and purposes
a metaphor for the infinite void. From the
highest stage in the material world the aspirant
leaps into the embraces of Niratma Devi and
enjoys something like the pleasures of the senses,
and disappears in her as salt disappears in water.
The final stage is marked by the downfall of the
older systems and the triumph of demonology,
in which a man seeks for success, and pleasure
through the worship of the terrible furies of
nature.
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 197
II. China and Japan
(a). The Introduction of Buddhism
Buddhism reached China in the first century
A.D. during the reign of the Emperor Ming Ti.
We are told that in the year A.D. 64 the emperor
had a dream which caused him to send a com-
mission to the West to seek for a new religion.
In 67 the commission returned bringing back
with them two Buddhist monks, Kagyapa
Matanga and Dharmarak§a, both of whom died
three years later, not, however, without leaving
traces of their influence. One of their trans-
lations into Chinese, the Sutra of the Forty Two
Sections, which has come down to us presents
little metaphysics, but expounds the ethical
import of Buddhism, whether Hlnayana and
Mahay ana, in short pithy sentences. It has
several times been translated into English.
Buddhism, however, was by no means firmly
established. From time to time further mission-
aries and translators arrived in China, and were
established in monasteries, and carried on their
work, but how little influence it can have obtained
198 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
is seen by the fact that it was only in the begin-
ning of the 4th century that native Chinese were
officially allowed to become Buddhist monks.
From the fourth century onwards, however,
Buddhist influence was constantly on the in-
crease in spite of occasional persecution, until
the summit was reached in the T'ang dynasty
(618-907). The Sung dynasty (908-1280) saw
the revival of Confucian philosophy, which,
however, in its new form borrowed a very great
deal from the doctrines of Buddhism, and
generally speaking from that time on Confucian-
ism has been the state code, though Buddhism
has always retained its hold over the broad
masses of the people. The favour shown by
the literati to Confucianism did not help the
philosophical or educational standard of the
Buddhist priesthood, who were content to pander
to the superstition of the masses. Of recent,
years, however, a great many reforms have taken
place. There is a genuine revival of interest in
the philosophic side of Buddhism among th«
cultured, and consequently the intellectual
standard of the monkhood has been considerably
elevated.
China once converted to the Buddhist faith
turned missionary herself, and most of the
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 199
surrounding countries received their Buddhism
through Chinese influences. Tibet first came
into contact with Buddhism in the seventh
century through the marriage of the Tibetan
King, Srong Tsan Gampo, with the Buddhist
daughter of the Chinese Emperor. Subse-
quently a number of translations of Buddhist
works were made from Chinese into Tibetan,
but, as was only natural, once Buddhism was
really established Tibet looked to India for her
Buddhist guides, and became permeated with
the Mantrayana and Tantrayana of later Indian
Buddhism even more than Chinese Buddhism,
which had received its Buddhism in the first
place in the more virile days of the pure Mad-
hyamika and earlier Yogacarya philosophy.
The Tibetan form of Buddhism, known popu-
larly as Lamaism was destined to triumph in
Mongolia, and the Himalayan States.
Buddhism reached Korea in A.D. 372, and
quickly over-ran the whole of the peninsula.
Its Golden Age was from the tenth to the four-
teenth century. At that time a change in
dynasty unseated the paramount position of
Buddhism, and as in China Buddhism remained
the devotional home of the peasantry and the
broad mass of the people, being rejected by the
200 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
aristocracy as a whole. Since the beginning of
the 20th century, however, the revival spoken
of in China has been even more noticeable in
Korea. The astonishing reorganization of
Korean Buddhism, and its effect upon the
people has been well described by Starr in his
Buddhism in Korea.
Japan first came into contact with Buddhism
through an embassy sent from Korea in the year
A.D. 552, and, after a prolonged conflict with
Shint5, Buddhism universally triumphed, aided
largely by the genius of the Prince Im-
perial Shotoku Taishi, the Japanese Agoka or
Constantine. Though Shinto never entirely died
out, from the end of the sixth century until the
beginning of the seventeenth. Buddhism was the
premier philosophy and religion of all sections of
the nation. During the Tokugawa Shogunate
(1608-1867) the rehabilitated Confucianism of the
Sung period came into favour in state and edu-
cated circles, though Buddhism was never sup-
planted. Finally the early stages of the restoration
government (from 1867 onwards) was marked by
an attempt to secure supremacy to Shinto as
opposed to both Confucianism and Buddhism,
but this movement was largely a failure. Con-
fucianism failed to survive, but Buddhism has
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 201
never been on a stronger or more secure founda-
tion, although it plays no official part in the
machinery of government.
More particularly do the Zen and the Shin
schools prosper at the present moment. In both
a high standard of education is required for
ordination, and the various Buddhist colleges,
universities, and seminaries scattered throughout
Japan, are now the leading centres of Buddhist
learning throughout the whole world. Here the
sacred works of Buddhism, whether Pali, Sans-
krit, Tibetan or Chinese, are studied in the
original, and all the machinery of higher criticism
evoked in their consideration. Here also not
only are all the various systems of Buddhist
metaphysics taught, but at the same time
Occidental science, philosophy and religion are
brought before the eyes of all persons training
for the priesthood.
In recent years Japan has once more turned
missionary. Japanese Buddhist temples have
been established in Formosa, Korea, Manchuria,
and China, and have largely assisted in the
revival of Buddhism going on in those countries.
Similar institutions have also been established
in Hawaii, America and Canada, etc., chiefly
for the benefit of Japanese living abroad.
202 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
(b). The Compilation oj the Canon.
The Pali Canon is concerned with only on©
out of many Hinayana sects, and ignores th©
later developments of Buddhist philosophy which
largely centred itself in Mahayana schools.
Sanskrit literature on Buddhism has largely
disappeared, except for a few works in Nepal, so
that the Chinese and Tibetan collections of th©
Buddhist scriptures remain our principal, and
in many cases our only, means of studying th©
evolution of Buddhism, and the civilization of
the countries with which it came into contact.
Both collections contain works of widely different
ages and countries, and have at least one or two
works from practically all the important sects,
both Hinayana and Mahayana.
Of the two, the Chinese is the better for th©
study of the earlier phases of Buddhism, th©
Tibetan the later ; but though the Tibetan trans-
lations are usually more literal, the Chines©
canon is much more complete and comprehensive,
frequently giving two or more translations of
the same work at different dates, which is in-
teresting from the point of view of higher
criticism, and finally, whereas the Tibetan added
but little to the philosophic development of
Buddhism, in China and Japan many more
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 203
important works were composed, and Buddhist
philosophy underwent considerable and very-
valuable evolution in those two countries.
The works contained in the Chinese canon are
of a very varying character. It consists of
works of very uneven merit, translated and
composed at widely separated periods, by
writers of very unequal ability, but of its value
as a store-house of Buddhist knowledge, there
can be no doubt.
In the early days no attempt seems to have
been made to fix a definite canon, but indivi-
dual translations or original works were accepted
on their merits. From time to time, usually
at the Imperial command, catalogues were made
of the existing Buddhist books. There are
thirteen such catalogues which are still extant,
the earliest of which dates back to A.D. 520.
Occasionally a collected edition of such works
was printed, though it is remarkable that the whole
collection of the Buddhist Canon which became
larger and larger in the course of time, was
preserved in MS. only, from A.D. 67 (the intro-
duction of Buddhism into China), until A.D. 972.
Thereafter such a collection was frequently
printed from wooden blocks specially carved.
It should be noted, however, that no two such
o
204 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
catalogues or editions agreed for the frequent
destruction of libraries by fire and civil war
in China caused many books to disappear, whose
places were taken by newer works.
The most famous and what proved to be the
final or definitive catalogue of Buddhist works
in China, which unconsciously became elevated
into a Canon, was the Ming catalogue, so called
from the fact that it was compiled during the
Ming dynasty (1368-1644). This consisted of
1662 works, including many duplicate trans-
lations and incidently contained the twelve
older catalogues. Later catalogues of the
Chinese Buddhist scriptures have practically all
confined themselves to a rearrangement of the
works in the Ming list, and subsequent editions
have all been based upon it, so that it may be
justly called a Canon in the strict sense of the
word, like the Pali Canon, though of a strangely
miscellaneous character. In the last generation
three new editions of this Canon have been
printed — one in China and two in Japan. These
are known respectively as the Nanking, Tokyo
and Kyoto editions.
The present generation has also seen the
formation of several new and subsidiary canons.
The most famous of these is the Chinese Supple-
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 205
mentary canon (Zoku-zo-kyo) which consists
of a few translations from Sanskrit, and a large
number of original works by Chinese monks,
which for some reason or other were not included
in the older Canon. This was compiled in Japan
and printed in Kyoto, and is now everywhere
recognised as authoritative, chiefly no doubt
because most of the works contained therein
were individually very well known before.
AQiong the other canons thus formed and
printed, we find a collection of canonical works
by various Japanese worthies, irrespective of
sects, and various sectarian canons, such as
the definitive editions of the sacred works of
such sects as the Zen, Shin, Jodo, Nichiren,
etc. Finally a Japanese translation of the whole
of the Chinese Canon is now being issued in
Tokyo.
(c.) The Establishment of the Sects.
The establishment of sects in the early days
of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism was
accomplished in a very peculiar manner, and
was largely based upon the translation of certain
books or groups of books. The early Chinese
sects may be arranged in the following manner : —
1. The Sanron or Three Qastra Sect, was so
called because it based itself upon the following
206 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
three Qastras or metaphysical works : — (a.) The
Madhyamika ^astra by Nagarjuna, (b.) Qata
^astra by Arya Deva, and (c.) Dvada^a-nikaya
Qastra by Nagarjuna. To these three there is
sometimes added a fourth, the Prajiia Paramita
Sutra Qastra by Nagarjuna. This sect dates back
to the translation of the three castras by Kumara-
jiva in 409. This school is the Chinese counter-
part of the Indian Madhyamika or ^unya
school.
2. The Jojitsu or Satyasiddhi Sect, so called
from the Satyasiddhi Qastra likewise translated
by Kumarajiva. There was no sect corres-
ponding to it in India, but it was probably the
work of some branch of the Sautrantika school.
In both China and Japan this school has never
had a separate existence, but was incorporated
in the Sanron sect, as its teachings were nothing
more than a Hinayana variation of the ^unya
doctrine.
3. The Nehan or Nirvana sect was so called
from its dependence upon the Mahayana Maha-
parinirvana Sutra (translated by Dharmarak^a
423). This sect had much in common with and
was later incorporated in the Tendai sect. It
claimed to be the last and most perfect teaching
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 207
of the Buddha, and emphasized the doctrine of
the permanent reality or the Universal Buddha
or the Absolute.
4. The J iron or Dagabhiimika Qastra Sect
based on Vasubandhu's work on the ten stages
of the Bodhisattva's path to Buddhahood. In
reality this is one of the works of the Indian
Yogacarya school which reached China in A.D.
608 when Bodhiruci first published his transla-
tion. This sect was later absorbed by the
Kegon or Avatamsaka school.
6. The Jodo or Sukhavati sect, also founded
by Bodhiruci, and including Donran, Doshaku,
and Zendo among its patriarchs, taught the
doctrine of salvation through faith in Amitabha
and rebirth in his Western Paradise. By the
seventh century this school was very firmly
established, and has ever since exercised great
influence over Chinese and Japanese Buddhism.
6. The Zen or Dhyana school, the school of
contemplation, was established in China by
Bodhidharma who came from India about A.D.
527. This school emphasized the value of
intuition as opposed to scriptural authority, and
deprecated the acceptance of any doctrine as
ultimate or final. This also has come to have
enormous influence over the Far Bo&t,
208 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
7. The Ritsu or Vinaya sect was founded to
encourage the study of the Vinaya or Buddhist
ecclesiastical discipline or Canon Law. The
Chinese have accepted several versions of the
Vinaya, but pay especial reverence to the
Dharmagupta Vinaya or the Vinaya of the Four
Divisions, translated by Buddhaya?as about
A.D. 410. It produced a number of famous
writers during the T'ang dynasty (618-907).
8. The Shoron or Mahayana-samparigraha
^astra Sect was based on the work of that name
by Aganga and translated by Paramartha io
A.D. 563. This work was also one of the principal
works of the Yogacarya sect of India, and like
the Jiron sect was subsequently absorbed by the
Kegon sect.
9. The Tendai sect which developed into one
of the most important of all the schools was
founded in the sixth century, and had for its
basic scripture the Saddharma Pundarika Sfltra
or the Lotus of the Good Law. In reality this
sect is the consummation of the Madhyamika
tradition, and represents the stronghold of the
transcendental philosophy. After its establish-
ment the Sanron sect which clung more literally
to the teachings of the Madhyamika sect sank
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 209
into disfavour. The Tendai sect has added many
original elements to Buddhist philosophy, and is
not merely a presentation of Indian thought.
10. The Eegon or Avatamsaka sect, so
called because of the Buddhavatamsaka Sutra or
Gandha-vyiiha (translated in A.D. 418), became
firmly established in the sixth and seventh
centuries A.D. This sect plays the same relation
to the Yogacarya sect as Tendai does to the
Madhyamika. It represents the immanent
aspect of Chinese Buddhist philosophy. In
gome ways it marks the high water mark of Far
Eastern Buddhism.
11. The HossG or Dharma-laksana sect came
into being on the return of Genjo (Hsuan Chuang)
from India, when he set about translating all of
the important Yogacarya works. This plays the
same relation to the Yogacarya school as the
Sanron sect does to the Madhyamikas, and just as
the Tendai sect flourished at the expense of the
Sanron, so did the Kegon school flourish at the
expense of the Hosso school in spite of the great
prestige and influence of Genjo who left his mark
on the teachings of the other schools.
12. The Bidon or Abhidharma sect represents
the philosophy of orthodox Hinayana, more
particularly of the Sarvastivadin school. This
210 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
Beet first arose on the translation of the Abhid-
harma Hridaya ^astra in A.D. 391 but received
its chief impetus from Genjo, who translated
the bulk of the Sarvastivadin scriptures in
addition to those of the Yogacarya school. The
most important work was Vasubandhu's Abhid-
harma Koga from which fact the school is often
called the Kusha Sect. Just as the Jojitsu sect
remained subsidiary to the Sanron sect, so did the
Bidon or Kusha sect remain subsidiary to the
Hosso sect.
13. The Shingon or Mantra sect was the last
importation from India, being promulgated
about A.D. 716. This represents the Mantrayana
stage of Buddhism mentioned above, when the
Yogacarya school in India had developed into
esotericism, but before Tantrayana or sexual
mysticism had made much way.
The above thirteen schools represent the
various phases of Chinese Buddhism proper. In
later days Lamaism with its Tantrayana gained
a certain hold in isolated parts of China but never
secured general recognition.
Apart from Lamaism the Chinese Buddhist
sects never possessed any elaborate ecclesiastical
hierarchy. They, like the early Hinayana sects,
were more like the parties in the Church of
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 211
England than independent organizations. As
time went on this fusion became more marked,
and at the present time, speaking generally, all
Chinese Buddhist temples belong more or less to
one sect, accepting for its discipline the Dhar-
magupta Vinaya, for its relative truth or doctrine
either the Tendai or Kegon systems, and for its
principle or absolute truth the doctrine of Zen.
In addition all of them preach the Sukhavati or
Jodo doctrine in some form or other, usually as
a symbolic veiling of truth.
The Japanese sects correspond very closely to
those of China, but the chronological order is
somewhat different. For historical reasons they
may best be classified into three groups, (1) The
ancient or pre-Heian sects, (2) The medieval
sects, and (3) The modern sects, as each group
marked a distinct phase in Japanese history.
1. The Ancient Sects. From A.D. 552 to
A.D. 800 Japan was busily engaged in importing
Chinese culture, in remodelling her institutions on
Chinese lines, and in attempting to form a
civilization of her own. In this scheme Buddhism
played a very important part, and in Japan as
elsewhere proved a veritable medium or harbinger
of general learning, with which it inculcated all its
believers. During the latter part of this period
212 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
the capital of Japan was situate in Nara, in the
South, so that the six Buddhist sects which were
imported at that time are often called the Nanto
sects. In the earliest days there seems to hay©
been no emphasis on any particular sect, as was the
case in the early days in China, but in A.D. 652
the Qtlnya doctrine in both its Sanron (Mad-
hyamika) and Jojitsu (Sautrantika) forms were
introduced into Japan. Shortly after Genjo
(Hsuan Chuang) having returned to China from
India and his fame being noised abroad, various
Japanese monks went to China to study under
him, and subsequently brought back the Hosso
(YogScarya) and Kusha (Sarvastivadin) doctrines
to Japan. This took place on four occasions
between A.D. 658 and 716. In 736 a Chinese
monk brought over the Kegon or Avatamsaka
doctrine to Japan. In 754 another Chinese priest
established the Bitsu or Vinaya sect. As the
result of all this ecclesiastical activity the Buddhist
priests amassed a great deal of power, both
spiritual and temporal, so much so in fact that
the Emperor Kammu decided to change his
capital to Heian or Kyoto lest his court be too
much dominated by the temples of Nara.
2. The Medieval Sects. At the beginning of
the ninth century not only was the capital
A SHORT HISTORY OF BUDDHISM 213
changed, but two young Japanese monks were
despatched to China to bring back some other
forms of Buddhism which might supplant the
over powerful Nara sects. As the result of this
Dengyo Daishi brought back the Tendai sect,
and Kobo Daishi the newly imported Shingon
or Mantra sect. These two schools waxed very
powerful, and long retained the allegiance of the
Emperor and his court, though they were of too
complex and metaphysical a nature to be readily
understood by the people.
3. The Modern Sects are only comparatively
speaking modern as the last was founded in
A.D. 1253. These sects are four in number, and
are all simplifications of Buddhist metaphysics.
In 1174 Honen Shonin founded the Jodo or
Sukhavati sect, in 1191 Eisai establised the
Zen sect as an independent organization (It
had previously been taught by the Japanese
Tendai school, which was eclectic). In 1224
Shinran Shonin founded the Shin sect or re-
formed Buddhism, which was a still further
development of the Sukhavati doctrine, and in
1253 Nichiren founded the Nichiren sect, which
is largely a popularization of the Tendai sect.
The Zen sect had the general adherence of the
Japanese Samurai or military class, and the Shin
214 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
sect the adherence of the people at large. The
Shin is famous for its reorganization of the
priesthood somewhat along the lines of the
Church of England, whereby the priests are
allowed to marry, to eat meat, etc. The Shin
and Zen sects are now by far the most powerful
sects in Japan. The Zen school has probably
the most educated laity, and the Shin the most
educated clergy. Both of them are at present
manifesting considerable practical activity.
Lamaism is divided between the old or un-
reformed order, the JSTingma-pa, whose aherents
wear red hats and red clothing, the new or re-
formed order, the Gelug-pa which is now the
more powerful and has secured temporal control
of Tibet, and whose adherents wear yellow hats
and robes. There are also several sub-divisions
of each, and several semi-reformed sects such as
the Kargyu-pa and Sakya-pa which range be-
tween the old and the new orders. There is little
doctrinal difference.
APPENDIX
THE SACEED LITEEATUKE OF THE
BUDDHISTS
Our work would not be complete without a
brief survey of the principal types of Buddhist
scriptures. At present Buddhism may be said
to be possessed of six canonical languages. These
are Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese, Mongolian,
and Manchurian. The last two may safely be
neglected as they are but translations of extant
Chinese and Tibetan works, but a word or two
must be said concerning each of the others.
I. Pali Literature.
The oldest body of Buddhist literature is to
be found in the Pali canon, which constitutes the
sacred works of the Sthaviravadins, or Thera-
vadins. Though Pali was not the original
language of Buddhism, the other or earlier
redactions of the scriptures of primitive Buddhism
have disappeared. In common with other forms
of Buddhism there are three great divisions of
the Canon, viz : —
1. TJte Vinaya Pitalca or rules for the dis-
cipline and organization of the monkhood.
216 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
2. The Sutra (Sutta) Pitaka or the discourses
of the Buddha, expounding the general
principles of the Buddhist religious and
philosophical system.
3. The Ahhidharma Pitaka, consisting of
various works on the intricate points of
Buddhist metaphysics, or systematic
theology.
The folloY-ing details concerning each of the
three Pitakas may be of interest : —
1. The Vinaya Pitaka comprises three books :
(a.) The Sutta-vibhanga, a full exposition of the
pratimok§a or patimokkha, the 227 rules for the
conduct of the monks, and a somewhat larger
number of rules for the nuns, and of the penances
whereby transgressions of these rules may be
purged. The Sutta Vibhanga is divided into
two books, the Bhikkhu-vibhanga dealing with
the rules for the monks, and the Bhikkhuni-
vibhanga dealing with the rules for the nuns,
(b.) The Khandhakas which contain rules for the
organization of the order, what clothes are to
be worn, how temples and monasteries are to be
erected, how admission may be had to the order,
etc. The Khandhakas are likewise divided into
two books, the Mahavagga or larger diAisions,
and the Culla Vagga or smaller division, (c.)
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE BUDDHISTS 217
Parivdra or appendix, a short manual of later
addition, probably composed in Ceylon and not in
India, and comprising a sort of catechism, or
examination paper on the whole Vinaya, arranged
for purposes of instruction.
2. The Sutra (Sutta) Pitaka consists of four
or five Nikayas or books, viz : — (a) the Digha-
nikaya or collection of longer discourses on
various points of the Buddhist faith, such as
rejection of caste, the four noble truths, etc.
The Pali version consists of 34 long dialogues,
(b) The Majjhima-nikaya or collection of dis-
courses or dialogues of medium length, containing
152 dialogues, (c) Anguttara-nikaya or collec-
tion of suttas or dialogues arranged according to
numbers. This is a favourite Indian method of
composition. Things of a single category come
first, two-fold categories second, and so on.
In this way the three marks (lak§ana) come in
the third division, the four noble truths in the
fourth division, the five skandhas in the fifth
division, etc. This nikaya contains 2,399 short
Buttas. (d) The Samyutta-nikaya or collection
of suttas arranged according to subjects, or
systematically classified. This nikaya contains
2,889 short suttas. In addition to these four
principal nikayas, the Southern accounts gener-
218 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
ally agree in enumerating a fifth, the Khuddaka-
nikaya, or smaller nikaya, a collection of mis-
cellaneous works, many of which are among
the most famous books in the Buddhist canon.
They are 15 in number.
3. The Abhidharma (Abhidhamma) PitaTca
consists of seven works, which are systematic
expositions, with enumeration and classification
of details, of the various works of the Sutta
Pitaka. They are especially concerned with the
psychological analysis of phenomenal existence.
These works are : — (a) The Dhammasangani
or compendium of dhamma or factors of existence,
(b) The Vibhanga a continuation of the fore-
going, (c) Katha-vatthu or discussion of the
points of controversy between the eighteen
early sects of Hinayana Buddhism with the
defense of the Sthaviravadin attitude towards
each problem, (d) The Puggala-paniiatti on the
nature of the personality, (e) Dhatu-katha, and
(f) Yamaka, smaller treatises on psychological
subjects, and (g) Patthana or discussion of the
Southern view of causation and mutual relation-
ship of phenomena.
In addition to the foregoing canonical works
we have a large number of commentaries, many
written by Buddhaghosa, and a number of highly
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE BUDDHISTS 219
respected independent works, such as the
Milinda-panha or Questions of King Milinda, the
Vissuddhi-Magga or Path of Purity by Buddha-
ghosa the standard exposition of orthodox Ther-
avada philosophy, and the Abhidhammattha-
sangaha or compendium of the meaning of the
Abhidhamma, a more concise work on the same
subject, etc.
II. Sanslcrit Literature.
1. Hinaydna Worlcs.
The Pali works of the Sthaviravadins have
been preserved to us almost intact. The other
great school of ancient Hinayana, the Sarvas-
tivadin sect, wrote in, or translated their works
into Sanskrit. As a whole this literature has
perished, though a certain amount has been
preserved to us in Chinese and Tibetan trans-
lations. Eecent discoveries in Central Asia have
restored to us certain framents of the original.
This sect has also its Vinaya, its Sutra, and its
Abhidharma Pitakas, the first two corresponding
very closely to the Pali version, the last con-
sisting likewise of seven works but written
independently, and having no connection with
the Pali Abhidharma, showing that the whole
Abhidharma literature was the creation of later
times, at a period subsequent to the introduction
of sectarian differences.
p
220 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
The scriptures of the other Hinayana sects
seem to have perished completely save for th©
Mahavastu which in its original form was prob-
ably the introduction to the Lokuttara version
of the Mahasanghika Vinaya. The Chinese have
also a translation of the Mahasanghika Vinaya,
and the Chinese Samyukta Agama (Sanyutta-
nikaya) was also probably made from a Mahasan-
ghika original. The little known Satyasiddhi
Qastra, known only in a Chinese translation,
incorporates many of the ideas of the Sautranti-
kas.
2. Mahdydna Works.
These must be considered slightly more in
detail : —
1. Vinaya. For the most part the Mahay-
anists were content to accept, in theory at least,
the Vinaya works of Hinayana, so that little
contribution was made to this branch of Budd-
hist literature by the more developed school,
save by certain works which emphasized the
Bodhisattva as opposed to the Arhat ideal, and
laid down certain additional rules in consequence.
Even the Hinayana Vinaya contained many
episodes relating to the biography of ^akyamuni,
many tales of his former rebirths (Jatakas) and
many tales of the retribution of merit and the
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE BUDDHISTS 221
piimsliment of sin in the past and present births
(avadanas), etc. These portions were greatly
amplified by the Mahayanists, and though these
amplifications of the Vinaya were almost always
classed as Sutras, and not as Vinaya works, we
may say that with Mahayana Buddha bio-
graphies, jatakas, and avadanas took the place
of the Vinaya pitaka proper : —
(a) Buddha Biographies. In this section, in
addition to the Mahavastu which belongs more
properly to the Hinayana school, we find the
Lalita Vistara and the Buddha-carita of
A§vagho§a. The Lalita Vistara has been trans-
lated many times into European languages,
and has become doubly famous through the fact
that Sir Edwin Arnold's " Light of Asia " was
largely based upon it. In its original form, the
book belonged to the Sarvastivadins, but it was
later remodelled by the Mahayanists after which
it assumed an important place in their canon.
The Buddha Carita is a magnificent epic life
of Qakyamuni by Agvagho^a, and is interesting
both from the doctrinal and the literary point
of view.
(b) JdtaJca and Avaddna Works. To the
former belongs the Jataka-mala or the Garland
of birth stories, a series of thirty-four or five
222 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
previous lives of the Buddha, and to the latter
8uch well-known works as the Avadana-gataka
(The 100 Avadanas), the Agokavadana, etc.
Many of these have been translated in whole or
in part from Sanskrit into English or French.
2. Sutras. Amongst the vast mass of sutras
we may select the Avatamsaka (or Gandha-
vyuha), the Saddharma Pundarika, and the
Sukhavati-vyiiha as the most important.
The Avatamsaka or Gandha-vyuha claims, as
we have seen, to be the first stitra preached by
^akyamuni after his enlightenment. Part of it
was delivered on earth and part in the various
heavens. It is full of mysticism, and preaches
the doctrine of the Absolute or Universal Buddha,
the Trikaya, or three bodies as well as the ten
bodies of the Buddha, the Dharmadhatu or
eternal ideal world as opposed to the phenomenal
world, and the glory of the path of the Bodhi-
sattvas and the stages in that path.
The Saddharma Pundarika claims to be one
of the last sutras proclaimed by the Buddha and
to contain the essence of his doctrine. It is
probably earlier than the Avatamsaka. It is
less metaphysical, and mystical, but even more
devotional. Qakyamuni is said to be the
eternal father who seeks to save his children
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE BUDDHISTS 223
(all sentient being) who suffer in the burning
house of the three worlds. In reality he is
never born, and never dies, but only appears to
do so in order the better to save mankind.
In the Sukhavati-vyiiha (there are two, one
long, and one short) the Universal Buddha is
called Amitabha, and all men are taught to seek
salvation through being reborn in his Western
paradise.
Other highly important works are the various
versions of the Prajna Paramita Sutra, which
teaches the Madhyamika doctrine of ^unya or
the unsubstantiality of all things ; the Surangama
Sutra ; and the Vimala-Kirti-nirde§a Siitra which
teach a later form of the Madhyamika doctrine
verging on the theory of the Absolute ; and
the Lankavatara Sandhinirmocana and Suvarna
Pravha§a, which belong to the Yogacarya
school with its explicit idealism.
3. Abhidharma. The Sanskrit Mahay ana
literature may be divided into two classes,
(1) those works which belong to the Madhyamika
school, and (2) those which belong to the Yog-
acarya school.
(a.) The Madhyamika works composed by
Nararjuna, Arya Deva or their disciples em-
224 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
phasize the doctrine of ^unya. To this class
belong : —
1. The Prajna Paramita Sutra ^astra, bj
Nagarjuna.
2. The Dvada^a-nikaya ^astra, by Nagarjuna
3. The Madhyamika Qastra, by Nagarjuna.
4. The ^ata ^astra, by Arya Deva.
5. The Bodhicaryavatara, by Qanti Deva.
(b.) The Yogacarya works are chiefly the
writings of Asanga and Vasubandhu, two brothers.
The Bodhisattva Maitreya is also frequently
mentioned as the founder of the school. The
nature of his personality remains in doubt. He
is supposed to be the future Buddha residing in
the Tu§ita heaven, who came down to India to
proclaim the true doctrine, as in the Yoga-
caryabhumi Qastra. Some suppose him to be
a fictions person evoked by Asanga to suit his
own purpose ; others suppose him to be an
historical person, later identified with the
mythical Bodhisattva. Asanga must be con-
sidered the chief Patriarch of the school. His
younger brother Vasubandhu was first an
adherent of the Sarvastivadin school, during
which time he composed the famous Abhidharma
Ko§a, and was later converted by Asanga to
Mahayana, and subsequently composed many
metaphysical works on the later doctrine.
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE BUDDHISTS 225
The most important works of this class are : —
1. The Yogacarya-bhiimi Qastra by Maitreya.
2. The Prakaranaryavaca Qastra by Asanga.
3. Sutralankara-tika by Asanga.
4. Mahayana-samparigraha Qastra by Asanga
5. Da§abhumika ^astra by Vasubandhu.
6. Alambana-pratyaya-dhyana ^astra by
Jina.
7. Vidyamatra-siddhi ^astra by Vasubandhu.
8. Mahayana-abhidharma-sangiti-Qastra by
Asanga.
At a slightly subsequent period arose a long
line of Buddhist logicians, beginning with
Dignaga, and including Dharmakirti. These
works have been lost in the original Sanskrit,
but the Chinese canon contains two such works,
and the Tibetan a much larger quantity.
III. Tibetan Literature.
The Tibetan version of the Buddhist literature
is divided into two classes. —
1. The Kanjur consisting of the Vinaya and
Sutras (100 or 108 volumes in all), and
2. The Tanjur consisting of various Abhid-
harma works, commentaries and doctrinal ex-
positions, etc., (225 volumes in all).
226 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
1. The Kanjur —
The Kanjur consists of the following seven
great divisions : —
1. Vinaya, consisting of a translation of
one variation of the Sarvastivadin Vinaya.
(13 vols.)
2. Prajnd-Pdramitd, the sutras preaching the
Qiinya doctrines or the theory of un-
substantiality. (21 vols.)
3. Avatamsaka, consisting of the Buddha-
vatamsaka Sutra or Gandha-vytiha, the
mystico-metaphysical siitra supposedly
first delivered by the Buddha. (6 vols.)
4. RatnaJmta, a collection of various Buddho-
logical sutras, including the Sukhavati-
vytiha. (6 vols.)
5. Sutra, all sutras not otherwise classified,
and including the Saddharma Pundarika,
Lankavatara Sutras, etc., and various
Hinayana sutras. (30. vols)
6. Nirvana, consisting of the Maha-pari-
nirvana Siitra (Mahayana version) con-
taining an account of the last acts and
teachings of the Buddha. (2 vols.)
7. T antra, containing the works of the later
esoteric doctrine in the earlier (Mantra)
and later (Tantra) phases. (22 vols.)
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE BUDDHISTS 227
2. The Tanjur,
This is divided as follows : —
1. Tantra, various works dealing with the
esoteric doctrines, chiefly from an ex-
pository point of view.
2. Sutra, various works dealing with the
exoteric doctrines, including translations
of the works of Nagarjuna, Arya Deva,
Maitreya, Asanga, etc.
One separate volume contains hymns of
praises of several Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,
and another volume fulfils the functions of an
index. Incidentally it may be remarked that
while the Kanjur is more or less known to us,
much spade work remains to be done before it
can be said that we have mastered the contents
of the Tanjur, which from many points of view
is the more interesting of the two, as well as
containing much information which is otherwise
inaccessible.
IV. The Chinese Canon.
The most complete and comprehensive collec-
tions of Buddhist books is to be found in the
Chinese Canon, which preserves in translation
many works of the various schools which would
otherwise be lost. Including duplicate trans-
lations of the same work, which are many, it
228 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAY AN A BUDDHISM
contains 1662 separate works, which may b©
arranged in the following way : — **
I. Indian WorTcs.
(books written in India and translated into
Chinese).
1. The Sutra Pitaka.
A. Mahaydna Sutras. These are divided into
five classes, corresponding to the Mahayana
theory of the periods of the Buddha's life. These
classes are: — (1). Avatamsaka class; (2).
Vaipnlya class ; (3). Prajna Paramita class ;
(4). Saddharma Pundarika class ; (5). Maha-
parinirvana class. The last two are frequently
counted together.
B. Hinayana Sutras, These consist of the
works supposed to have been preached by the
Buddha during his second or Hinayana period.
These are divided into two classes : — (1). Agama
class consisting of translations of the four
Agamas corresponding to the four Nikayas of
the Pali canon, together with translations of
many separate stitras contained therein ; (2)
Sutras teaching Hinayana doctrines but not
classed under the agamas.
2. The Vinaya Pitaka.
A. Mahayana Vinaya. consisting of the
Mahayana Brahmajala siitra, and other similar
** The arrangement here given is that of the Tokyo edition.
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE BUDDHISTS 229
works, giving the Mahayana or Bodhisattva
Pratimok§a, or precepts for those striving after
Buddhahood, in place of the Hinayana Prati-
mok§a, or precepts for those striving after
Arhatship.
B. Hinayana Vinaya. Consisting of various
versions of the Hinayana disciplinary rules.
The most important schools represented are
(l) The Dharmagupta, (2) Mula-sarvastivadin,
(3) Sarvastivadin, (4) Mahi§asaka, (5) Kagy-
apija, (6) Mahasanghika, etc.
3. The Abhidharma Pitalca.
A. MaTidymia AbhidJiarma. These may be
divided into (1) Works dealing with Mahayana in
general irrespective of sects, (2) Works belonging
to the Madhyamika school, (3) Works belonging
to the Yogacarya school.
B. Hinayana Abhidharma. These may be
divided into (1) Works dealing with Hinayana in
general irrespective of sects, (2) Works belonging
to the Sarvastivadin sect, (3) Works of other
sects, such as the Satyasiddhi ^astra of the
Sautrantikas, etc.
4. The Kalpa Pitalca.
A. Mantras and Dhardnls. These represent
the early stages of Mahayana esotericism, with
their various magical formulae, and invocation
©f celestial Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, etc.
230 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
B. Tantras and Later Esoteric Works. Thes«
consist of the few works of the later Tantrayana
of India which were translated into Chinese,
in which mysticism and occultism were curiouslj
mixed. The whole of the Kalpa, or Mystery
Eitual, Pitaka belongs exclusively to Mahayana.
II. CHINESE WORKS.
(Original works composed in China.)
1. Commentaries.
A. Commentaries on the Sutra PitaJca, divided
into Mahayana and Hinayana works, though som©
of the commentaries on Hinayana works were
composed by Mahayanists.
B. Commentaries on the Vinaya Pitaka^ like-
wise divided into Mahayana and Hinayana
works, though the Hinayana Vinaya was for the
most part accepted by all Mahayanists.
C. Commentaries on the Abhidharma Pitaka,
Mahayana and Hinayana, giving the Chinese
interpretation of Indian Buddhist philosophy,
though presenting many original ideas.
2. Sectarian Works.
These consist of expositions of the systems of
the various schools of Chinese Buddhism, and
are divided into works on : —
A. The Kegon or Avatamsaka school.
B. The Tendai school.
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE BUDDHISTS 231
C. The Shingon or Mantra school.
D. The Eitsu or Vinaya school.
E. The Jodo or Sukhavati school.
F. The Zen or Dhyana school.
3. Miscellaneous WorTcs.
These consist of various types of works, which
may be divided into : —
A. Eituals and Confessions.
B. Histories and Biographies.
C. Anthologies and Compilations.
D. Dictionaries and Catalogues, etc.
V. The Chinese Supplementary Canon.
Using the Chinese Canon as a base there
gradually arose a vast mass of literature of a
commentarial, critical, and expository nature,
which came to be considered the standard inter-
pretations of Chinese Buddhist philosophy.
These together with a few miscellaneous trans-
lations from Sanskrit, which had not been
included in the former collection, were grouped
together to form the Chinese Supplementary
Canon. Their arrangement corresponds very
closely to that of the original canon, and is as
follows : —
I. Indian Worlcs.
A. Translations from the Sutra Pitaka of the
six classes.
232 INTRODUCTION TO MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
B. Translations from the Vinaya Pitaka
especially the Miila-Sarvastivadin.
C. Translations from the Abhidharma Pitaka,
Hinayana, and Mahayana.
D. Translations from the Kalpa Pitaka, or
esoteric works.
II. Chinese Works.
1. Commentaries.
A. Commentaries on the Sutra Pitaka (1)
Hinayana and (2) Mahayana.
B. Commentaries on the Vinaya Pitaka (1)
Hinayana and (2) Mahayana.
C. Commentaries on the Abhidharma Pitaka
(1) Hinayana and (2) Mahayana.
2. Sectarian Works.
Works expounding the principles of : —
A. The Sanron or Madhyamika school.
B. The Hosso or Yogacarya school.
C. The Tendai school.
D. The Kegon or Avatamsaka school.
E. The Shingon or Mantra school.
F. The Zen or Dhyana school.
G. The Jodo or Sukhavati school.
3. Miscellaneous Works.
A. Histories and Biographies.
B. Compilations and Anthologies.
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE BUDDHISTS 233
Finally we may add that many Japanese sages
wrote commentaries which have come to be
eonsidered standard expositions of the doctrines
«f their own sects.
FINAL NOTE
1. Technical terms. For the most part,
wherever practical technical terms have been
reduced to their Sanskrit form. Through lack
of type, no distinction has been made between
cerebral and dental t., etc., or between the
various classes of nasals. Where no Sanskrit
form exists the Japanese pronunciation of the
Chinese ideographs has been employed.
2. Authorities. Owing to the popular nature
of the present work, I have felt it unnecessary
to cite authorities, which are dealt with at
length in my larger work, now in preparation.
This omission is largely due to the fact that the
authorities are, for the most part, in languages
not accessible to the general student.
CHELTENHAM PRESS LTD.
SWINDON RD., CHELTENHAM
Date Due
i
K=S,29|4,^0244
"sm, wi
BL 1451 . M3 1922
McGovern, William
Montgomery, 1897-
An introduction to Mahayana
Buddhism
in,
Ml
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11