Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/50

 BUCKLEY

28

BUDDHISM

Buckfast of the manor of Sele, now called Zeal Monachorum. The best authorities assign the foundation to the middle of the tenth century. Early in the twelfth century it was incorporated into the Benedictine Congregation of Savigny, founded in Normandy in 1112. In 1148, five years before the death of St. Bernard, the thirty Savigny houses, including Buckfast (of which Eustace was then abbot) were affiliated to Clairvaux, thus be- coming a part of the great Cistercian Order. Buck- fast now developed into one of the most important monasteries in the great Diocese of Exeter. It flourished both materially and spiritually, origi- nating the celebrated woollen trade of the district, encouraging other industries, and preserving unim- paired its discipline and the fervour of its observance. The latter, however, became relaxed (as in other Cistercian houses) in the fourteenth century, one result being the rapid diminution in the community. The reputation, however, of the monks for learning was sustained until the dissolution, and they seem to have been generally beloved in the district for their piety, kindliness, and benevolence.

The last legitimately elected Abbot of Buckfast was John Rede, who died about 1535, the year of the Visitation ordered by Henry VIII, which resulted in the intrusion of Gabriel Donne into the vacant chair. Donne surrendered the house to the King in 1538, receiving for himself ample compensa- tion. The buildings were immediately sold, the lead stripped from the roof, and the monastery and church left to decay. In 1882, about three centuries and a half after the suppression of the Cistercian Abbey, the ruined buildings came again into the possession of Benedictine monks, belong- ing to the French Province of the Cassinese Congre- gation of the Primitive Observance. Mass was again said and the Divine Office chanted at Buck- fast, cm 29 October, 1882, and eight months later the abbey was legally conveyed to the monks.

The plan of the buildings at Buckfast followed the conventional Cistercian arrangement, with the cloister south of the church, and grouped round it the chapter-house, calefactory, refectory, and other loca regularia. The church was 220 feet long, with short transepts, each with a small eastern chapel. The Benedictines now in possession have built a temporary church, and are proceeding with the work of rebuilding the former one, and the rest of the monastic buildings, on the ancient foundations. The tower which still remains has been carefully restored, and the southern wing of the monastery has been rebuilt in simple twelfth-century style, and was opened in April, 18S6. The third abbot since the return of the monks in 1882, Dom Anschar Vouier, formerly one of the professors at the Bene- dictine University of St. Anselm in Rome, was solemnly blessed by the Bishop of Plymouth in October, 1906.

Oliver, Monast. Di,»;rs. Exon. (1846), 371, 379; Worthy,

Devonshire Parishes (1889), II, 207; Dugdal-e, Monast. Atuili-

i-'iri., V, :>S4; lvuui, l 'ist'-muri Houses -'/ Iiemn; Hamilton',

Buckfast Abbey (1892); Mabillon, Chronologui Cisttrcicruris.

D. O. Hunter-Blair.

Buckley, Sir Fatriok Alphonsus, soldier, lawyer, statesman, judge, b. near Castletownsend, Co. Cork, Inland, in 1841; d. at Lower Hutt, New Zealand, 18 May, 1890. He was educated at tin' Mansion House School, Cork; St. Column's College, Fermoy;

the Irish College, Paris; and the Catholic University,

Louvain, He was in Louvain when the Piedmontese invaded the States of the Church in I860, and at the request of Count Carlo Mac! )onnell, Private Chamber- lain to Pius IX, conducted the recruits of the Irish Papal Brigade from Ostend to Vienna, where they were placed in charge of representatives of the Holy See. He served under General Lamoriciere, received

a medal in recognition of his services, and was taken prisoner at Ancona. After the war he returned to Ireland. Thence he emigrated to Queensland, where he completed his legal studies and was admitted to the Bar. After a short residence in Queensland he settled in New Zealand, and commenced the practice of his profession in Wellington. Soon after his ar- rival in New Zealand, he became a member of the Wellington Provincial Council, and was Provincial Solicitor in the Executive when the Provincial Par- liaments were abolished in 1875. He was called to the Legislative Council in 1878; was Colonial Secre- tary and leader of the Upper House in the Stout- Vogel Ministry (1884-S7); and Attorney-General, Colonial Secretary, and leader of an overwhelmingly Opposition Upper House under the Ballance Ad- ministration from 1891 till 1895, when he accepted the position of Judge of the Supreme Court. He was created Knight Commander of St. Michael and St. George in 1892.

Mennell, Dictionary of Australasian Biopraphy (London, 1802); The New Zealand Tablet, 22 Mav, 1890; The Otago Daily Times, 19 May, 1896.

Henry W. Cleaby.

Budaeus, Gulielmus. See Btjde.

Buddas. See Manes.

Buddhism, the religious, monastic, system, founded c. 500 B. c. on the basis of pantheistic Brahminism. The speculations of the Vedanta school of religious thought, in the eighth and following centuries, B. c, gave rise to several rival schemes of salvation. These movements started with the same morbid view that conscious life is a burden and not worth the living, and that true happiness is to be had only in a state like dreamless sleep, free from all desires, free from conscious action. They took for granted the Upan- ishad doctrine of the endless chain of births, but they differed from pantheistic Brahminism both in their attitude towards the Vedas and in their plan for securing freedom from rebirth and from conscious existence. In their absolute rejection of Vedic rites, they stamped themselves as heresies. Of these the one destined to win greatest renown was Buddhism.

I. The Founder. — Of Buddha, the founder of this great movement, legendary tradition has much to say, but very little of historical worth is known. His father seems to have been a petty raja, ruling over a small community on the southern border of the district now known as Nepal. Buddha's family name was Gotama (Skt. Gautama), and it was prob- ably by this name that he was known in life. In all likelihood it was after his death that his disciples bestowed on him a number of laudatory names, the most common being Buddha, i. e. "the enlightened". Like the well-born youths of his day, he must have spent some time in the study of the sacred Vedas. After the immemorial custom of the East, he mar- ried at an early age, and. if tradition may be trusted, exercised a prince's privilege of maintaining a harem. His principal wife bore him a son. His heart was not at rest. The pleasures of the world soon palled upon him, and abandoning his home he retired to the forest , where as a hermit he spent several years in austere self-discipline, studying, doubtless, the way of salva- tion :is taught in the 1'panishads. Even this did not bring peace to his mind. Hi' gave up the rigorous fasts and mortifications, which nearly cost him his life, and devoted himself in his own way to long and earnest meditation, the fruit of which was his firm belief that he had discovered the only true method of escaping from the misery of rebirth and of attaining to Nirvana. He then set out to preach his go pel of deliverance, beginning at Benares. His magnetic personality and his earnest, impressive eloquence

soon won over to his cause a number of the warrior caste. Brahmins, loo, felt the persuasiveness of his words, and it was not long before he was sur-