Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/53

 BUDDHISM

31

BUDDHISM

social equality just as lie did on celibacy. Wherever Buddhism has prevailed, the caste-system has re- mained untouched.

Strictly speaking, Buddha's order was composed only of those who renounced the world to live a iife of contemplation as monks and nuns. The very character of their life, however, made them depend- ent on the charity of turn and women who preferred to live in the world and to enjoy the comforts of the household state. Those who thus sympathized with the order and contributed to its support, formed the lay element in Buddhism. Through this friendly association with the order, they could look to a happy ■ ■•ward after death, not Nirvana, but the temporary delights of heaven, with the additional prospect oi being able at some future birth to attain to Nirvana if they so desired. The majority, however, did not Bhare the enthusiasm of the Buddhist Arhai or saint hw Nirvana, being quite content to hope for a life of positive, though impermanent, bliss in heaven. IV. Later Developments and Spread of Bud- dhism. — The lack of all religious rites in Buddhism was not keenly felt during the lifetime of its founder. Personal devotion to him took the place of religious fervour. But he was not long dead when this very devotion to him began to assume the form of re- ligious worship. His reputed relics, consisting of his bones, teeth, alms-bowl, cremation-vessel, and ashes from his funeral pyre, were enclosed in dome-shaped mounds called Dagobas, or Topes, or Stupas, and wen- honoured with offerings of lights, (lowers, and incense. Pictures and statue-; of Buddha were multiplied on every side, and similarly honoured, being carried about on festal days in solemn procession. The places, too. associated with his birth, enlightenment, first preaching, and death were accounted especially sacred, and became the objects of pilgrimage and the occasion of recurring festivals. But as Buddha had entered into Nirvana and could not be sensible of these religious honours, the need was felt of a living personality to whom the people could pray. The later speculations of Buddhist monks brought such a personality to light in Metteyya (Maitreya), the loving one. now happily reigning in heaven as a bodhisattva, a divine being destined in the remote future to become a Buddha, and again to set in motion I he wheel of t lie law. To this Metteyya the Buddhists turned as the living object of worship of which they had so long felt the need, anil they [laid him religious homage as the future saviour of the world.

Such was the character of the religious worship observed by those who departed the least from Bud- dha's teachings. It is what is found to-day in the so- called Southern Buddhism, held by the inhabitants of Ceylon, Burma, and Siam. Towards the end of the first century A. D., however, a far more radical change took place in the religious views of the great mass of Buddhists in Northern India. <>\\i>iL r , doubtless, to the ever growing popularity of the cults of Vishnu and Siva, Buddhism was so modified as to allow the worship of an eternal, supreme deity, Adi-Buddha, of whom the historic Buddha was de- clared to have been an incarnation, an avatar. Around this supreme Buddha dwelling in highest heaven, were grouped a countless number oi bodhisattvas, di tinea in future ages to become human Buddhas for

the Bake Oi erring man. To raise oneself to the rank of bodhisattva by meritorious works was the ideal now held out to pious souls. In place of Nirvana, Sukhavati became the object of pious longing, the heaven of sensuous pleasures, where Amitabha, an

emanation of the eternal Buddha, reigned. I or the attainment of Sukhavati. the necessity of virtuous conduct was not altogether forgotten, but an extrava- gant importance wa attached to the worship of relics and statues, pilgrimages, and. above all, to the reciting of sacred names and magic formulas. Many

other gross forms of Hindu superstition were also adopted. This innovation, completely subversive of the teaching of Buddha, supplanted the older system in the North. It was known as t he Mahay ana, or Great Vehicle, in distinction to the other ami earlier form of Buddhism contemptuously styled the Hinayana or Little Vehicle, which held its own in the South. It is only by the few millions of Southern Buddhists that the teachings of Buddha have been substanf ially preserved.

Buddha's order seems to have grown rapidly, and through the good will of rulers, whose inferior origin debarred them from Brahmin privileges, to have become in the next two centuries a formidable rival of the older religion. The interesting rock- edicts of Asoka, a royal convert to Buddhism, who in the second quarter of the third century B. C, held dominion over the greater part of India, give evidence that Buddhism was in a most flourishing condition, while a tolerant and kindly spirit was displayed towards cither forms of religion. Under his auspices, missionaries wore sent to evangelize Ceylon in the South, and in the North, Kashnier, Kandahar, and the so-called Yavana country, identified by most scholars with the Greek settlements in the Kabul valley and vicinity, and later known as Bactria. In all these places, Buddhism quickly took root and flourished, though in the Northern countries the re- ligion became later on corrupted and transformed into the Mahayana form of worship.

In the first century of the Christian Era, the knowledge of Buddha made its way to China. At. the invitation of the Emperor Ming-ti, Buddhist monks came in A. n. 07 with sacred books, pictures, and iclics. Conversions multiplied, and during the next few- centuries the religious communications between the t wo countries were very close. Not only did Buddhist missionaries from India labour in China, but many Chinese monks showed their zeal for the newly adopted religion by making pil- grimages to the holy places in India. A few of them wrote interesting accounts, .still extant, of what they saw and heard in their travels. Of these pilgrim's the most noted are l-'ahien. who travelled in India and I eylon in the years \. o. '■'•'■>'.> 11 1, and Hiouen- Tsang, who made extensive travels in India two centuries later (a. d. 629-645). The supplanting of the earlier form of Buddhism in the northern countries of India in the second century led !.. a ponding change in tin- Buddhism of China. Tlie later missionaries, being mostly from the North of India, brought with them the new doctrine, and in a short time the Mahayana or Northern Buddhism

prevailed. Two ,,f the bodhisattvas oi Mahayana

theology becalm- the favourite objects of worship

with the Chinese Amitabha, lord of the Sukhavati e, and Avalokilesvara, extravagantly prai ed in the "Lotus oi the True Law " at readj in extricate from every sort of danger those who think of him or cherish his name. The latter, known as Fousa Kwanyin, is wo- hipped, now as a male deity, again

a the goddess of mercy, who comes to the relief of

tin- faithful. Amitabha goes by the Chinese name

A mil, i, or Miio. Offerings of flowers ami incense made before his statues ami the frequent repetition of his name are believed to en un a future hie of bliss iii his distant Western paradi \u excessive devotion to statues and relics, the employment of magic arts t.. I pirits, ami the observance

of many of 1 In- B i -r in urn' ol I 'aoi iii, com- plete tlie picture oi sorry

ulation of what Buddha mad.- km. men. Chinese Buddhism was introduced into I

in the fourth century, ami from there taken to Japan

two Centuries later. The Buddhism of these coun- tries is in the main like that of China, with (lie ad- dition of a nurnDer of local superstitions. Annam