Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/403

 BUDDHISM 397 whole stands again in the genuine ocean known to men, in which are the four islands with 500 islets each. The southern island, or India, is triangular, with men of trigonic face, living 100 years, 3 yards high; the eastern, semi- circular, with men of semilunar face, living 250 years, 8 yards high ; the western circular, with round-faced men, living 500 years, 16 yards high ; while the northern island is quad- rangular, containing the happy square-faced hyperboreans, who live 1,000 years, and mea- sure 32 yards. Ohakravala (chafrra, region; val, to encompass), or an iron wall of 3,610,- 350 yojanas, near which the sea is very shal- low, surrounds the above-described group. Each such universe has its own sun, moon, stars, and hell. The Meru is like an index of a dial, shading each island, and thus producing night. Above the Meru rise the heavens in the follow- ing order: 1. Deva lokas, or heavens of the gods, six in number, forming with the earth the Kama dhatu or lust principle. 2. Above it the Rupa dhatu or form principle, with four Dhyanas (divine and clear contempla- tions), of which the first has three heavens for the Brahmas and their servants ; the second three for the gods of light ; the third three of purity ; the fourth seven of merits, exemption from pain, beauty, &c. 3. Still higher is Arnpa- dhatu, or formless and colorless principle, with four heavens, viz. : one of illimited space, one of illimited knowledge, one of naught, and the fourth of neither thinking nor not thinking. Among the extreme heavens, the lowest in posi- tion and majesty is that of the Chatur mahardja kdyikas (quatuor magnorum regum eomitum), or kings of demons, a sort of magnates guard- ing the higher heavens. The second, Trayat- trimsas (triginta trium), belongs to Indra, who is the highest Buddhist god. The 26th, the Namasanjnanasanjnayatanam (nee velut cognoieentium nee non cognoscentium), or the 28th and highest heaven of all, affords a life of 80,000 great kalpas or periods from the origin of one world to the beginning of another. The fourth Dhyana, referred to above, comprises 1,000 Dhyanas of the third kind, or 1,000 mil- lions of worlds of lust, with 1,000 millions of first Dhyanas and 5,000,000 of the second ; the whole forming one great chiliocosm, or 1,000 worlds. Again, 1,000 great chiliocosms, as many as perish at each revolution, form a Bud- dha territory, or system of a single Buddha. With the northern Buddhists "3,000 great chiliocosms " is a stereotyped phrase. Twenty great chiliocosms, piled one above the other, rest on a lotus flower, of which an infinite num- ber blossom in the " sea of aromas," each bear- ing 20,000 millions of worlds. The number of these aromatic seas is again 10 times as great as the number which we would write with a " unit followed by 4,456,488 zeros," and which would extend, in common print, in a line of 44,000 feet. The above-named three groups of worlds and heavens are peopled everywhere by entities of six Gatis (goings or ways of re- birth), of which the first two are good and the last four bad, viz. : 1. The way of the Devas, or gods, who, although unavowed by Buddha, have been adopted by his followers. The gods dwell in the 26 or 28 heavens, and are named accordingly ; the four great kings, the thirty- three, the not fighting, the joyful, the change- enjoying, the changing others arbitrarily, the assembled Brahmas, the servants of Brahma, the great Brahmas ; the gods of limited light, of illimited light, of pure light ; of limited purity, illimjted purity, perfect purity ; of great mer- its, the unconscious, the not great, the exempt from pain, the well-seeing, the beautiful, the highest; illimited space, illimited science, the place of naught, that of no-thought, and not no- thought. 2. The way of men. 3. That of the Asuras, or most powerful bad genii, of monstrous shapes. 4. That of unreasoning animals, divi- ded into footless bipeds, quadrupeds, multipeds. 5. That of Pretas, goblins, monsters of hunger and thirst, giants, moving skeletons, fire-eaters, vampires, &c. 6. The denizens of hell, placed originally in four, later in eight, at last in 136 hells of all degrees, from a sort of limbo or pur- gatory to the LoTcantarika Naraka, or interme- diate hell, destined for skeptics, who are the greatest of all sinners. These hells are of Brah- manic invention. As seed and plant, or egg and bird, contain and follow one another in an endless series, so is it with worlds. Innumera- ble worlds have thus appeared and disappeared. This chapter of world-renewals is the most contradictory and incomplete in popular Bud- dhism, because it grew up by agglomerating the fantastic notions of many peoples around the nucleus of the purer doctrine. A Kalpa is a period of destruction and reconstruction, and a Mahakalpa or great Kalpa, as we have said, is that from the origin of a world to the beginning of a new one ; it is subdivided into four Asan- Tchya kalpas or incalculable Kalpas, viz. : of destruction, interval, renewal, stability; each again into 20 Antara or intermediate Kalpas. If it should rain incessantly during three years on the whole globe, the number of the fallen drops would not equal that of the years of one Asankhya. Each destruction is announced 100,000 years in advance by a Deva, calling on all beings to avoid sin, to repent, &c. Mon- sters and many of the damned are reborn as men ; the denizens of the lower heavens and men rise higher. At the appointed time a great cloud rains for the last time ; then every- thing dries up, lower beings are advanced, and only skeptics and infidels are reborn into the Lokantantarika. The dross of nature is now annihilated ; a second and a third sun dry up all flowing waters ; a fourth and fifth dry up the ocean ; a sixth heats the earth up to the seat of Indra ; the seventh at last kindles it to a flame, which consumes the world to less than ashes, up to the heavens of the Brahmas inclu- sively. The liquid destruction by caustic wa- ters is somewhat analogous, and reaches beyond the second Dhyana. Wind destroys still high-