Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/694

* BUDDHISM. 616 BUDDHISM. hudh, to know, and means 'enlightened' or 'he to whom tnitli is known'; it is indicative of the leading dm-trine of his system. Other attributes are the blessed" (Bhagavat) ; 'the venerable of the world'; 'the Bodhisat,' the import of whieh will be afterwards explained. The history of ' this person is overlaid with a nia.ss of extrava- gant and incredible legend, and the eminent Orientalist Senart thought it doubtful whether the legendary Buddha was an actual historical personage and not rather an allegorical lignient. But by Oriental aiithorities generally the Buddlia is received as the actual personal founder of the religion that goes by his name. Assuming that the Buddha was a real person, and that there is a basis of fact under the mass of extravagant fable with which he is surround- ed, the history of Buddhism may be thus briefly outlined: The prince Siddhartha gives early in- dications of a contemplative, ascetic dis- position; and his father, fearing lest he should desert his high station as Kshatriya (see Caste) and ruler, and take to a religious life, has him early married to a charming princess and surrounded with all the splendor and dis- sipation of a luxurious court. Twelve years spent in this environment only deepen the con- viction that all that life can oflfer is vanity and vexation of spirit. He is constantly brooding over the thought that old age, withered and joyless, is fast approaching; that loathsome or racking sickness may at any moment seize him ; that death will at all events soon cut off all present sources of enjoyment and usher in a new cycle of unknown trials and sutTerings. These images hang like Damocles's sword over every proposed feast of pleasure, and make en- joyment impossible. He therefore resolves to try whether a life of austerity will not lead to peace; and, although his father seeks to detain liim by setting guards on every outlet of the palace, he escapes, and begins the life of a re- ligious mendicant, being now 2!) years old. To mark his breaking oiT all secular ties, he cuts off the long locks that were a sign of his high caste; and as the shortened hair turned upward, be is always represented in figures with curly hair, which induced early Kuropean writers to con- sider him a.s of Ethiopian origin. He commences by stiulying all that the Br.ahmans can teach him, but he finds their doctrine unsatisfactory. Six years of rigorous asceticism are equally vain ; and resolving to return to a more genial life, he is deserted by five disciples, who had been at- tracted to him. At tliis time he triumphantly withstands the temptation by the demon Mara. But no discouragement or opposition can divert Sakj'a-muni from the search after deliverance. He will conquer the secret by sheer force of thinking. He sits for weeks phniged in abstrac- tion, revolving the causes of things. If we were not bom, he reflects, we should not be subject to old age, misery, and death; therefore the cause of these evils is birth. But whence comes birth or continued existence? Through a long coneate- nation of intermediate causes he arrives at the conclusion that ignorance is the ultimate cause of existence; and therefore with the removal of ignorance, rebirth, and all its consequent anx- ieties and miseries, would be cut olf at their source. Passing through successive st.tges of contemplation, he realises this in his own per- son, and attains the perfect wisdom of the Buddha. The scene of this final triumph received the name of Bodhimanda ("the seat of intelli- gence'), and the tree under which he sat was called Bodliidruma ("the tree of intelligence'), whence bo-tree. The Buddhists believe the spot to be the centre of the earth. Twelve hundred years after the Buddha's death, Hiouen- Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, fotmd the Bodhi- druma — or a tree that passed for it — still stand- ing. There are, about 5 miles from Gaya (near Patna), extensive ruins and a temple, which are believed to uia»k the place. Behind the temple there fiourished. in 1812, a peepul-tree, a])par- ently 100 years old, which may have been planted in the place of the original bo-tree. A young tree now stands in its place. The temple is re- stored and a Buddhist monastery has been built near by, and it remains as the only home of the faith in India proper. Having arrived at the knowledge of the causes of misery, and of the means by which the»>e causes are to be counteracted, the Buddha was now readj- to lead others on the road to salva- tion. It was at Benares that he first preached, or, in the consecrated phrase, "tunied the wheel of the law" ; but the most important of his early converts was Bimbisara, the sovereign of Maga- dha (Behar), whose dynasty continued for many centuries to patronize the new faith. During the forty-four years that he continued to preach his gospel he appears to have traversed a great part of northern India combating the Brahmans and everywhere making numerous converts. He died at Kusinagara (in Oude) at the age of eighty, probably in the year B.C. 47"; and his body being burned, the relics were distributed among a number of contending claimants, and monumental tumuli were erected to preserve them. See Tope. The most important point in the history of Buddhism, after the death of its founder, is that of the three councils, which arc said to have fixed the canon of the sacred scrii)tures and the dis- cipline of the Church. The Buddha bad com- posed no work himself, but his chief followers assembled in council immediately after his death and proceeded to reduce his teaching to a canon. These canonical works are divided into three classes, forming the Tripitaka, or 'triple basket.' The first class consists of the rimiya, or disci- pline; the second contains the sutriis, or dis- cmirscs; and the third the abhidharma, or psy- chology. The other two councils are said to have further settled the canon and revised the belief of the Church. It is, however, exceedingly doubtful whether the first coimcil had such a character as tradition assigns to it, and the very existence of the second council is doubted by competent scholars. The second council is said to have been held one hundred years after Buddha's death; the third in B.C. 240. Still an- other was held between .^.1). 70 and 100. At precisely what date the Pali canon as we have it was fixed is still uncertjiin, but probably it was in the main what it is now as early as the Third • From a too literal Tiiiderptniidin^r of a metaphor have ariHeii, probably, those pra,vtii»J:-whfi'ls. or rnther whwls for rnociitntujii, w»en etandin^ bcforf Budiiliist nionnsteriee in Tibet and elsewhere. The doelriiies of Buddha are in- flerlbed on the wheel, which in then set In motion by a windlass, or even by liorHe-power. The Individual ninnkti have imrtable ones, with whieh they perform their devo- tions wherever they may happen to be.