Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/698

* BUDDHISM. 620 BUDDHISM. forbidden to look at or converse with a female, lest any disturbing emotion sliouUi rnflle the serene injifferonee of his soul ; and so important is this that "if his mother have fallen into a river, and be drowning, he shall not give her his hand to help her out ; if there be a pole at hand he may reaeh that to her; but if not, she must drown." — Wilson. Contem])lati(m and science or knowledge (i.e. of the concatenation of caises and effects) are ranked as virtues in Buddhism, and hold a prominent place among the means of attaining Nirvana. It is reserved, in fact, for abstract contemplation to effect the final steps of the deliverance. Thought is the highest faculty of man, and, in the mind of an Eastern philosopher, the mightiest of all forces. A king who had become a convert to Buddhism is represented as seating himself with his legs crossed, and his mind collected : and 'cleaving with the thunder- bolt of science the mountain of ignorance' he saw before him the desired state. It is in this cross-legged, contemplative position that the Buddha is almost always represented — that crowning intellectual act of his, when, seated under the bo-tree (q.v.), he attained the full knowledge of the Buddha, saw the illusory na- ture of all things, broke the last bonds that tied him to existence, and stood delivered for ever- more from the necessity cf being born again, being considered the culmination of his charac- ter and the highest object of imitation to all his followers. 'Complete' Nirvana or extinction of desires, which, in the original meaning of the term, is attainable during life, was, in fact, attained by Gautama himself. The process by which the state is attained is called Dhyana, and is neither more nor less than ecstasy or trance, which plays so important a part among mystics of all religions. The individual is described as losing one feeling after another, until perfect apathy is attained, and he reaches a state 'where there are neither ideas, nor the idea of the absence of ideas!' The ritual or icorship of early Buddhism — if worship it can be called — is very simple in its character. There are no priests, or clergy, properly so called. The Sramanas or IShikshus (mendicants) are simply a religious order — a kind of monks, who, in order to the more speedy attainment of Nirvana, have entered im a course of greater sanctity and austerity tlian ordinary men; they have no sacraments to administer nor rites to perform for the people, for every Bud- dhist is his own priest. The only thing like a clerical function they discharge is to read the scriptures or discourses of the Buddha in slated assemblies of the people held for that purpose. l!ut in northern Buddhism there is a complete ritual, with rites and worship strangely like that of the Roman Catholic Church, through whose missionaries these traits nuiy have been introduced. In some countries the monks are exceedingly numerous; around Lhassa in Tibet, for instance, they are said to be one-third of the population. They live in vihdras or monasteries, and subsist partly by endowments, but mostly by charity. Except in Tibet, they are not al- lowed to engage in any secular occupation. The vow is not irrevocable. This incubus of monas- tieism constitutes the great weakness of Bud- dhism in it-s social aspect. Further particulars regarding Buddhist monks and monasteries, as well as the forms of Buddhist worship generally, will be given when speaking of the countries where the religion prevails. See Lamaism. The adoration of the statues of the Buddha and of his relies is the chief external ceremony of the religion. This, with prayer and the repeti- tion of sacred formulas, constitutes the ritual. The centres of the worship are the temples containing statues, and the topes or tunnili erected over the relics of the Buddha, or of his distinguished apostles, or they are located at spots which have become sacred as the scenes of the Buddlia's acts. The central object in a Buddhist temple, corresponding to the altar in a Roman Catholic church, is an image of the Buddha, or a dagoba or shrine containing his relics. Here flowers,* fruit, and incense are daily offered, and processions are made with singing of hymns. Of the relics of the Buddha, the most famous are the teeth that are preserved with intense veneration in various places. Hiouen-Thsang saw more than a dozen of them in different parts of India; and the great mon- arch Siladitya was on the point of making war on the King of Kashmir for the possession of one, which, although by no means the largest, was yet an inch and a half long. The tooth of the Buddha preserved in Ceylon, a piece of Ivory ■about the size of the little finger, is exhibited very rarely, and then only with permission of the English Government — so great is the con- course and so intense the excitement. See C'ET- LON. There appears at first sight to he an inconsist- ency between this seeming worship of the Bud- dha and the theory by which he is considered as no longer existing. Yet the two things are really not irreconcilable — not more so, at least, tlian theory and practice often are. With all their admiration of the Buddha, his followers have never made a god of him. Gautama is only the last Biiddha — the Buddha of the present cycle. He had predecessors in the cycles that are past (twenty-four Biiddhas of the past are enumerated, and Gaitama could even tell their names) ; and when, at the end of the present cycle, all things shall be reduced to their ele- ments, and the knowledge of the way of salva- tion shall jierish with all things else, then, in the new world that shall si)ring up, another Buddha will appear, again to reveal to the renascent beings the way to Ninana. Gautama foretold that Maitreya, one of his earliest ad- herents, should be the next Buddhat (the Bud- dha of the futire), and he gratified several of his followers with a like pros|)eet in after-cycles. The Buddha was thus no greater than any mor- tal may aspire to become. The prodigious and •The quantit.v of flowers lsp(i as offerings Is prodigious. A royal devotee in Ceylon, tn the Fifteenth Century, offered on one occasion G,480,:l'J0 tiowers at the slirine of thetooth. At one t4Mnple it was provided that there stinnld be offered "every day 100, (MX) flowers, and each day a different flower." lOnewiiois on the wa.v to become a supreme Buddha, and has arrived at that stage when lie has only one more l)irth to undergo, is styled a lioflliisut (having the essence of knowledge) ; a mere eandiiiale tor Xirvflna is an jtrhat (veTierable). 'I'he Northern liuddliitit.'^ aim nt beeoming JiodliisHts. or future saviors, and this niarl<8 theni off from the old*'r (seltlHh) ideal of becoming an jirltnt. The former Ih called the religion of the Great Vehicle, the latter that of the I.ittlo Vehicle (mahayana and hlnayana).