Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/699

* BUDDHISM. 621 BUDDHISM. supernatural powers wliiih the legoiuls represent him as possessing are quite in ateordanoe with Indian ideas; for even the Brahnians believe that by virtie. austerities, and seieneo a man may acquire power to make the gods tremble on their thrones. The Buddlia, then, is not a god ; he is the ideal of wliat any man may become : and the great object of Huddhist worship is to keep this ideal vividly in the minds of the believers. In the presence of the statue, the tooth, or the foot- print, the devout believer vividly recalls the example of him who trod the path that leads to deliverance. This veneration of the memory of Buddha is perhaps hardly distinguishable, a]nong the ignorant, from worship of him as a present god: but in theory, the ritual is strictly commemorative, and does not necessarily involve idolatry, any more than the garlands laid on the tomb of a parent by a pious child. See Tope. The prayers addressed to the Buddha are more difficult to reconcile with the belief in his having ceased to e.xist. It is improbable, indeed, that the original scheme of Buddhism contemplated either the adoration of the statues of the Buddha or the offering of prayers to him after his death. These are an aftergrowth — accretions upon the simple scheme of Gautama, and in a manner forced upon it during its struggle ith other religions. For a system of belief that seeks to supplant other systems finds itself enticed to present something to rival and outdo them, if possible, in every point. Even the Christian Church, in the Middle Ages, adopted with this view many of the rites and legends of paganism that were quite inconsistent with its own char- acter; merely casting over them a slight disguise and giving them Christian names. Prayer, too, is natural to man — an irrepressible instinct, as it were, that has to be gratified. And then the inconsistency in uttering prayers wlien there is no one to hear or answer, glaring as it appears to us, is by no means great to the Eastern mind. Prayers, like other formulas, are conceived less as influencing the will of any superior being to grant the request than as working in some mag- ical way — producing their effects by a blind force inherent in themselves. They are, in short, mere incantations or charms. Even the prayers of a Brahman, who believes in the existence of gods, do not act so much by inclining the deity ad- dressed to favor the petitioner, as by compelling him through their mysterious potency — through the operation of a law above the will of the high- est gods. The Buddhist, then, may w-ell believe that a formula of prayer in the name of 'the venerable of the world' will be potent for his good in this way. without troubling himself to think whether any conscious being hears it or not. The element in Buddhism which more than any other, perhaps, gave it an advantage over all sur- rounding religions, and led to its surprising ex- tension, was the spirit of universal charity and sympathy that it breathed, as contrasted with the extlusiveness of caste. In this respect, it held much the same relation to Brahmanism that Chri>tianity did to Judaism. It was. in fact, a reaction against the exelusiveness and fonnalism of Brahmanism — an attempt to render it more catholic, and to throw off its intolerable burden of ceremonies. Buddhism did not expressly abol- ish caste, but only dechiivil tbat all followers of the Biuidha who embraced the religious life were thereby released from its restrictions; in the bosom of a comnuinity who had all equally re- nounced the world, higli and low, the twice-born Brahman and the outcast were brethren. This was the very way that Christianity dealt with the slavery of the ancient world. This opening of its ranks to all classes and to both sexes — for women were admitted to ecjual hopes and privi- leges with men. and one of Gautama's early female disciples is to be the supreme Buddha of a future cycle — no doubt gave Buddhism one great advantage over Bralimanism. The Buddha, says Ma.x Miiller, "addressed himself to castes and outcasts. He promised salvation to all; and he commanded his disciples to preach his doctrine in all places and to all men. A sense of duty, extending from the narrow limits of the house, the village, and the country, to the widest circle of mankind, a feeling of sympathy and brother- hood toward all men, the idea, in fact, of human- ity, were first pronounced by Buddha," This led to that remarkable missionary movement, already adverted to, which, beginning B.C. 300, sent forth a succession of devoted men, who spent their lives in spreading the faith of Buddha over all parts of Asia. BiBLioGBAPHY. Koeppen, Die Religion des Buddha (Berlin, 1857-50); Barthelemy Saint- Hilaire, Le Boiiddha et sa religion (Paris, 1862) ; Obry, Du ^'irvana bouddhique (Paris, 1863) ; Max' Miiller, Buddhist Xihilism (London, 1869) : Kistner, Buddha and His Doctrines (London, 1869), with a complete bibliography; Vasilyeff, Der Buddhismus, cte., translated from the Russian by Benfey (Saint Petersburg, 1870) ; Alwis, Buddhists irrana (Colombo. 1871); Peer, Etudes bouddhiques (Paris, 1873) : Bur- nout, Introduetion a I'histoire du bouddhismc Indien (Paris, 1876) ; Wurm, Der Buddha (Gutersloh, 1880); Oldenberg, Buddha: Sein Leben, seine Lehre, etc. (Berlin, 1881; 3d ed., 1897). English translation by William Hoey (London, 1882) ; Lillie. Buddha and Buddhism (London, 1881); Arnold. The Light of Asia (London, 1882) ; Bastian, Der Buddha in seiner Psychologie (Berlin, 1882) ; Senart, Essai svr la legende de Bouddha, etc. (Paris, 1882) ; Sey- del. Das EvangeJium und die Buddhasage (Leip- zig, 1883) ; Rockhill, The Life of Buddha, etc. (London, 1884); Kern, flcsehiedenis ran h9t Buddhisme in Indie (Haarlem, 1884) ; Eitel, Buddhism: Its Historical, Theoretical, and Pop- ular Aspects (London, 1884) ; Titconib, Bud- dhism (London, 1883) ; Bigandet, Life or Legend of Gautama (London, 1886) ; Sir Monier Will- iams, Buddhism in Its Connection uith Brah- manism (London, 1888); .Teimings, The Indian Religions (London, 1890) ; Khys-Davids, History and Literature of Huddhism (London, 1895; New York, 1896) ; Kern. Manual of Indian Bud- dhism (Strassburg, 1896) ; La Vallee-Poussin, Bouddhi^;me: etudes et mat6riaux (Brussels, 1898). Consult also, for Chinese Buddhism: Beal, Buddhism in China (London, 1884) ; Ed- kins, Chinese Buddhism (London, 1880) ; and Schoft, Der Buddhismus in Hochasien und China (Berlin, 1845). For Tibetan: Sehlagintweit, Huddhism in Tibet (Ix^ipzig and London. 1863) ; Waddcll, The Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism (London, 1895) ; and Griinwedel, Mpthologie des Buddhismus in Tibet uvd der Mongolei (Leipzig,