BUDDHA and BUDDHISM. Buddhism is the religion of the followers of Gautama Buddha, which formerly covered a large area in India, and is still widely spread in Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Cambodia, China and Japan. It arose in the 6th century B.C., as an offshoot of the prevailing Hindu religion of north India, in what is now approximately Bihar, west of Bengal. There are no historical records of this period, and our whole knowledge rests upon the religious documents of prebuddhistic Hinduism and on references in the Buddhist scriptures. Hinduism was then a poly theistic system possessing collections of sacred books, the Vedas and Brahmanas. It had been developed in the hands of the priests into an elaborate sacrificial and ritual system, to which was adapted the social theory of caste (q.v.), with the priestly caste of brahmins claiming primacy over the rest. In the Upanishads, the latest development of the Vedic literature, there had already appeared the beginnings of a pantheistic philosophy, which sought a single reality behind all individual gods, and aimed at salvation not in the performance of ceremonies, but in the attainment of union with this reality.
Buddhism was only one of the protests which appeared at this time against the prevailing formalism. Ethically it sought reform in rejecting the authority of the Vedas and in teaching an inde pendent morality, and philosophically in denying any permanent substratum in the world or in any of the gods of the Vedic pan theon. Independently of all such theories it offered a way for the attainment of salvation, which was set forth as being the discovery of the founder.
In all the older schools the Canon exists in a threefold division, the Tri-pitaka, "the threefold basket." This consists of (I) the Vinaya-pitaka, a collection of the 227 rules of discipline (vinaya) binding on the monks. The four most fundamental of these rules, violation of which involved expulsion from the Order, are those which forbid unchastity, theft, taking life or inciting to suicide, and making a false claim to supernormal powers. A second set of rules follows dealing with the organization of the several com munities, and a commentary now reckoned as canonical accom panies the whole. (2) The most important section for doctrine (dhamma) is the Sutta-pitaka, arranged in five collections of suttas or discourses called Nikayas, or in some schools Agamas.
The first four Nikayas are common to all the older schools. They consist chiefly of discourses attributed to the Buddha, but among them are included poems, legends, dialogues, and commentaries, and a number of them are ascribed to disciples. They are classi fied not according to any doctrinal principle, but chiefly with a view to convenience in their being learnt by heart. The first two, the Digha-nikaya "collection of long suttas," and the Majjhima nikaya, "collection of middling long suttas," are arranged accord ing to length, and subdivided with a slight reference to subject matter. The third, the Samyutta nikdya, "collection of connected suttas," is arranged in groups ac cording as they are addressed to certain classes of people or indi viduals. In the fourth, the Angut tara-nikdya, the arrangement is numerical, as the Nikaya begins with a list of individual things, which is followed by lists of pairs, of threes, etc., up to groups of It things. The fifth, the Khuddaka nikaya, "collection of minor works," is not recognized by all schools, but some of the contents are very old, and much of it exists in schools which do not possess the Nikaya as a whole. In the Pali Canon it consists of 15 works, and among the most im portant items are the Dhammapada, "words of the Doctrine," a collection of 423 verses, the Sutta-nipdta, five books of suttas in verse, which also contains important legendary material, the Jdtaka (q.v.), stories of the Buddha's previous births, and two collections of verses attributed to disciples, the Theragdthd, "verses of eld ers" and Theregithd, "verses of women elders." (3) The third Pitaka, the Abhidhamma (q.v.), "higher doctrine," deals chiefly with psychological ethics, and consists in the Pali Canon of seven works. Similar, but so far as known, not identical works existed in other schools.
Except for isolated incidents the life of the Buddha is found only in post-canonical works and in works of Sanskrit schools.' They all agree that he was the son of a king of the Sakyas (Sak yas), a people of the warrior caste settled near the Himalayas and north of the Kosala kingdom, who claimed to belong to the Gautama clan (hence his clan name of Gautama) ; that as it had been prophesied at his conception that he would renounce the world on seeing a sick man, an old man, and a corpse, he was brought up in luxury, but left his home at the age of 29, and after six years of effort attained enlightenment under a tree (see BO-TREE) at Gaya in Magadha (hence his title Buddha, "the en lightened") ; that he then formed an Order of monks, to which during his lifetime an Order of nuns was added, and spent the rest 'The most important are the Pali introduction to the Jataka (see JATARA), Tibetan translations from the Sanskrit collected in Rock hill's Life of the Buddha, and in Sanskrit the Lalita-vistara.
of his life as a wanderer preaching his newly discovered doctrine (dhamma) not only to the monks but to the laity generally, and died at the age of 80.
The legend of Buddha's early life has been explained by Senart and Kern as mythology—the historicizing of ancient mythological beliefs concerning astronomical and other natural phenomena. But even these scholars admitted the historical existence of the Buddha, and merely sought to explain the stories concerning him according to mythological theories. Their theories are not now generally accepted, but it is evidently impossible to determine what exact amount of fact there may be in an uncorroborated legend teeming with miracles, which refers entirely to a prehistoric period. For the end of the Buddha's life we have an account in the Canon of several schools, the Maha-parinibbana-sutta. Although not a contemporary record, it was evidently compiled when the locality of the events was known, and when the sacred sites were places of pilgrimage. Przyluski, who has analysed the recensions of this sutta preserved in Chinese and Tibetan translations, dis credits the view that the Pali represent the most primitive account (see burn. Asiatique, 1918, 1919).
Doetrines.—In the Canon occurs a sutta which is traditionally believed to be the first exposition of the doctrine, preached by the Buddha when he began his mission at Benares, the Dhammacakka pavattana-sutta, "the sutta of turning the wheel of the doctrine." It has remained even in the latest schools an exposition of the fun damental teaching regarding the goal of the disciple and the condi tions for attaining it, even when in some cases it has been overlaid by additional dogmas.
The sutta is addressed to "him who has gone forth from the world" in the conviction that worldly life cannot give final happi ness, and it repudiates two extremes which he ought not to follow —the profitless life of indulgence in sensual pleasure, and the equally profitless way of self-torture. The Middle Way, which "conduces to enlightenment and Nirvana," has been won by the Tathagata (the Buddha), and enlightenment consists in the knowl edge of the four Truths. The first Truth is the noble truth of pain : "birth is pain, old age is pain, sickness is pain, death is pain ... in short the five aggregates of grasping are pain." The second is the noble truth of the cause of pain, and this is the craving (tanha, thirst) that leads to rebirth, "the craving of the passions, the craving for (continued) existence, the craving for non-existence." The third is the noble truth of the cessation of pain, consisting in "the remainderless cessation of craving, its abandonment and rejection, emancipation, and freedom from sup port." These are the three truths knowledge of which constitutes the state of the arhat, the perfected disciple who has reached the goal of the cessation of pain. The fourth Truth consists in the actual means of arriving at these truths, the Noble Eightfold Path : "right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentra tion." This description of the Path covers the whole training of the disciple, and its significance is best seen from the way in which it is developed in the suttas. It includes a theoretical part (right views), a system of ethical practice, and a method of mental training expressed in right effort, mindfulness and concentration.
Positively the only right views required are the four Truths, but from the first Buddhism stood in opposition to rival systems, and thus was compelled to take up a definite attitude on various points. Against both Hinduism and Jainism it denied a perma nent self (atman), and it analysed the individual into five groups of elements, which are referred to in the first sermon as the five aggregates of grasping (body, feelings, perception, mental ele ments, consciousness). This analysis, as well as the usual analysis into mind and body (nama-rupa), is merely a description of facts. But Buddhism is peculiar in going further and denying that there is anything beyond these elements as constituting the individual, and this attitude has always been one of the most vulnerable points of the system. It met with attacks from the defenders of the iitman theory, and it was troubled by the development of heretical views among its own members, who sometimes attempted to find a principle which would explain why an individual exists at all. The doctrine of non-self is from another point of view the doctrine of the impermanence of compound things, and in this form it was applied to all existent beings including the gods, who were held to be liable to the effects of karma and transmigration. On the other hand Buddhism sided with Hinduism in its opposi tion to the sceptical doctrine of the annihilation of the individual at death (ucchedavada), and it accepted the doctrine of transmi gration. The individual transmigrates until the aggregates that compose him are finally disintegrated with the cessation of craving.
Four questions are recorded which it was held that the Buddha had refused to answer. These are, whether the universe is eternal or not, whether it is finite or not, whether life is the same as the body, and whether one who is emancipated (a Tathagata) exists after death. These are the undetermined questions, and the fact that they were left unanswered has led to the system being called agnostic. The last question is important with regard to the mean ing of Nirvana. Nirvana, "blowing out," is the extinction of craving or passion, which is reached when the disciple attains the knowledge of the Truths and is emancipated. This state may be reached during lifetime, and it is affirmed quite explicitly in the fourth undetermined question, that the Buddha has not explained whether one who is thus emancipated exists after death. Never theless modern scholars have attempted to guess. Oldenberg once inferred that the Buddha knew that final annihilation of the indi vidual was the logical result of his teaching, but that he did not wish to discourage disciples by saying so. Later on Oldenberg held that there are traces which indicate a belief in an absolute as highest aim, "a universal being stretching infinitely far beyond the limits of the individual." But Oldenberg's change of view shows how precarious the evidence is. Whatever may have been in the mind of Buddha, there is no doubt that the recognized teaching came to he that the answer had been left undetermined.
The doctrine of the origin of pain became formulated in the well-known Chain of Causation (paticca-samuppdda). This is a list of 12 causal states of the individual, each of which is sup posed to determine the next : ignorance, mental elements, con sciousness, mind and body, the six senses, contact, feeling, crav ing, becoming, birth, old age and death. There have been many explanations of this formula. The usual Buddhist interpretation has been well set forth by S. Z. Aung and Mrs. Rhys Davids (Compendium of Philosophy, 191o) but as there are several variant formulas in the Canon, it is impossible to prove that the form with links is primitive, and no one has ever shown that it has any philosophical value among theories of causation.
The ethical teaching has a significance far beyond the actual rules imposed on the monks. For the Order the rules formed a definitely ascetic system with all the liabilities to corruption that beset such attempts to reconstruct human nature. But the teach ing concerning non-injury, forgiveness of enemies, and friendli ness to all was a revelation of ethical ideals that went beyond any system. Ethics were further purified by the separation of moral rules from prescriptions of merely ritual significance. It was an enormous stride forward in ethical theory to make motive the criterion of moral action, instead of judging goodness by the sum total of good or bad actions performed.
This ethical reformation further resulted in moralizing the doc trine of karma, which, along with the doctrine of rebirth, had been taken over from Hinduism. Karma (q.v.) no longer meant a due number of sacrifices and gifts to brahmins. It is true that the thought of retribution implied in karma does not supply the highest motive for moral action, but at least it was to moral action that the theory was definitely applied, not to mere ritual ism, and the theory that every action received its punishment or reward could be made plausible when several lives were allowed f or retribution to take place.
The chief end of the disciple being not morality but knowledge, the practice of the Eightfold Path culminated in concentration or mystic meditation (samadhi). Concentration is essentially the same as the Hindu practice of Yoga, and it holds such a promi nent place in the early suttas that Senart has described Buddhism as a branch of the Yoga system. It consists in fixing the attention on one chosen point or subject, so that the mind passes through different stages of absorption or self-hypnotization (trance). In the older suttas only four stages of trance (jhana or dhydna) are de scribed. Later on four or sometimes five stages called attainments are added, and in post-canonical works, especially Buddhaghosa's Way of Purity, the methods and subjects of meditation have been much elaborated. In modern Pali Buddhism they have largely fallen into disuse, but in China and Japan the developments that took place in Sanskrit Buddhism have been preserved and even extended. The practice of concentration is probably prebuddhistic, and in Buddhism it appears to have been employed from the very first, but it is impossible to ascertain how much may have been borrowed from orthodox Yoga, as all the documents of this sys tem belong to a later period.
The Eightfold Path is essentially a course of training, and in order to carry it out fully and extinguish craving the abandon ment of a household life is essential. This career is expressed in the organization of the Sangha, the assembly or Order of monks. The rules of the Order, which are essentially the same in all the older sects, have been subject to additions, but two of the most important ceremonies are no doubt primitive, the assembly of uposatha, at which the Patimokkha, the list of offences given in the Vinaya, was recited each fortnight and confession of any in fringement required, and secondly the practice of Retreat (vassa), during the three months of the rainy season, when travelling was forbidden. The elaborate rules for admission of members, the internal regulations of the monasteries, and discipline, will be found in the second part of the Vinaya, and have been translated in Vinaya Texts.
Since the publication of the texts of the Pali Canon there has been agreement on main points concerning the doctrine which they set forth. We know that already in the 3rd century B.C. there were other schools, and we know something of their tenets, but the differences so far were on minor points, and it is unlikely that the canonical texts diverged seriously. But in recent years it has become more clearly recognized that the Pali Canon cannot be taken to be the doctrine in its primitive form. As it stands it is only the doctrine as it had become formulated in one school two centuries later. Hence there have been attempts to recon struct the suFposed primitive teaching of the founder. It is the view of Prof. de la Vallee Poussin that besides the official doctrine contained in the Scriptures there was a popular Buddhism, which soon made a god of the Buddha. Such a development among the laity is very probable, and it may be one of the factors that con tributed to later Mahayana developments. According to Mrs. Rhys Davids the denial of the atman, which is so much reiterated in the Canon, was not original, nor was the system primarily a monastic institution as we find it in the Vinaya. Dr. Paul Dahlke still finds that the pure Buddha-word is that which is laid down in the Pali Canon. On these still disputed questions the works mentioned below must be consulted.
Later History.—The Chronicles record three councils, the first immediately after the Buddha's death (483 B.e. ), at which the Scriptures, the Dhamma (Sutta) and Vinaya, were recited, the second a century later, when ten violations of monastic dis cipline were condemned and the first schism occurred, and the third in the reign of Asoka (247 B.c. ). Although it is probable that the three councils were actually held, nothing properly his torical is known about them. It is significant that while in San skrit works there are frequent references to Asoka, there is no mention of him in the Pali Canon. This makes it probable that in the Pali we possess the Canon as it was already settled in the time of Asoka. In the inscriptions of Asoka we have evidence of his support of the doctrine and of its spread over India. From the chronicles we learn that in Asoka's reign the doctrine was introduced by his son Mahinda into Ceylon.
The further history of the Theravadins is confined to Ceylon, and does not show any development in doctrine. For the later history of Buddhism in India the first authorities are the accounts of the Chinese pilgrims, chiefly Fa Hien in the 4th century and Hiuen Tsiang in the 7th. They found that Buddhism had ex tended into Central Asia, and they speak of the 18 schools as still existing in India, but they also refer to two great divisions, the Great and Little Vehicle. The Great Vehicle is the Mahayana, the new development of doctrine which showed itself from the century, and which stigmatizes the older schools as Hinayana, "low vehicle." (For this development see 1VIAHAYANA.) From Hiuen Tsiang we get a glimpse of the great importance of schools not recognized by the Theravada. Kanishka, the Saka king of Gandhara in the i st century, being displeased at the contradictory teachings of various schools, caused a general council to be held. This council not only arranged the three Pitakas, but is also held to have composed commentaries thereon. The Sanskrit schools reckon it as the third general council, and ignore the Council of Patna, which for the Theravada is the third.
The cause of the decline of Buddhism in India has been sup posed to be persecution. There is no real evidence for this, though there is one passage in which persecution is asserted. An examina tion of the latest Buddhist works makes it clear that the system gradually approximated to the surrounding Hinduism. The Bud dhas were multiplied and divinized. Bodhisattvas were exalted and worshipped as the givers of merit, and female consorts were attributed to them, so that they became indistinguishable except in name from the manifestations of Siva and Krishna.
Modern Research.—The striking archeological discoveries of the last century have both confirmed and added to our knowledge, chiefly concerning the period of the great extension of the religion under Asoka. First among these come the inscriptions on rocks and pillars put up by Asoka after his conversion. The legend of his pilgrimage to the birthplace of Buddha in the Lumbini garden is borne out by the discovery in 1896 of a pillar within the borders of Nepal which he caused to be set up in record of his visit. Another pillar, found the year before in the same region, records his visit to the stupa of Konagamana, a previous Buddha. But the most surprising find was made in 1898 by W. Peppe, who discovered near the Nepal border a stupa containing five vessels. One of these was a stone vase with a circular inscrip tion in verse and in letters of the Asokan period, and containing fragments of bone, and other relics. The translation by Prof. Luders (modified owing to the revised order in which it is to be read) is : "Of the brothers Sukiti, jointly with their sisters, with their sons and their wives, this (is the) receptacle of the relics of Buddha, the holy one, of the Sakyas." Owing to a mistrans lation it was once held to be the share of the relics given to the Sakyas after the cremation of Buddha's body. But this deposit was evidently made by a single family, and it is not likely to be earlier than the age of Asoka. Other relics of a still later date have since been found in north-west India. The discovery of Buddhist remains in Chinese Turkestan through the expeditions of Sir Aurel Stein and von Le Coq has shown the wide spread of Buddhism in Central Asia among peoples and in languages that have now disappeared. But they belong entirely to post-Christian times, and chiefly throw light on the latest stages of Buddhism.