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 surrounded, the history of Buddh ism may be thus briefly outlined: The prince Siddhartha gives early indications of a contemplative, ascetic disposition; and his father, fearing lest he should desert his high station as Kshatriya (see Ilisurism and CASTE) and ruler, and take to a religious life, has him early married to a charming princess, and surrounded with all the splendor and dissipation of a luxurious court. Twelve years spent in this environment only deepen the conviction, that all that life can offer is vanity and vexation of spirit. He is con stantly 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 sufferings. These images hang like Damocles' sword over every proposed feast of pleasure, and make enjoyment impossible. He therefore resolves to try whether a life of austerity will not lead to peace; and, although his father seeks to detain him by setting guards on every outlet of the palace, he escapes, and begins the life of a religious mendicant, being now about 30 years old. To mark his breaking off all secular ties, he cuts off the long locks that were a sign of his high caste; and as the shortened hair turned upwards, he is always represented in figures with curly hair, which induced early European writers to consider him as of Ethiopian origin. He commences by studying all that the Brahmans can teach him, but 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 his five disciples, and then undergoes a fierce temptation from the demon of wickedness. But no discouragement or opposition can divert Sakya-muni from the search after deliverance. He will conquer the secret by sheer force of thinking. He sits for weeks plunged in abstraction, revolving the causes of things. If we were not born, 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 con tinued existence? Through a long concatenation of intermediate causes, he arrives at the conclusion that ignorance is the ultimate cause of existence; and therefore, with the removal of ignorance, existence and all its anxieties and miseries would be cut off at their source. Passing through successive stages of contemplation, he realizes this,in his own person, and attains the perfect wisdom of the Buddha. The scene of this final triumph received the name of Bodhimauda (the seat of intelligence), and the tree under which he sat was called Bodhidruma (the tree of intelligence), whence bo-tree. The Buddhists believe the spot to be the center of the earth. Twelve hundred years after the Buddha's death, Hionen-Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, found the Bodhidruma—or a tree that passed for it—still standing. Although the religion of Buddha is extinct in the neighborhood, there are, about 5 in. from Gaya Proper, in Bahar, extensive ruins and an old dagoba, or a temple, which are believed to mark the place. Near the temple there flourished, in 1812, a peepul-tree, apparently 100 years old, which may have been planted in the place of the original bo-tree.
Having arrived at the knowledge of the causes of misery, and of the means by which these causes are to be counteracted, the Buddha was now ready to lead others on the road to salvation. It was at Benares that he first preached, or, in the consecrated phrase, "turned the wheel of the law ;"* but the most important of his early converts was Bimbisara, the sovereign of Magadha (Bahar), whose dynasty continued for many centuries to patronize the new faith. During the forty years that he continued to preach his strange gospel, lie appears to have traversed a great part of northern India, combating the Brahmans, and everywhere making numerous converts. Ile died at Kusinagara (in Onde), at the age of 80, in the year 543 n.c.; and his body being burned, the relics were distributed among a number of contending claimants; and monumental tumuli were erected to preserve them. See Torts.
The most important point in the history of Buddhism, after the death of its founder, is that of the three councils which fixed the canon of the sacred scriptures and the dis cipline of the church. The Buddha had written nothing himself; but his chief follow ers, assembled in council immediately after his death, proceeded to reduce his teaching to writing. These canonical writings are divided into three classes, forming the tripitaka
or "triple basket." The first class consist of the soutra8, or discourses of the Buddha; the second contains the or discipline; and the third the abkidhavna, or meta physic. The first is evidently the fundamental text out of which all the subsequent writings have been elaborated. The other two councils probably revised and expanded the writings agreed upon at the first, adding voluminous commentaries; as to the dates of the other two councils, there are irreconcilable discrepancies in the accounts; but at all events the third was not later than 240 B.C., so that the Buddhist canonical scrip tures, as they now exist, were fixed two centuries and a half, before the Christian era.. The Buddhist religion early manifested a zealous missionary spirit; and princes and even princesses became devoted propagandists. A prince of the royal house of Magiatia, Mahindo, carried, the faith to Ceylon, 307 B.C. The Chinese annals speak-of a Buddhist missionary as early as 217 B.C. ; aurttlie doctrine made such progress, that in 05 A.o. it was the'Chinese emperor as a third state religion. The Buddhists have always looked on India as their "holy land;" and, beginning with the 4th c. of our era, a stream of Buddhist pilgrims continued to flow from China to India during six centuries. Several of these pilgrims have left accounts of their travels, which throw a light on the course of Buddhism in India, and ou the internal state of the coun try in general, that is looked for in vain in the literature of India itself. See lhouns TIISANG. As to the spread of Buddhism n. of the Himalayan mountain, we have the historical fact, that a Chinese general, having about the year 120 n.c. defeated the bar barous tribes to the n. of the desert of Gobi, brought back as a trophy a golden statue of the Buddha.
A prominent name in the history of Buddhism is that of Asoka, king of Magadha, in the 3d e. of our era, whose sway seems to have extended over the whole peninsula of Hindustan, and even over Ceylon. This prince was to Buddhism what Constantine was to Christianity. He was at first a persecutor of the faith, but being converted—by a miracle, according to the legend—he became its zealous propagator. Not, however, as princes usually promote their creed; for it is a distinguishing characteristic of Buddhism, that it has never employed force, hardly even to resist aggression. Asoka showed his zeal by building and endowing viharas or monasteries, and raising topes and other monuments over the relics of Buddha and in spots remarkable as the scenes of his labors. Hiouen Thsang, in the 7th e. of our era, found topes attributed to Asoka from the foot of the Hindu Kush to the extremity of the peninsula. There exist, also, in different parts of India, edicts inscribed on rocks and pillars inculcating the doctrines of Buddha. The edicts are in the name of king Piyadasi; but orientalists are almost unanimous in hold ing Piyadasi and Asoka to be one and the same. Not a single building or sculptured stone has been discovered in continental India of earlier date than the reign of this mon arch, whose death is assigned to 226 13.4'. A remarkable spirit of charity and toleration rims through these royal sermons. The " king beloved of the gods" desires to see the ascetics of all creeds living in all places, for they all teach the essential rules of conduct. "A man ought to honor his own faith only; but he should never abuse the faith of others. . . . There are even circumstances where the religion of others ought to be honored, and in acting thus, a man fortifies his own faith, and assists the faith of others." For the glimpses we get of the state of Buddhism in India, we are indebted chiefly to the accounts of Chinese pilgrims. Fa-hian, at the end of the 4th c., found some appear ances of decline in the e, of Hindustan, its birthplace, but it was still strong in the Punjab and the north. In Ceylon, it was flourishing in full vigor, the ascetics or monks numbering from 30,000 to 60,000. In the 7th c.—that is, 1200 years after the death of the Buddha—Iliouen-Thsang represents it as widely dominant and flourishing, and patronized by powerful rajahs. Its history was doubtless more or less checkered. The Brahmans, though little less tolerant than the followers of Buddha, seem to have been in some eases roused into active opposition; and some princes employed persecution to put down the new faith.