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 offer is vanity and vexation of spirit. Be 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 (-lit off all present sources of enjoyment and usher in a new cycle of unknown trials and sufferings. These images hang like Damoeles'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 him by setting guards on every outlet of the palace, he escapes, and begins the life of a re ligious mendicant. being now 29 years old. To mark his breaking off a]] secular ties, he cuts off the long locks that were a sign of his high caste; and as the shortened hair turned upward. he is always represented in figures with curly hair, which induced early European writers to con sider him as of Ethiopian origin. Ile commences by studying all that the Brahmans can teach 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 this time he triumphantly withstands the temptation by the demon 115ra. But no discouragement or opposition can divert Sakya-muni from the search after delivera nee. He will conquer the secret by sheer force of thinking. lie sits for weeks plunged in abstrac tion, 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 mines birth or continued existence? Through a long concate nation of intermediate causes he arrives at the conelusion 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 he cut off at their source. Passing through successive stages of contemplation, he realizes 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 and the tree under which he sat was called Bodhidruma ('the tree of intelligence'), whence ho-t rev. The Buddhists believe the spot to be the centre of the earth. Twelve hundred years after the Buddha's death, thouen Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, found 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 mark the place. Behind the temple there flourished. in 1812, a peepul-tree, appar 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 these causes arc to be counteraeted, the Buddha was now ready to lead others on the road to salva tion. it was at Benares that lie 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 Maga dim (Behar), whose dynasty continued for many centuries to patronize the new faith. During the forty-four years that lie 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 Onde) at the age of eighty, probably in the year n.c. 477; and his body being burned, the relics were distributed among a number of contending claimants. and monumental timmli were erected to preserve them. See Tom.
The most important point in the history of Buddhism, after the death of its founder, is that of the three councils, which are said to have fixed the canon of the sacred scriptures and the dis cipline of the Church. The Buddha had com posed no work himself, hut 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 rinnya, or disci pline; the second contains the sutras, or dis courses: and the third the abithlhanna. 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 council 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 mc. 241f. Still an other was held between A.D. 76 and 100. At precisely what date the Pnli canon as we have it was fixed is still uncertain, but probably it was in the main what it, is now as early as the Third Century s.c. The canon was not reduced to writing till the First Century B.C. Besides the Tripitaka referred to above, the canon of the Great Vehicle (Mahayana) contains two special works, dating not certainly earlier than the times of Kanishka, and of the First Century A.D. These are 'The Lotus of the Good Law,' and the Lalita l'igtara, the latter of which contains the life of Buddha. To these may he added the Mahavastu. which belongs to the Second Cen tury B.C. .:111 the northern Buddhists recognize these books as authoritative. The Buddha carita, the earliest life of Buddha, dates from the First Century A.D. (See AsvAqttosnA). The Buddhist religion early manifested a zealous missionary spirit, and princes and even prin cesses became devoted propagandists. A prince of the royal house of Magadha, Mahindo. car ried the faith to Ceylon, rf.g. 307. The Chinese annals speak of a Buddhist missionary as early as B.C. 217; and the doctrine made such progress that in A.D. 65 it was acknowledged by the Chinese Emperor as a third State religion. The Chinese Buddhists have always looked on India as their 'holy land.' and, beginning with the Fourth Century 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 on the internal state of the country in general, that is looked for in vain in the literature of India itself. See HIOCEN-THSANG.
A prominent name in the history of Buddhism is that of Asoka, King of Magadha in the Third Century of our era. whose sway seems to have extended over the whole peninsula of Hindustan, and elen over Ceylon. (See AsoKA.) 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, ac cording to the legend —he became a zealous propagator of the religion—not, however. as princes usually promote their creed, for it is a distinguishing characteristic of Buddhism that it has never employed force. rarely even to resist aggression. Asoka, showed his zeal by building and endowing vilifiras or monasteries and raising topes and other monuments over the relics of Buddha, and in spots remarkable as the scenes of his labors. in the Seventh (_'entury of our era, found topes attributed to -1soka 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 Piyada si.