Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D.
Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India
Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed.
Former Principal. A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India
It is difficult to comprehend, across 2,500 years, what were the conditions that called forth religions so ascetic and pessimistic as Buddhism. Actually much material progress had been made since the vedic age in India: great cities had been built; industry and trade had created wealth, wealth had generated leisure, leisure had developed knowledge and culture. Probably it was the riches of India that produced the Epicureanism and materialism of the seventh and sixth centuries before Christ. Religion does not prosper under prosperity; the senses liberate themselves from pious restraints, and formulate philosophies that will justify their liberation. As in the China of Confucius and the Greece of Protagoras, not to speak of our own day so in Buddha’s India the intellectual decay of the old religion had begotten ethical scepticism and moral anarchy. Buddhism, though impregnated with the melancholy atheism of a disillusioned age, were religious reactions against the pleasure seeking creeds of an “emancipated” and worldly leisure class. That is why Swami Vivekananda termed them as rebel child of Hinduism.( It has often been remarked that this period was distinguished by a shower of stars in the history of genius: Mahavira and Buddha in India, Lao-tze and Confucius in China, Jeremiah and the Second Isaiah in Judea, the pre-Socratic philosophers in Greece, and perhaps Zarathustra in Persia. Such a simultaneity of genius suggests more intercommunication and mutual influence among these ancient cultures than it is possible to trace definitely today.)
HindutraditiondescribesBuddha’sfather,Shuddhodhana, (Sanskrit: Śuddhodana; Japanese: 浄飯王 Jōbon-ō) , was a, member of the Gautama clan of the proud Shakya tribe, and prince or king of Kapilavastu, a small kingdom at the foot of the Himalayan range.” In truth, however, we know nothing certain about Buddha; and if we give here the stories that have gathered about his name it is not because these are history, but because they are an essential part of Hindu literature and Asiatic religion. Scholars assigns his birth to approximately 563 B.C., and can say no more; legend takes up the tale, and reveals to us in what strange ways men may be conceived. At that time, says one of the Jataka books,( “Birth-stories” of Buddha, written about the fifth century A.D. Another legend, the Lalitavistara, has been paraphrased by Sir Edwin Arnold in The Light of Asia.) in the city of Kapilavastu the festival of the full moon . . . had been proclaimed. Queen Maya from the seventh day before the full moon celebrated the festival without intoxicants, and with abundance of garlands and perfumes. Rising early on the seventh day she bathed in scented water, and bestowed a great gift of four hundred thousand pieces as alms. Fully adorned, she ate of choice food, took upon herself the Uposatha vows, ( I.e., vows appropriate to the Uposatha, or four holy days of the month: the full moon, the new moon, and the eighth day after either of them.”) entered her adorned state bed-chamber, lay down on the bed, and falling asleep, dreamt this dream. Four great kings, it seemed, raised her together with the bed, and taking her to the Himalayas, set her on the Manosila table-land. . . .
Then their queens came and took her to the Anotatta Lake, bathed her to remove human stain, robed her in heavenly clothing, anointed her with perfumes, and bedecked her with divine flowers. Not far away is a silver mountain, and thereon a golden mansion. There they prepared a divine bed with head to the east, and laid her upon it. Now the Bodhisattivaj (I.e., one destined to be a Buddha; here meaning the Buddha himself. Buddha, meaning “Enlightened,” is among the many titles given to the Master, whose personal name was Siddhartha, and whose clan name was Gautama. He was also called Shakya-muni, or “Sage of the Shakyas,” and Tathagata, “One Who Has Won the Truth.” Buddha never applied any of these titles to himself, so far as we know. “) became a white elephant. Not far from there is a golden mountain; and going there he descended from it, alighted on the silver mountain, approaching it from the direction of the north. In his trunk, which was like a silver rope, he held a white lotus. Then, trumpeting, he entered the golden mansion, made a rightwise circle three times around his mother’s bed, smote her right side, and appeared to enter her womb. Thus he received . . . a new existence.
The next day the Queen awoke and told her dream to the King. The King summoned sixty-four eminent Brahmans, showed them honour, and satisfied them with excellent food and other presents. Then, when they were satisfied with these pleasures, he caused the dream to be told, and asked what would happen. The Brahmans said: Be not anxious, O King; the Queen has conceived, a male not a female, and thou shalt have a son; and if he dwells in a house he will become a king, a universal monarch; if he leaves his house and goes forth from the world, he will become a Buddha, a remover, in the world, of the veil (of ignorance). . . .
Queen Maya, bearing the Bodhisattwa for ten months like oil in a bowl, when her time was come, desired to go to her relatives’ house, and addressed King Shuddhodhana: “I wish, O King, to go to Devadaha, the city of my family.” The King approved, and caused the road from Kapilavastu to Devadaha to be made smooth and adorned with vessels filled with plantains, flags and banners; and seating her in a golden palanquin borne by a thousand courtiers, sent her with a great retinue. Between the two cities, and belonging to the inhabitants of both, is a pleasure grove of Sal trees named the Lumbini Grove. At that time, from the roots to the tips of the branches, it was one mass of flowers. . . . When the Queen saw it, a desire to sport in the grove arose. . . . She went to the foot of a great Sal tree, and desired to seize a branch. The branch, like the tip of a supple reed, bent down and came within reach of her hand. Stretching out her hand she received the branch. Thereupon she was shaken with the throes of birth. So the multitude set up a curtain for her, and retired. Holding the branch, and even while standing, she was delivered. . . . And as other beings when born come forth stained with impure matter, not so the Bodhisattiva. But the Bodhisattwa, like a preacher of the Doctrine descending from the seat of Doctrine, like a man descending stairs, stretched out his two hands and feet, and standing unsoiled and unstained by any impurity, shining like a jewel laid on Benares cloth, descended from his mother.”
It must further be understood that at Buddha’s birth a great light appeared in the sky, the deaf heard, the dumb spoke, the lame were made straight, gods bent down from heaven to assist him, and kings came from afar to welcome him. Legend paints a colorful picture of the splendor and luxury that surrounded him in his youth. He dwelt as a happy prince in three palaces “like a god,” protected by his loving father from all contact with the pain and grief of human life. Forty thousand dancing girls entertained him, and when he came of age five hundred ladies were sent to him that he might choose one as his wife. As a member of the Kshatriya caste, he received careful training in the military arts; but also he sat at the feet of sages, and made himself master of all the philosophical theories current in his time.” He married, became a happy father, and lived in wealth, peace and good repute.
One day, says pious tradition, he went forth from his palace into the streets among the people, and saw an old man; and on another day he went forth and saw a sick man; and on a third day he went forth and saw a dead man. He himself, in the holy books of his disciples, tells the talc movingly:
Then, O monks, did I, endowed with such majesty and such excessive delicacy, think thus: “An ignorant, ordinary person, who is himself subject to old age, not beyond the sphere of old age, on seeing an old man, is troubled, ashamed and disgusted, extending the thought to himself. I, too, am subject to old age, not beyond the sphere of old age; and should I, who am subject to old age, . . . on seeing an old man, be troubled, ashamed and disgusted?” This seemed to me not fitting. As I thus reflected, all the elation in youth suddenly disappeared. . . . Thus, O monks, before my enlightenment, being myself subject to birth, I sought out the nature of birth; being subject to old age I sought out the nature of old age, of sickness, of sorrow, of impurity. Then I thought: “What if I, being myself subject to birth, were to seek out the nature of birth, . . . and having seen the wretchedness of the nature of birth, were to seek out the unborn, the supreme peace of Nirvana?”
Death is the origin of all religions, and perhaps if there had been no 1 death there would have been no gods. To Buddha these sights were the beginning of “enlightenment.” Like one overcome with “conversion,” he suddenly resolved to leave his father, ( His mother had died in giving him birth.) his wife and his newborn son, and become an ascetic in the desert. During the night he stole into his wife’s room, and looked for the last time upon his son, Rahula. Just then, say the Buddhist Scriptures, in a passage sacred to all followers of Gautama,
a lamp of scented oil was burning. On the bed strewn with heaps of jessamine and other flowers, the mother of Rahula was sleeping, with her hand on her son’s head. The Bodhisattiva, standing with his foot on the threshold, looked, and thought, “If I move aside the Queen’s hand and take my son, the Queen will awake, and this will be an obstacle to my going. When I have become a Buddha I will come back and see him.” And he descended from the palace.
In the dark of the morning he rode out of the city on his horse Kanthaka, with his charioteer Chauna clinging desperately to the tail. Then Mara, Prince of Evil, appeared to him and tempted him, offering him great empires. But Buddha refused, and riding on, crossed a broad river with one mighty leap. A desire to look again at his native city arose in him, but he did not turn. Then the great earth turned round, so that he might not have to look back.
He stopped at a place called Uruvela. “There,” he says, “I thought to myself, truly this is a pleasant spot, and a beautiful forest. Clear flows the river, and pleasant are the bathing-places; all around are meadows and villages.” Here he devoted himself to the severest forms of asceticism; for six years he tried the ways of the Yogis who had already appeared on the Indian scene. He lived on seeds and grass, and for one period he fed on dung. Gradually he reduced his food to a grain of rice each day. He wore hair cloth, plucked out his hair and beard for torture’s sake, stood for long hours, or lay upon thorns. He let the dust and dirt accumulate upon his body until he looked like an old tree. He frequented a place where human corpses were exposed to be eaten by birds and beasts, and slept among the rotting carcasses. And again, he tells us,
I thought, what if now I set my teeth, press my tongue to my palate, and restrain, crush and burn out my mind with my mind. (I did so.) And sweat flowed from my arm-pits. . . . Then I thought, what if I now practice trance without breathing. So I restrained breathing in and out from mouth and nose. And as I did so there was a violent sound of winds issuing from my ears. . . . Just as if a strong man were to crush one’s head with the point of a sword, even so did violent winds disturb my head. . . . Then I thought, what if I were to take food only in small amounts, as much as my hollowed palm would hold, juices of beans, vetches, chick-peas, or pulse. . . . My body became extremely lean. The mark of my seat was like a camel’s foot-print through the little food. The bones of my spine, when bent and straightened, were like a row of spindles through the little food. And as, in a deep well, the deep, low-lying sparkling of the waters is seen, so in my eye-sockets was seen the deep, low-lying sparkling of my eyes through the little food. And as a bitter gourd, cut off raw, is cracked and withered through rain and sun, so was the skin of my head withered through the little food. When I thought I would touch the skin of my stomach I actually took hold of my spine. . . . When I thought I would ease myself I there- upon fell prone through the little food. To relieve my body I stroked my limbs with my hand, and as I did so the decayed hairs fell from my body through the little food.”
As per Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’s book, Introduction to Buddhism, Siddhartha then made his way to a place near Bodh Gaya in India, where he found a suitable site for meditation. There he remained, emphasizing a meditation called “space-like concentration on the Dharmakaya” in which he focused single-pointedly on the ultimate nature of all phenomena. After training in this meditation for six years he realized that he was very close to attaining full enlightenment, and so he walked to Bodh Gaya where, on the full moon day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar, he seated himself beneath the Bodhi Tree in the meditation posture and vowed not to rise from meditation until he had attained perfect enlightenment. With this determination he entered the space-like concentration on the Dharmakaya.
As dusk fell, Devaputra Mara, the chief of all the demons, or maras, in this world, tried to disturb Siddhartha’s concentration by conjuring up many fearful apparitions. He manifested hosts of terrifying demons, some throwing spears, some firing arrows, some trying to burn him with fire, and some hurling boulders and even mountains at him. Through the force of his concentration, the weapons, rocks, and mountains appeared to him as a rain of fragrant flowers, and the raging fires became like offerings of rainbow lights.
Seeing that Siddhartha could not be frightened into abandoning his meditation, Devaputra Mara tried instead to distract him by manifesting countless beautiful women, but Siddhartha responded by developing even deeper concentration. In this way he triumphed over all the demons of this world, which is why he subsequently became known as a “Conqueror Buddha.”
Siddhartha then continued with his meditation until dawn, when he attained the varja-like concentration. With this concentration, which is the very last mind of a limited being, he removed the final veils of ignorance from his mind and in the next moment became a Buddha, a fully enlightened being.
One day the thought came to Buddha that self -mortification was not the way. Perhaps he was unusually hungry on that day, or some memory of loveliness stirred within him. He perceived that no new enlightenment had come to him from these austerities. “By this severity I do not attain superhuman truly noble knowledge and insight.” On the contrary, a certain pride in his self-torture had poisoned any holiness that might have grown from it. He abandoned his asceticism, went to sit under a shade-giving tree, (The Bodhi-tree of later Buddhist worship, still shown to tourists at Bodh-gaya.) and remained there steadfast and motionless, resolving never to leave that seat until enlightenment came to him. What, he asked himself, was the source of human sorrow, suffering, sickness, old age and death? Suddenly a vision came to him of the infinite succession of deaths and births in the stream of life: he saw every death frustrated with new birth, every peace and joy balanced with new desire and discontent, new disappointment, new grief and pain. “Thus, with mind concentrated, purified, cleansed, … I directed my mind to the passing away and rebirth of beings. With divine, purified, superhuman vision I saw beings passing away and being reborn, low and high, of good and bad colour, in happy or miserable existences, according to their karma” according to that universal law by which every act of good or of evil will be rewarded or punished in this life, or in some later incarnation of the soul.
It was the vision of this apparently ridiculous succession of deaths and births that made Buddha scorn human life. Birth, he told himself, is the origin of all evil. And yet birth continues endlessly, forever replenishing the stream of human sorrow. If birth could be stopped. . . . Why is birth not stopped? (The philosophy of Schopenhauer stems from this point ecause the law of karma demands new reincarnations in which the soul may atone for evil done in past existences. If, however, a man could live a life of perfect justice, of unvarying patience and kindness to all, if he could tie his thoughts to eternal things, not binding his heart to those that begin and pass away then, perhaps, he would be spared rebirth, and for him the fountain of evil would run dry. If one could still all desires for one’s self, and seek only to do good, then individuality, that first and worst delusion of mankind, might be over- come, and the soul would merge at last with unconscious infinity. What peace there would be in the heart that had cleansed itself of every personal desire! and what heart that had not so cleansed itself could ever know peace? Happiness is possible neither here, as paganism thinks, nor hereafter, as many religions think. Only peace is possible, only the cool quietude of craving ended, only Nirvana.
And so, after seven years of meditation, the Enlightened One, having learned the cause of human suffering, went forth to the Holy City of Benares, and there, in the deer-park at Sarnath, preached Nirvana to men.
From this exalted philosophy we pass to the simple legends which are all that we have concerning Buddha’s later life and death. Despite his scorn of miracles, his disciples brewed a thousand tales of the marvels that he wrought. He wafted himself magically across the Ganges in a moment; the tooth-pick he had let fall sprouted into a tree; at the end of one of his sermons the “thousand-fold world-system shook.” When his enemy Devadatta sent a fierce elephant against him, Buddha “pervaded it with love,” and it was quite subdued.” Arguing from such pleasantries Senart and others have concluded that the legend of Buddha has been formed on the basis of ancient sun myths. It is unimportant; Buddha means for us the ideas attributed to Buddha in the Buddhist literature; and this Buddha exists.
The Buddhist Scriptures paint a pleasing picture of him. Many disciples gathered around him, and his fame as a sage spread through the cities of northern India. When his father heard that Buddha was near Kapilavastu he sent a messenger to him with an invitation to come and spend a day in his boyhood home. He went, and his father, who had mourned the loss of a prince, rejoiced, for a while, over the return of a saint.
Buddha’s wife, who had been faithful to him during all their separation, fell down before him, clasped his ankles, placed his feet about her head, and reverenced him as a god. Then King Shuddhodhana told Buddha of her great love: “Lord, my daughter (in-law), when she heard that you were wearing yellow robes (as a monk), put on yellow robes; when she heard of your having one meal a day, herself took one meal; when she knew that you had given up a large bed, she lay on a narrow couch; and when she knew that you had given up garlands and scents, she gave them up.” Buddha blessed her, and went his way.
But now his son, Rahula, came to him, and also loved him. “Pleasant is your shadow, ascetic,” he said. Though Rahula’s mother had hoped to see the youth made king, the Master accepted him into the Buddhist order. Then another prince, Nanda, was called to be consecrated as heir- apparent to the throne; but Nanda, as if in a trance, left the ceremony unfinished, abandoned a kingdom, and going to Buddha, asked that he, too, might be permitted to join the Order. When King Shuddhodhana heard of this he was sad, and asked a boon of Buddha. “When the Lord abandoned the world,” he said, “it was no small pain to me; so when Nanda went; and even more so with Rahula. The love of a. son cuts through the skin, through the hide, the flesh, the sinew, the marrow. Grant, Lord, that thy noble ones may not confer the ordination on a son without the permission of his father and mother.” Buddha consented, and made such permission a prerequisite to ordination.
Already, it seems, this religion without priest craft had developed an order of monks dangerously like the Hindu priests. Buddha would not be long dead before they would surround themselves with all the paraphernalia of the Brahmans. Indeed it was from the ranks of the Brahmans that the first converts came; and then from the richest youth of Benares and the neighboring towns. These Bhikkhus, or monks, practised in Buddha’s days a simple rule. They saluted one another, and all those to whom they spoke, with an admirable phrase: “Peace to all beings.” ( the beautiful form of greeting used by the Jews: Shalom aleichem”Pmcc be with you.” In the end men do not ask for happiness, but only for peace.)
They were not to kill any living thing; they were never to take anything save what was given them; they were to avoid falsehood and slander; they were to heal divisions and encourage concord; they were always to show compassion for all men and all animals; they were to shun all amusements of sense or flesh, all music, nautch dances, shows, games, luxuries, idle conversation, argument, or fortune-telling; they were to have nothing to do with business, or with any form of buying or selling; above all, they were to abandon incontinence, and live apart from women, in perfect chastity.” Yielding to many soft entreaties, Buddha allowed women to enter the Order as nuns, but he never completely reconciled himself to this move. “If, Ananda,” he said, “women had not received permission to enter the Order, the pure religion would have lasted long, the good law would have stood fast a thousand years. But since they have received that permission, it will now stand fast for only five hundred years.”" He was right. The great Order, or Sangha, has survived to our own time; but it has long since corrupted the Master’s doctrine with magic, polytheism, and countless superstitions.
Towards the end of his long life his followers already began to deify him, despite his challenge to them to doubt him and to think for themselves. Now, says one of the last Dialogues, the venerable Sariputta came to the place where the Exalted One was, and having saluted him, took his seat respectfully at his side, and said:
“Lord, such faith have I in the Exalted One that methinks there never has been, nor will there be, nor is there now, any other, whether Wanderer or Brahman, who is greater and wiser than the Exalted One … as regards the higher wisdom.”
“Grand and bold are the words of thy mouth, Sariputta” (answered the Master); “verily, thou hast burst forth into a song of ecstasy! Of course, then, thou hast known all the Exalted Ones of the past, . . . comprehending their minds with yours, and aware what their conduct was, what their wisdom, . . . and what the emancipation they attained to?” ”Not so, O Lord!”
“Of course, then, thou hast perceived all the Exalted Ones of the future, . . . comprehending their whole minds with yours?”
“Not so, O Lord!”
“But at least, then, O Sariputta, thou knowest me, . . . and hast penetrated my mind?” . . .
“Not even that, O Lord.”
“You see, then, Sariputta, that you know not the hearts of the Able, Awakened Ones of the past and of the future. Why, therefore, are your words so grand and bold? Why do you burst forth into such a song of ecstasy?”"
And to Ananda he taught his greatest and noblest lesson:
“And whosoever, Ananda, either now or after I am dead, shall be a lamp unto themselves, and a refuge unto themselves, shall betake / themselves to no external refuge, but, holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, . . . shall not look for refuge to any one besides themselves sit is they . . . who shall reach the very topmost height! But they must be anxious to learn!”
He died in 483 B.C., at the age of eighty. “Now then, O monks,” he said to them as his last words, “I address you. Subject to decay are compound things. Strive with earnestness.”
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DAVIDS, T. W. RHYS: Buddhist India. New York, 1903.
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