Buddhism

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

the system of faith introduced or reformed by Buddha. In its origin Buddhism was a reaction against the caste pretensions of the Brahmins and other Aryan invaders of India, and was, therefore, eminently fitted to become, as it for long was, the religion of the vanquished Turanians. As might have been anticipated, the equality of all castes was, and is, one of its most fundamental tenets. Another tenet is the deification of men, who, when raised to Buddhahood, are called Buddhas. Professors of the faith enumerate about 100 of these personages, but practically confine their reference to about seven. Pre-eminent among these stands Buddha himself. Personally, he never claimed divine honors. It was his disciples who first entitled him Sakhya Muni, i. e., Saint Sakhya. As Gautama, though adored as superhuman, is, after all, confessedly only a deified hero, it has been disputed whether his followers can be said to admit a Supreme Intelligence, Governor of this and all worlds. In philosophy, they believe the universe to be a maya, an illusion or phantom. The later Brahminists do the same, but in the opinion of Krishna Mohun, Banergea, and others, these latter seem to have borrowed the tenet from the Buddhists rather than the Buddhists from them. Of the six schools of Hindu philosophy, those which Buddhism most closely approaches are the Sakhya philosophy of Kapila and the Yoga philosophy of Patanjali. Buddhism enjoins great tenderness to animal life. The felicity at which its professors aim in the future world is called Nirvana, or, It has more accurately, Nibbanam. 15-Vol. been disputed whether this means anblissful repose. Robert nihilation or Cæsar Childers, in his dictionary of the Pali language, uses strong arguments in favor of the former view. Buddhism was attended by an enormous development of monasticism. The language in which Gautama or Buddha taught was the Magadhî or Pali, the language of Magadha, now called Bahar or Behar. It was a Prâkrit or Aryan vernacular of a province, but has now been raised to the dignity of the Buddhist sacred tongue throughout the world. Gautama's followers believe that his sayings were noted down in the Tripitaka, or "Three Treasuries of Discipline, Doctrine and Metaphysics," which constitute the Buddhist scriptures. What their real age is has been a matter of dispute; the discovery by General Cunningham, in 1874, of allusions to them in the "Bharhut Sculptures," which are of date 3d century B. C., is in favor of their genuineness and antiquity. This work is in Pali; the Sanskrit Buddhist books discovered by Brian Hodgson in Nepaul are much more modern, and present a corrupt form of Buddhism. The first general council of the Budhist Church was held at Rajagriha, the capital of the Magadha kingdom, in 543 B. C.; the second at Vesal (Allahabad [?], or a place near Patna) about 443 B. C., or 377 (?), and a third at Pataliputra (Greek, Palibothra modern Patna), on the Ganges, in 307 B. c. or 250. This last one was called by Asoka, an emperor ruling over a great part of India, who had been converted to Buddhism, and is sometimes called the Constantine of that faith, having established it as the state religion of his wide realm. He sent missionaries into western, central and southern India, and also to Ceylon and to Pegu. Buddhism was dominant in India for about 1,000 years after its establishment by Asoka. Then, having become corrupt and its vitality having decayed, reviving Brahminism prevailed over it, and all but extinguished it on the Indian continent, though a modification of it, Jainism, still exists in Marwad and many other parts. It has all along held its own, however, in Ceylon. On losing Continental India, its missionaries transferred their efforts to China, which they converted, and which still remains Buddhist. The religion of Gautama flourishes also in Tibet, Burma, and Japan, and is the great Turanian faith of the modern as of the ancient world. It is estimated that there are about 138,000,000 followers of Buddhism, practically all of whom live in Asia. There has sprung up, since . II-Cyc the latter part of the 19th century, a very extensive literature on the history, philosophy, precepts, and observances of Buddhism. The Rev. G. Smith points out resemblances between Buddhism and Roman Catholicism (these, it may be added, were first discovered by the Jesuit missionaries, who were greatly perplexed by them): "There is the monastery, celibacy, the dress and caps of the priests, the incense, the bells, the rosary of beads, the lighted candles at the altar, the same intonations in the services, the same ideas of purgatory, the praying in an unknown tongue, the offerings to departed spirits in the temple." The closest similarity is in Lamaism, an amplification of Buddhism in Tibet. But most of the resemblances are ceremonial; there is no close similarity in doctrine with between the two faiths.