BUDDHIST COUNCIL UNDER KANISHKA. 147

10. Contrast of the vain and transitory glory of this world with the reward for which the king strives and looks beyond.

II. Inculcation of the doctrine that the imparting of dharma or teaching of virtue to others is the greatest of charitable gifts.

12. Address to all unbelievers.

13. (Imperfect); the meaning conjectural.

14. Summing up of the whole.

Kanishka

The fourth and last of the great Buddhist Councils was held Fourth under King Kanishka, according to one tradition four centuries Council, after Buddha's death. The date of Kanishka is still uncertain ; (40 A.D. ?) but, from the evidence of coins and inscriptions, his reign has been fixed in the 1st century after Christ, or, say, 40 A.D.1 Kanishka, the most famous of the Saka conquerors, ruled over North-Western India, and the adjoining countries. His authority had its nucleus in Kashmír, but it extended to both sides of the Himalayas, from Yarkand and Khokand to Agra and Sind.

Kanishka's Council of five hundred drew up three commentaries on the Buddhist faith. These commentaries supplied in part materials for the Tibetan or Northern Canon, Greater Vehicle.' completed at subsequent periods. The Northern Canon, or, as the Chinese proudly call it, the 'Greater Vehicle of the Law,' includes many later corruptions or developments of the Buddhism which was originally embodied by Asoka in the 'Lesser Vehicle,' or Canon of the Southern Buddhists (244 B.C.). Lesser Vehicle.' The Buddhist Canon of China, a branch of the 'Greater Vehicle,' was gradually arranged between 67 and 1285 A.D. It includes. 1440 distinct works, comprising 5586 books. The ultimate divergence between the Canons is great. They differ not only, as we have seen, in regard to the legend of Buddha's life, but also as to his teaching. With respect to doctrine, one example will suffice. According to the Northern or Greater Vehicle,' Buddhist monks who transgress wilfully after ordination may yet recover themselves; while to such castaways the Southern or Lesser Vehicle' allowed no room for repentance.2 The original of the Northern Canon was written in the Northern Sanskrit language, perhaps because the Kashmír and northern and priests, who formed Kanishka's Council, belonged to isolated Canons. Himalayan settlements which had been little influenced by the

1 The latest efforts to fix the date of Kanishka are little more than records of conflicting authorities. See Dr. James Fergusson's paper in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Article ix., April 1880; and Mr. E. Thomas' comprehensive disquisition on the Sáh and Gupta coins, pp. 18-79 of the Report of the Archæological Survey of Western India for 1874-75, 4to, London, 1876. 2 Beal, Catena, p. 253.

Southern

Buddhism

as a

growth of the Indian vernacular dialects. In one of these dialects, the Mágadhí of Behar, the Southern Canon had been compiled by Asoka and expanded by commentators. Indeed, the Buddhist compilations appear to have given the first literary impulse to the Prákrits or spoken Aryan dialects in India; as represented by the Páli or Mágadhi of the Ceylonese Buddhist scriptures, and the Maháráshtri of the ancient sacred books of the Jains. The northern priests, who compiled Kanishka's Canon, preferred the 'perfected' Sanskrit, which had become by that time the accepted literary vehicle of the learned throughout India, to the Prákrit or 'natural' dialects of the Gangetic valley. Kanishka and his Kashmir Council (40) A.D. ?) became to the Northern or Tibeto-Chinese Buddhists, what Asoka and his Patná Council (244 B.C.) had been to the Buddhists of Ceylon and the South.

Buddhism was thus organized as a State religion by the Councils of Asoka and Kanishka. It started from Bráhnational religion; manical doctrines; but from those doctrines, not as taught in hermitages to clusters of Bráhman disciples, but as vitalized by a preacher of rare power in the capital cities of India. Buddha did not abolish caste. On the contrary, reverence to Bráhmans and to the spiritual guide ranked among the four great sets of duties, with obedience to parents, control over self, and acts of kindness to all men and animals. He introduced, however, a new classification of mankind, on the spiritual basis of believers and unbelievers.

its religious orders;

1

The former took rank in the Buddhist community,at first, according to their age and merit; in later times, as laity and clergy (.e. the religious orders). Buddhism carried transmigration to its utmost spiritual use, and proclaimed our own actions to be the sole ruling influence on our past, present, and future states. It was thus led into the denial of any external being or god who could interfere with the immutable law of cause and effect as applied to the soul. But, on the other hand, it linked together mankind as parts of one universal whole, and denounced the isolated self-seeking of the human heart as 'the heresy of individuality.' Its mission was to make men more moral, kinder to others, and happier themselves; not to propitiate imaginary deities. It accordingly founded its teaching on man's duty to his neighbour, instead of on his obligations to God; and constructed its 1 Upasáka.

2 Sramana, bhikshu (monk or religious mendicant), bhikshuni (nun). 3 Sakayaditthi.

SPREA

SPREAD OF BUDDHISM.

149

practical

ritual on the basis of relic-worship or the commemoration of and good men, instead of on sacrifice. Its sacred buildings were morality. not temples to the gods, but monasteries (vikáras) for the religious orders, with their bells and rosaries; or memorial shrines,1 reared over a tooth or bone of the founder of the faith.

Buddhism.

638 A. D.

The missionary impulse given by Asoka quickly bore fruit. Spread of In the year after his great Council at Patná (244 B.C.), his son Mahindo2 carried Asoka's version of the Buddhist scriptures in the Mágadhi language to Ceylon. He took with him a In the band of fellow-missionaries; and soon afterwards, his sister, South, Ceylon, the princess Sanghamittá, who had entered the Order, followed etc., 244 with a company of nuns. It was not, however, till six hundred B.C. to years later (410-432 A.D.) that the Ceylonese Canon was written out in Páli, the sacred Mágadhí language of the Southern Buddhists. About the same time, missionaries from Ceylon finally established the faith in Burma (450 A.D.). The Burmese themselves assert that two Buddhist preachers landed in Pegu as early as 207 B.C. Indeed, some Burmese date the arrival of Buddhist missionaries just after the Patná Council, 244 B.C., and point out the ruined city of Tha-tun, between the Sitaung (Tsit-taung) and Salwín estuaries, as the scene of their pious labours. Siam was converted to Buddhism in 638 A.D. ; Java received its missionaries direct from India between the 5th and the 7th centuries, and spread the faith to Bali and Sumatra.3

China,etc.,

552 A.D.

While Southern Buddhism was thus wafted across the In the ocean, another stream of missionaries had found their way North, by Central Asia into China. Their first arrival in the Chinese 2ndcentury empire is said to date from the 2nd century B.C., although it B.C. to was not till 65 A.D. that Buddhism there became the established religion. The Greco-Bactrian kingdoms in the Punjab, and beyond it, afforded a favourable soil for the faith. The Scythian dynasties who succeeded the Greco-Bactrians accepted Buddhism; and the earliest remains which recent discovery has Stúpas, topes, literally heaps or tumuli;' dagobas or dhátu-gopas, 'relic-preservers;' chaityas. 2 Sanskrit, Mahendra.

All these dates are uncertain. They are founded on the Singalese chronology, but the orthodox in the respective countries place their national conversion at remoter periods. Occasionally, however, the dates can be tested from external sources. Thus we know from the Chinese traveller Fa-Hian, that up to about 414 A.D. Java was still unconverted. FaHian says, 'Heretics and Bráhmans were numerous there, and the law of Buddha is in nowise entertained.' The Burmese chroniclers go back to a time when the duration of human life was ninety millions of years; and when a single dynasty ruled for a period represented by a unit followed by 140 cyphers. See The Imperial Gazetteer of India, Article SANDOWAY.

Buddhist influence

tianity.

unearthed in Afghánistán are Buddhist. Kanishka's Council, soon after the commencement of the Christian era, gave the great impetus to the faith beyond the Himálayas. Tibet, South Central Asia, and China, lay along the regular missionary routes of Northern Buddhism; the Kirghiz are said to have carried the religion as far west as the Caspian; on the east, Buddhism was introduced into the Corea in 372 A.D., and thence into Japan in 552. Buddhist doctrines are believed to have deeply affected on Chris- religious thought in Alexandria and Palestine. The question is yet undecided as to how far the Buddhist ideal of the holy life, with its monks, nuns, relic-worship, bells, and rosaries, influenced Christian monachism; and to what extent Buddhist philosophy aided the development of the Gnostic heresies, particularly those of Basilides and Manes, which rent the early church. It is certain that the analogies are striking, and have been pointed out alike by Jesuit missionaries in Asia, and by oriental scholars in Europe. The form of abjuration for those who renounced the Gnostic doctrines of Manes, expressly mentions Booda and the Ekvotavós (Buddha and the Scythian or Sákya) seemingly, says Weber, a separation of Buddha the Sákya into two. At this moment, the Chinese in San Francisco assist their devotions by pictures of the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, imported on thin paper from Canton, which the Irish Roman Catholics identify as the Virgin Mary with the Infant in her arms, an aureole round her head, an adoring figure at her feet, and the Spirit hovering in the form of a bird.

But it is right to point out that the early Nestorian Christians in China may have been the source of some of these resemblances. The liturgy of the Goddess of Mercy, Kwanyin, in which the analogies to the Eastern Christian office are most strongly marked, have been traced with certainty only as far back as 1412 A.D. in the Chinese Canon.3 Professor Max

1 For the latter aspect of the question, see Weber, founding on Lassen, Renan, and Beal, Hist. Ind. Lit., p. 309, note 363, ed. 1878.

2 See also post, p. 153. Polemical writers, Christian and Chinese, have with equal injustice accused Buddhism and Christianity of consciously plagiarizing each other's rites. Thus Kuang-Hsien, the distinguished member of the Astronomical Board, who brought about the Chinese persecution of the Christians from 1665 to 1671, writes of them: 'They pilfer this talk about heaven and hell from the refuse of Buddhism, and then turn round and revile Buddhism.'- The Death-blow to the Corrupt Doctrines of T'hen-chu (i.e. Christianity), p. 46 (Shanghai, 1870). See also the remarks of Jao-chow-The man most distressed in heart'-in the same collection, 3 For an excellent account from the Chinese texts of the worship and liturgy of Kwan-yin, 'the Saviour,' or in her female form as the Goddess of Mercy, see Beal's Catena of Buddhist Scriptures, 383-397 (Trübner, 1871).

BUDDHA AS A CHRISTIAN SAINT.

151

Müller endeavoured to show that Buddha himself is the original of Saint Josaphat, who has a day assigned to him by both the Greek and Roman churches.1

2

Saint.

Saints Bar

Professor Müller's Essay has led to an examination of the Buddha as whole evidence bearing on this subject. The results may be a Christian thus summarized. The Roman Martyrology at the end of the saints for the 27th November, states: 'Apud Indos Persis finitimos sanctorum Barlaam et Josaphat (commemoratio), quorum actus mirandos Joannes Damascenus conscripsit.' Among the Indians who border on Persia, Saints Barlaam and Josaphat, whose wonderful works have been written of by St. John of Damascus. The story of these two saints is that of a young Legend of Indian prince, Josaphat, who is converted by a hermit, Barlaam. laam and Josaphat undergoes the same awakening as Buddha from the Josaphat. pleasures of this world. His royal father had taken similar precautions to prevent the youth from becoming acquainted with the sorrows of life. But Josaphat, like Buddha, is struck by successive spectacles of disease, old age, and death; and abandons his princely state for that of a Christian devotee. He converts to the faith his father, his subjects, and even the magician employed to seduce him. For this magician, Theudas, the Buddhist schismatic Devadatta is supposed to have supplied the orginal; while the name of Josaphat is itself identified by philologers with that of Boddhisattwa, the complete appellation of Buddha.4

the story.

This curious transfer of the religious teacher of Asia to the Early Christian Martyrology has an equally curious history. Saint stages of John of Damascus wrote in the 8th century in Greek, and an Arabic translation of his work, belonging to the 11th century, still survives. The story of Josaphat was popular in the Greek Church, and was embodied by Simeon the Metaphrast in the lives of the saints, circ. 1150 A.D. The Greek form of the name is 'Iwáσap. By the 12th century, the

5

1 Chips from a German Workshop, vol. iv. pp. 177-189, ed. 1875. 2 Contemporary Review, July 1870.

3 For a list of the authorities, and an investigation of them from the Roman Catholic side, by Emmanuel Cosquin, see Revue des Questions Historiques, lvi. pp. 579-600; Paris, October 1880.

The earlier form of Josaphat was Ioasaph in Greek and Youasaf or Youdasf in Arabic, an evident derivation from the Sanskrit Boddhisattwa, through the Persian form Boudasp (Weber). The name of the magician Theudas is in like manner an accurate philological reproduction of Devadatta or Thevdat.

5 See the valuable note in Colonel Yule's Marco Polo, vol. ii. pp. 302-309 (2nd ed. 1875). I