(4) Missionary efforts. established throughout his kingdom and the conquered Provinces, as far as Ceylon, for man and beast.1 Officers were appointed to watch over domestic life and public morality,2 and to promote instruction among the women as well as the youth. Asoka recognised proselytism by peaceful means as a State duty. The Rock Inscriptions record how he sent forth missionaries to the utmost limits of the barbarian countries,' to 'intermingle among all unbelievers,' for the spread of religion. They shall mix equally with soldiers, Bráhmans, and beggars, with the dreaded and the despised, both within the kingdom 'and in foreign countries, teaching better things.' Conversion is to be effected by persuasion, not by the sword. Buddhism was at once the most intensely missionary religion in the world, and the most tolerant. This character of a proselytizing faith, which wins its victories by peaceful means, so strongly impressed upon it by Asoka, has remained a prominent feature of Buddhism to the present day. Asoka, however, not only took measures to spread the religion, he also endeavoured to secure its orthodoxy. He collected the body of doctrine into an authoritative version, in the Mágadhí language or Buddhist dialect of his central kingdom in Behar; a version which for scriptures. two thousand years has formed the canon (pitakas) of the Southern Buddhists. In this way, the Mágadhí dialect became the Páli or sacred language of the Ceylonese. (5) Reformed canon of Edicts of - Mr. Robert Cust thus summarizes Asoka's Fourteen Edicts:- 2. Provision of a system of medical aid for men and animals, and of 3. Order for a quinquennial humiliation and re-publication of the great moral precepts of the Buddhist faith. 4. Comparison of the former state of things, and the happy existing state under the king. 5. Appointment of missionaries to go into various countries, which are 6. Appointment of informers (or inspectors) and guardians of morality. 8. Contrast of the carnal pleasures of previous rulers with the pious 9. Inculcation of the true happiness to be found in virtue, through which alone the blessings of heaven can be propitiated. 1 Rock Inscriptions, Edict ii., General Cunningham's Corpus Inscrip. tionum, p. 118. 2 Rock Inscriptions, Edict vi. etc., Corpus Inscriptionum, p. 120. These Inspectors of Morals are supposed to correspond to the Sixth Caste of Megasthenes, the 'Exitxora of Arrian. SRock Inscriptions, Edict v. etc., Corpus Inscriptionum, p. 120. 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. The fourth and last of the great Buddhist Councils was held Fourth Council, under King Kanishka, according to one tradition four centuries Kanishka 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 and The original of the Northern Canon was written in the Northern Sanskrit language, perhaps because the Kashmir and northern Southern 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, 4:0, London, 1876. 2 Beal, Catena, p. 253. Buddhism as a national 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 Mágadhí 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 Bráhreligion; 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 Idid 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; The former took rank in the Buddhist community,at first, according to their age and merit; in later times, as laity1 and clergy 2 (ie. 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. 3 2 Sramana, bhikshu (monk or religious mendicant), bhikshuní (nun). 3 Sakáyaditthi. 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 (viháras) 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. 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 Buddhism. Mahindo 2 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 638 A.D. 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 way North, China,etc., 552 A.D. While Southern Buddhism was thus wafted across the In the ocean, another stream of missionaries had found their 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 1 Stúpas, topes, literally heaps or tumuli;' dagobas or dhátu-gopas, ' relic-preservers;' chaityas. Sanskrit, Mahendra. 3 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. 2 Buddhist influence on Christianity. 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 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.1 The form of abjuration for those who renounced the Gnostic doctrines of Manes, expressly mentions Bódda and the Σkvotavós (Buddha and the Scythian or Sákya)—seemingly, says Weber, a separation of Buddha the Sakya 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.2 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. 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'len-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). |