The territory of the Sakyas lay about the frontier which now divides Nepal from the United Provinces, between the upper Rapti and the Gandak rivers, a hundred miles or so to the north of Benares. The capital was called Kapilavatthu[301], and the mention of several other towns in the oldest texts indicates that the country was populous. Its wealth was derived chiefly from rice-fields and cattle. The uncultivated parts were covered with forest and often infested by robbers. The spot where the Buddha was born was known as the Lumbini Park and the site, or at least what was supposed to be the site in Asoka"s time, is marked by a pillar erected by that monarch at a place now called Rummindei[302]. His mother was named Maya and was also of the Sakya clan. Tradition states that she died seven days after his birth and that he was brought up by her sister, Mahapraj.a.pati, who was also a wife of Suddhodana. The names of other relatives are preserved, but otherwise the older doc.u.ments tell us nothing of his childhood and the copious legends of the later church seem to be poetical embellishments. The Sutta-Nipata contains the story of an aged seer named Asita who came to see the child and, much like Simeon, prophesied his future greatness but wept that he himself must die before hearing the new gospel.
The personal name of the Buddha was Siddhartha in Sanskrit or Siddhattha in Pali, meaning he who has achieved his object, but it is rarely used.
Persons who are introduced in the Pitakas as addressing him directly either employ a t.i.tle or call him Gotama (Sanskrit Gautama). This was the name of his _gotra_ or gens and roughly corresponds to a surname, being less comprehensive than the clan name Sakya. The name Gotama is applied in the Pitakas to other Sakyas such as the Buddha"s father and his cousin ananda. It is said to be still in use in India and has been borne by many distinguished Hindus. But since it seemed somewhat irreverent to speak of the Buddha merely by his surname, it became the custom to describe him by t.i.tles. The most celebrated of these is the word Buddha[303] itself, the awakened or wise one. But in Pali works he is described just as frequently by the name of Bhagava or the Lord. The t.i.tles of Sakya-Muni and Sakya-Si?ha have also pa.s.sed into common use and the former is his usual designation in the Sanskrit sutras. The word Tathagata, of somewhat obscure signification[304], is frequently found as an equivalent of Buddha and is put into the mouth of Gotama himself as a subst.i.tute for the first personal p.r.o.noun.
We can only guess what was the religious and moral atmosphere in which the child grew up. There were certainly Brahmans in the Sakya territory: everyone had heard of their Vedic lore, their ceremonies and their claims to superiority. But it is probable that their influence was less complete here than further west[305] and that even before this time they encountered a good deal of scepticism and independent religious sentiment. This may have been in part military impatience of priestly pedantry, but if the Sakyas were not submissive sheep, their waywardness was not due to want of interest in religion. A frequent phrase in the Buddha"s discourses speaks of the "highest goal of the holy life for the sake of which clansmen leave their homes and go forth into homelessness." The religious mendicant seemed the proper incarnation of this ideal to which Kshatriyas as well as Brahmans aspired, and we are justified in supposing that the future Buddha"s thoughts would naturally turn towards the wandering life. The legend represents him as carefully secluded from all disquieting sights and as learning the existence of old age, sickness and death only by chance encounters which left a profound impression. The older texts do not emphasize this view of his mental development, though they do not preclude it. It is stated incidentally that his parents regretted his abandonment of worldly life and it is natural to suppose that they may have tried to turn his mind to secular interests and pleasures[306]. His son, Rahula, is mentioned several times in the Pitakas but his wife only once and then not by name but as "the princess who was the mother of Rahula[307]." His separation from her becomes in the later legend the theme of an affecting tale but the scanty allusions to his family found in the Pitakas are devoid of sentimental touches. A remarkable pa.s.sage is preserved in the Anguttara Nikaya[308] describing his feelings as a young man and may be the origin of the story[309] about the four visions of old age, sickness, death and of peace in the religious life. After describing the wealth and comfort in which he lived[310], he says that he reflected how people feel repulsion and disgust at the sight of old age, sickness and death. But is this right? "I also" he thought "am subject to decay and am not free from the power of old age, sickness and death. Is it right that I should feel horror, repulsion and disgust when I see another in such plight?
And when I reflected thus, my disciples, all the joy of life which there is in life died within me."
No connected account of his renunciation of the world has been found in the Pitakas but[311] people are represented as saying that in spite of his parents" grief he "went out from the household life into the homeless state" while still a young man. Accepted tradition, confirmed by the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, says that he retired from worldly life when he was twenty-nine years old. The event is also commemorated in a poem of the Sutta-Nipata[312] which reads like a very ancient ballad.
It relates how Bimbisara, King of Magadha, looking out from his palace, saw an unknown ascetic, and feeling he was no ordinary person went himself to visit him. It would appear from this that Gotama on leaving his family went down to the plains and visited Rajagaha, the capital of Magadha, now Rajgir to the south of Patna. The teachers of the Ganges valley had probably a greater reputation for learning and sanct.i.ty than the rough wits of the Sakya land and this may have attracted Gotama. At any rate he applied himself diligently to acquire what knowledge could be learned from contemporary teachers of religion. We have an account put into his own mouth[313] of his experiences as the pupil of Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta but it gives few details of his studies. It would appear however that they both had a fixed system (dhamma) to impart and that their students lived in religious discipline (vinaya) as members of an Order. They were therefore doing exactly what the Buddha himself did later on a larger scale and with more conspicuous success.
The instruction, we gather, was oral. Gotama a.s.similated it thoroughly and rapidly but was dissatisfied because he found that it did not conduce to perfect knowledge and salvation[314]. He evidently accepted his teachers" general ideas about belief and conduct-a dhamma, a vinaya, and the practice of meditation-but rejected the content of their teaching as inadequate. So he went away.
The European mystic knows the dangers of Quietism[315]. When Molinos and other quietists praise the Interior Silence in which the soul neither speaks nor desires nor thinks, they suggest that the suspension of all mental activity is good in itself. But more robust seekers hold that this "orison of quiet" is merely a state of preparation, not the end of the quest, and valuable merely because the soul recuperates therein and is ready for further action. Some doctrine akin to that of the quietists seems to underlie the mysterious old phrases in which the Buddha"s two teachers tried to explain their trances, and he left them for much the same reasons as led the Church to condemn Quietism. He did not say that the trances are bad; indeed he represented them as productive of happiness[316] in a sense which Europeans can hardly follow. But he clearly refused to admit that they were the proper end of the religious life. He felt there was something better and he set out to find it.
The interval between his abandonment of the world and his enlightenment is traditionally estimated at seven years and this accords with our other data. But we are not told how long he remained with his two teachers nor where they lived. He says however that after leaving them he wandered up and down the land of Magadha, so that their residence was probably in or near that district[317]. He settled 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 determined to devote himself to the severest forms of asceticism. The place is in the neighbourhood of Bodh-Gaya, near the river now called Phalgu or Lilanja but formerly Neranjara. The fertile fields and gardens, the flights of steps and temples are modern additions but the trees and the river still give the sense of repose and inspiration which Gotama felt, an influence alike calming to the senses and stimulating to the mind.
Buddhism, though in theory setting no value on the pleasures of the eye, is not in practice disdainful of beauty, as witness the many allusions to the Buddha"s personal appearance, the persistent love of art, and the equally persistent love of nature which is found in such early poems as the Theragatha and still inspires those who select the sites of monasteries throughout the Buddhist world from Burma to j.a.pan. The example of the Buddha, if we may believe the story, shows that he felt the importance of scenery and climate in the struggle before him and his followers still hold that a holy life is led most easily in beautiful and peaceful landscapes.
2
Hitherto we have found allusions to the events of the Buddha"s life rather than consecutive statements and narratives but for the next period, comprising his struggle for enlightenment, its attainment and the commencement of his career as a teacher, we have several accounts, both discourses put into his own mouth and narratives in the third person like the beginning of the Mahavagga. It evidently was felt that this was the most interesting and critical period of his life and for it, as for the period immediately preceding his death, the Pitakas provide the elements of a biography. The accounts vary as to the amount of detail and supernatural events which they contain, but though the simplest is perhaps the oldest, it does not follow that events consistent with it but only found in other versions are untrue. One cannot argue that anyone recounting his spiritual experiences is bound to give a biographically complete picture. He may recount only what is relevant to the purpose of his discourse.
Gotama"s ascetic life at Uruvela is known as the wrestling or struggle for truth. The story, as he tells it in the Pitakas, gives no dates, but is impressive in its intensity and insistent iteration[318]. Fire, he thought to himself, cannot be produced from damp wood by friction, but it can from dry wood. Even so must the body be purged of its humours to make it a fit receptacle for illumination and knowledge. So he began a series of terrible fasts and sat "with set teeth and tongue pressed against the palate" until in this spiritual wrestling the sweat poured down from his arm pits. Then he applied himself to meditation accompanied by complete cessation of breathing, and, as he persevered and went from stage to stage of this painful exercise, he heard the blood rushing in his head and felt as if his skull was being split, as if his belly were being cut open with a butcher"s knife, and finally as if he were thrown into a pit of burning coals. Elsewhere[319] he gives further details of the horrible penances which he inflicted on himself.
He gradually reduced his food to a grain of rice each day. He lived on seeds and gra.s.s, and for one period literally on dung. He wore haircloth or other irritating clothes: he plucked out his hair and beard: he stood continuously: he lay upon thorns. He let the dust and dirt acc.u.mulate till his body looked like an old tree. He frequented a cemetery-that is a place where corpses were thrown to decay or be eaten by birds and beasts-and lay among the rotting bodies.
But no enlightenment, no glimpse into the riddle of the world came of all this, so, although he was nearly at death"s door, he determined to abstain from food altogether. But spirits appeared and dissuaded him, saying that if he attempted thus to kill himself they would nourish him by infusing a celestial elixir through his skin and he reflected that he might as well take a little food[320]. So he took a palmful or two of bean soup. He was worn almost to a shadow, he says. "When I touched my belly, I felt my backbone through it and when I touched my back, I felt my belly-so near had my back and my belly come together through this fasting. And when I rubbed my limbs to refresh them the hair fell off[321]." Then he reflected that he had reached the limit of self-mortification and yet attained no enlightenment. There must be another way to knowledge. And he remembered how once in his youth he had sat in the shade of a rose apple tree and entered into the stage of contemplation known as the first rapture. That, he now thought, must be the way to enlightenment: why be afraid of such bliss? But to attain it, he must have more strength and to get strength he must eat. So he ate some rice porridge. There were five monks living near him, hoping that when he found the Truth he would tell it to them. But when they saw that he had begun to take food, their faith failed and they went away.
The Buddha then relates how, having taken food, he began to meditate and pa.s.sed through four stages of contemplation, culminating in pure self-possession and equanimity, free alike from all feeling of pain or ease. Such meditation was nothing miraculous but supposed to be within the power of any trained ascetic. Then there arose before him a vision of his previous births, the hundreds of thousands of existences with all their details of name, family and caste through which he had pa.s.sed.
This was succeeded by a second and wider vision in which he saw the whole universe as a system of karma and reincarnation, composed of beings n.o.ble or mean, happy or unhappy, continually "pa.s.sing away according to their deeds," leaving one form of existence and taking shape in another. Finally, he understood the nature of error[322] and of suffering, the cessation of suffering and the path that leads to the cessation of suffering. "In me thus set free the knowledge of freedom arose and I knew "Rebirth has been destroyed, the higher life has been led; what had to be done has been done, I have no more to do with this world[323]." This third knowledge came to me in the last watch of the night: ignorance was destroyed, knowledge had arisen, darkness was destroyed, light had arisen, as I sat there earnest, strenuous, resolute[324]."
On attaining enlightenment he at first despaired of preaching the truth to others. He reflected that his doctrine was abstruse and that mankind are given over to their desires. How can such men understand the chain of cause and effect or teaching about Nirvana and the annihilation of desire? So he determined to remain quiet and not to preach. Then the deity Brahma Sahampati appeared before him and besought him to preach the Truth, pleading that some men could understand. The Buddha surveyed the world with his mind"s eye and saw the different natures of mankind.
"As in a pool of lotuses, blue, red or white, some lotuses born in the water, grown up in the water, do not rise above the water but thrive hidden under the water and other lotuses, blue, red or white, born in the water, grown up in the water, reach to the surface: and other lotuses, blue, red or white, born in the water, grown up in the water, stand up out of the water and the water does not touch them." Thus did he perceive the world to be and he said to Brahma "The doors of immortality are open. Let them that have ears to hear, show faith."
Then he began to wonder to whom he should first preach his doctrine, and he thought of his former teachers. But a spirit warned him that they had recently died. Then he thought of the five monks who had tended him during his austerities but left him when he ceased to fast. By his superhuman power of vision he perceived that they were living at Benares in the deer park, Isipatana. So, after remaining awhile at Uruvela he started to find them and on the way met a naked ascetic, in answer to whose enquiries he proclaimed himself as the Buddha; "I am the Holy One in this world, I am the highest teacher, I alone am the perfect supreme Buddha, I have gained calm and nirvana, I go to Benares to set moving the wheels of righteousness[325]. I will beat the drum of immortality in the darkness of this world." But the ascetic replied. "It may be so, friend," shook his head, took another road and went away, with the honour of being the first sceptic.
When the Buddha reached the deer park[326], a wood where ascetics were allowed to dwell and animals might not be killed, the five monks saw him coming and determined not to salute him since he had given up his exertions, and turned to a luxurious life. But as he drew near they were overawed and in spite of their resolution advanced to meet him, and brought water to wash his feet. While showing him this honour they called him Friend Gotama but he replied that it was not proper to address the Tathagata[327] thus. He had become a Buddha and was ready to teach them the Truth but the monks demurred saying that if he had been unable to win enlightenment while practising austerities, he was not likely to have found it now that he was living a life of ease. But he overcame their doubts and proceeded to instruct them, apparently during some days, for we are told that they went out to beg alms.
Can this account be regarded as in any sense historical, as being not perhaps the Buddha"s own words but the reminiscences of some one who had heard him describe the crisis of his life? Like so much of the Pitakas the narrative has an air of patchwork. Many striking pa.s.sages, such as the descriptions of the raptures through which he pa.s.sed, occur in other connections but the formulae are ancient and their use here may be as early and legitimate as elsewhere. In its main outlines the account is simple, unpretentious and human. Gotama seeks to obtain enlightenment by self-mortification: finds that this is the wrong way: tries a more natural method and succeeds: debates whether he shall become a teacher and at first hesitates. These are not features which the average Indian hagiographer, anxious to prove his hero omnipotent and omniscient, would invent or emphasize. Towards the end of the narrative the language is more majestic and the compiler introduces several stanzas, but though it is hardly likely that Gotama would have used these stanzas in telling his own story, they may be ancient and in substance authentic. The supernatural intervention recorded is not really great. It amounts to this, that in mental crises the Buddha received warnings somewhat similar to those delivered by the daemon of Socrates[328]. The appearance of Brahma Sahampati is related with more detail and largely in verse, which suggests that the compiler may have inserted some legend which he found ready to hand, but on the whole I am inclined to believe that in this narrative we have a tradition not separated from the Buddha by many generations and going back to those who had themselves heard him describe his wrestling to obtain the Truth and his victory.
Other versions of the enlightenment give other incidents which are not rendered less credible by their omission from the narrative quoted, for it is clearly an epitome put together for a special didactic purpose.
But still the story as related at the beginning of the Mahavagga of the Vinaya has a stronger smack of mythology than the pa.s.sages quoted from the Sutta-Pitaka. In these last the Bodhi-tree[329] is mentioned only incidentally, which is natural, for it is a detail which would impress later piety rather than the Buddha himself. But there is no reason to be sceptical as to the part it has played in Buddhist history. Even if we had not been told that he sat under a tree, we might surmise that he did so, for to sit under a tree or in a cave was the only alternative for a homeless ascetic. The Mahavagga states that after attaining Buddhahood he sat crosslegged at the foot of the tree for seven days uninterruptedly, enjoying the bliss of emanc.i.p.ation, and while there thought out the chain of causation which is only alluded to in the suttas quoted above. He also sat under three other trees, seven days under each. Heavy rain came on but Mucalinda, the king of the serpents, "came out of his abode and seven times encircled the body of the Lord with his windings and spread his great hood over the Lord"s head." Here we are in the domain of mythology: this is not a vignette from the old religious life on the banks of the Neranjara but a work of sacred art: the Holy Supreme Buddha sitting immovable and imperturbable in the midst of a storm sheltered by the folds of some pious monster that the artist"s fancy has created.
The narrative quoted from the Majjhima-Nikaya does not mention that the Buddha during his struggle for enlightenment was a.s.sailed or tempted by Mara, the personification of evil and of transitory pleasures but also of death. But that such an encounter-in some respects a.n.a.logous to the temptation of Christ by the Devil-formed part of the old tradition is indicated by several pa.s.sages in the Pitakas[330] and not merely by the later literature where it a.s.sumes a prominent and picturesque form. This struggle is psychologically probable enough but the origin of the story, which is exhaustively discussed in Windisch"s _Buddha und Mara_, seems to lie not so much in any account which the Buddha may have given of his mental struggles as in amplifications of old legends and in dramatizations of metaphors which he may have used about conquering death.
The Bodhi-tree is still shown at Bodh-Gaya. It stands on a low terrace behind the temple, the whole lying in a hollow, below the level of the surrounding modern buildings, and still attracts many pilgrims from all Buddhist lands though perhaps not so many as the tree at Anuradhapura in Ceylon, which is said to be sprung from one of its branches transplanted thither. Whatever t.i.tle it may have to the reverence of the faithful rests on lineage rather than ident.i.ty, for the growth which we see at Bodh-Gaya now cannot claim to be the branches under which the Buddha sat or even the trunk which Asoka tended. At best it is a modern stem sprung from the seeds of the old tree, and this descent is rendered disputable by legends of its destruction and miraculous restoration. Even during the time that Sir A. Cunningham knew the locality from 1862 to 1880 it would seem that the old trunk decayed and was replaced by scions grown from seed.
The texts quoted above leave the Buddha occupied in teaching the five monks in the Deer Park and the Mahavagga gives us the text of the sermon[331] with which he opened his instruction. It is ent.i.tled Turning the Wheel of Righteousness, and is also known as The Sermon at Benares.
It is a very early statement of the main doctrines of primitive Buddhism and I see no reason to doubt that it contains the ideas and phrases of the Buddha. The gist of the sermon is extremely simple. He first says that those who wish to lead a religious life should avoid the two extremes of self-indulgence and self-torture and follow a middle way.
Then he enunciates what he calls the four truths[332] about evil or suffering and the way to make an end of it. He opens very practically, and it may be noticed that abstruse as are many of his discourses they generally go straight to the heart of some contemporary interest. Here he says that self-indulgence is low and self-mortification crazy: that both are profitless and neither is the religious life. That consists in walking in the middle path, or n.o.ble eightfold path defined in a celebrated formula as right views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right rapture. He then enunciates the four truths. The first declares that all clinging to existence involves suffering. I shall have occasion to examine later the pessimism which is often said to characterize Buddhism and Indian thought generally. Here let it suffice to say that the first truth must be taken in conjunction with the others. The teaching of the Buddha is a teaching not so much of pessimism as of emanc.i.p.ation: but emanc.i.p.ation implies the existence of evil from which men must be freed: a happy world would not need it. Buddhism recognizes the evil of the world but it is not on that account a religion of despair: the essence of it is that it provides a remedy and an escape.
The second and third truths must be taken together and in connection with the formula known as the chain of causation (pa?iccasamuppada).
Everything has a cause and produces an effect. If this is, that is: if this is not, then that is not. This simple principle of uniform causation is applied to the whole universe, G.o.ds and men, heaven, earth and h.e.l.l. Indian thought has always loved wide applications of fundamental principles and here a law of the universe is propounded in a form both simple and abstract. Everything exists in virtue of a cause and does not exist if that cause is absent. Suffering has a cause and if that cause can be detected and eliminated, suffering itself will be eliminated. This cause of evil is Tanha, the thirst or craving for existence, pleasure and success. And the cure is to remove it. It may seem to the European that this is a proposal to cure the evils of life by removing life itself but when in the fourth truth we come to the course to be followed by the seeker after salvation-the eightfold path-we find it neither extravagant nor morbid. We may imagine that an Indian of that time asking different schools of thinkers for the way to salvation would have been told by Brahmans (if indeed they had been willing to impart knowledge to any but an accredited pupil) that he who performs a certain ceremony goes to the abode of the G.o.ds: other teachers would have insisted on a course of fasting and self-torture: others again like Sanjaya and Makkhali would have given argumentative and unpractical answers. The Buddha"s answer is simple and practical: seven-eighths of it would be accepted in every civilized country as a description of the good life. It is not merely external, for it insists on right thought and right aspiration: the motive and temper are as important as the act. It does not neglect will-power and activity, for right action, right livelihood and right effort are necessary-a point to be remembered when Buddhism is called a dreamy unpractical religion. But no doubt the last stage of the path, right rapture or right meditation, is meant to be its crown and fulfilment. It takes the place of prayer and communion with the deity and the Buddha promises the beatific vision in this life to those who persevere. The negative features of the Path are also important. It contains no mention of ceremonial, austerities, G.o.ds, many or one, nor of the Buddha himself. He is the discoverer and teacher of the truth; beyond that his personality plays no part.
But we are here treating of his life rather than of his doctrine and must now return to the events which are said to have followed the first sermon.
The first converts had, even before embracing the Buddha"s teaching, been followers of a religious life but the next batch of recruits came from the wealthy mercantile families of Benares. The first was a youth named Yasa who joined the order, while his father, mother and former wife became lay believers. Then came first four and subsequently fifty friends of Yasa and joined the order. "At that time" says the Mahavagga. "there were sixty-one Arhats[333] in the world," so that at first arhatship seems to have followed immediately on ordination. Arhat, it may be mentioned, is the commonest word in early Buddhist literature (more common than any phrase about nirvana) for describing sanct.i.ty and spiritual perfection. The arhat is one who has broken the fetters of the senses and pa.s.sions, for whom there will be no new birth or death, and who lives in this world like the Buddha, detached but happy and beneficent.
The Buddha then addressed his followers and said--"Monks, I am delivered from all fetters, human and divine, and so are you. Go now and wander for the gain of many, for the welfare of many, out of compa.s.sion for the world, for the good, for the gain and for the welfare of G.o.ds and men.
Let not two of you go the same way. Preach the doctrine which is glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle and glorious in the end, in the spirit and in the letter; proclaim a consummate, perfect and pure life of holiness." The monks then went forth and returned bringing candidates to be formally ordained by the Buddha. But seeing that these journeys caused fatigue and trouble, he authorized the ordained monks to confer ordination without reference to himself. He then returned to Uruvela, where he had dwelt before attaining Buddhahood, and converted a thousand Ja?ilas, that is to say Brahmans living the life of hermits, which involved the abandonment of household life but not of sacrifices.
The admission of these hermits to the order is probably historical and explains the presence among the Buddha"s disciples of a tendency towards self-mortification of which he himself did not wholly approve. The Mahavagga[334] contains a series of short legends about these occurrences, one of them in two versions. The narratives are miraculous but have an ancient tone and probably represent the type of popular story current about the Buddha shortly after or even during his life.
One of them is a not uncommon subject in Buddhist art. It relates how the chamber in which a Brahman called Ka.s.sapa kept his sacred fire was haunted by a fire-breathing magical serpent. The Buddha however spent the night in this chamber and after a contest in which both emitted flames succeeded in conquering the beast. After converting the Ja?ilas he preached to them the celebrated Fire Sermon, said to have been delivered on the eminence now called Brahma Yoen[335] near Gaya and possibly inspired by the spectacle of gra.s.s fires which at some seasons may be seen creeping over every hill-side in an Indian night, "Everything, Monks, is burning and how is it burning? The eye is burning: what the eye sees is burning: thoughts based on the eye are burning: the contact of the eye (with visible things) is burning and the sensation produced by that contact, whether pleasant, painful or indifferent is also burning. With what fire is it burning? It is burning with the fire of l.u.s.t, the fire of anger, with the fire of ignorance; it is burning with the sorrows of birth, decay, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection and despair."
The Buddha now went on with his converts to Rajagaha. He stopped in a bamboo grove outside the town and here the king, Bimbisara, waited on him and with every sign of respect asked him to take food in his palace.
It was on this occasion that we first hear of him accepting an invitation to dinner[336], which he did frequently during the rest of his career. After the repast the king presented a pleasure garden just outside the town "to the fraternity of monks with the Buddha at their head." At that time another celebrated teacher named Sanjaya was stopping at Rajagaha with a train of two hundred and fifty disciples.
Two of them, Sariputta and Moggallana, joined the Buddha"s order and took with them the whole body of their companions.
The Mahavagga proceeds to relate that many of the young n.o.bility joined the order and that the people began to murmur saying "The Monk Gotama causes fathers to beget no sons and families to become extinct." And again "The Great Monk has come to Giribbaja of the Magadha people, leading with him all the followers of Sanjaya. Whom will he lead off next?" When this was told to the Buddha he replied that the excitement would only last seven days and bade his followers answer with the following verse "It is by the true doctrine that the great heroes, the Buddhas, lead men. Who will murmur at the wise who lead men by the power of truth?" It is possible, as Oldenburg suggests, that we have here two popular couplets which were really bandied between the friends and enemies of the Buddha.
3
It now becomes difficult to give dates but the Mahavagga[337] relates that the Buddha stopped some time at Rajagaha and then revisited his native town, Kapilavatthu. That he should have done so is natural enough but there is little trace of sentiment in the narrative of the Vinaya.
Its object is to state the occasion on which the Buddha laid down the rules of the order. Irrelevant incidents are ignored and those which are noticed are regarded simply as the circ.u.mstances which led to the formulation of certain regulations. "The Lord dwelt in the Sakka country near Kapilavatthu in the Banyan Grove. And in the forenoon having put on his robes and taken his alms bowl he went to the home of the Sakka Suddhodana[338] and sat down on a seat prepared for him. Then the princess who was the mother of Rahula[339] said to him "This is your father, Rahula, go and ask him for your inheritance." Then young Rahula went to the place where the Lord was, and standing before him said "Your shadow, Monk, is a place of bliss." Then the Lord rose from his seat and went away but Rahula followed him saying "Give me my inheritance, Monk."
Then the Lord said to Sariputta (who had already become his chief disciple) "Well, Sariputta, confer the preliminary ordination on young Rahula." Sariputta asked how he should do so and the Buddha explained the forms.
"Then the Sakka Suddhodana went to the place where the Lord was and after respectfully saluting him asked for a boon. "Lord, when the Blessed One gave up the world, it was great pain to me and so it was when Nanda[340] did the same. Great too was my pain when Rahula did it.
The love for a son, Lord, cuts into the skin, the flesh, the bones, and reaches the marrow. Let not the preliminary ordination be conferred on a son without his parents" permission." The Buddha a.s.sented. Three or four years later Suddhodana died."
From Kapilavatthu the Buddha is said to have gone to Savatthi, the capital of Kosala where Pasenadi was king, but now we lose the chronological thread and do not find it again until the last years of his life. Few of the numerous incidents recorded in the Pitakas can be dated. The narrators resemble those Indian artists who when carving a story in relief place all the princ.i.p.al figures in one panel without attempting to mark the sequence of the incidents which are represented simultaneously. For the connection of events with the Buddha"s teaching the compilers of the Pitakas had an eye; for their connection with his life none at all. And though this att.i.tude is disquieting to the historic sense it is not unjustifiable. The object and the achievement of the Buddha was to preach a certain doctrine and to found an order.
All the rest-years and countries, pains and pleasures-was of no importance. And it would appear that we have not lost much: we should have a greater sense of security if we had an orderly account of his wanderings and his relations with the kings of his time, but after he had once entered on his ministry the events which broke the peaceful tenour of his long life were few and we probably know most of them though we cannot date them. For about forty-five years he moved about Kosala, Magadha and Anga visiting the two capitals Savatthi and Rajagaha and going as far west as the country of the Kurus. He took little part in politics or worldly life, though a hazy but not improbable story[341]
represents him as pacifying the Sakyas and Koliyas, who were on the point of fighting about the water of the Rohini which irrigated the lands of both clans. He uniformly enjoyed the respect and attention of kings and the wealthy cla.s.ses. Doubtless he was not popular with the Brahmans or with those good people who disliked seeing fine young men made into monks. But it does not appear that his teaching provoked any serious tumults or that he was troubled by anything but schism within the order. We have, if not a history, at least a picture of a life which though peaceful was active and benevolent but aloof, majestic and authoritative.
We are told[342] that at first his disciples wandered about at all seasons but it was not long before he bade them observe the already established routine for itinerant monks of travelling on foot during the greater part of the year but of resting for three months during the rainy season known as Va.s.sa and beginning some time in June. When moving about he appears to have walked from five to ten miles a day, regulating his movements so as to reach inhabited places in time to collect food for the midday meal. The afternoon he devoted to meditation and in the evening gave instruction. He usually halted in woods or gardens on the outskirts of villages and cities, and often on the bank of a river or tank, for shade and water would be the first requisites for a wandering monk. On these journeys he was accompanied by a considerable following of disciples: five hundred or twelve hundred and fifty are often mentioned and though the numbers may be exaggerated there is no reason to doubt that the band was large. The suttas generally commence with a picture of the surroundings in which the discourse recorded was delivered. The Buddha is walking along the high road from Rajagaha to Nalanda with a great company of disciples. Or he is journeying through Kosala and halting in a mango-grove on the banks of the Aciravati river.
Or he is stopping in a wood outside a Brahman village and the people go out to him. The princ.i.p.al Brahmans, taking their siesta on the upper terraces of their houses, see the crowd and ask their doorkeepers what it means. On hearing the cause they debate whether they or the Buddha should pay the first call and ultimately visit him. Or he is halting on the sh.o.r.e of the Gaggara Lake at Campa in Western Bengal, sitting under the fragrant white flowers of a campaka tree. Or he visits the hills overlooking Rajagaha haunted by peac.o.c.ks and by wandering monks. Often he stops in buildings described as halls, which were sometimes merely rest houses for travellers. But it became more and more the custom for the devout to erect such buildings for his special use and even in his lifetime they a.s.sumed the proportions of monasteries[343]. The people of Vesali built one in a wood to the north of their city known as the Gabled Hall. It was a storied house having on the ground floor a large room surrounded by pillars and above it the private apartments of the Buddha. Such private rooms (especially those which he occupied at Savatthi), were called Gandhaku?i or the perfumed chamber. At Kapilavatthu[344] the Sakyas erected a new building known as Santhagara.
The Buddha was asked to inaugurate it and did so by a discourse lasting late into the night which he delivered sitting with his back against a pillar. At last he said his back was tired and lay down, leaving ananda to continue the edification of the congregation who were apparently less exhausted than the preacher.
But perhaps the residence most frequently mentioned is that in the garden called Jetavana at Savatthi. Anathapi??ika, a rich merchant of that town, was converted by the Buddha when staying at Rajagaha and invited him to spend the next rainy season at Savatthi[345]. On returning to his native town to look for a suitable place, he decided that the garden of the Prince Jeta best satisfied his requirements. He obtained it only after much negotiation for a sum sufficient to cover the whole ground with coins. When all except a small s.p.a.ce close to the gateway had been thus covered Jeta asked to be allowed to share in the gift and on receiving permission erected on the vacant spot a gateway with a room over it. "And Anathapi??ika the householder built dwelling rooms and retiring rooms and storerooms and halls with fireplaces, and outside storehouses and closets and cloisters and halls attached to the bath rooms and ponds and roofed open sheds[346]."
Buddhaghosa has given an account[347] of the way in which the Buddha was wont to spend his days when stopping in some such resting-place, and his description is confirmed by the numerous details given in the Pitakas.
He rose before dawn and would often retire and meditate until it was time to set out on the round for alms but not unfrequently he is represented as thinking that it was too early to start and that he might first visit some monk of the neighbourhood. Then he went round the town or village with his disciples, carrying his almsbowl and accepting everything put into it. Sometimes he talked to his disciples while walking[348]. Frequently, instead of begging for alms, he accepted an invitation to dine with some pious person who asked the whole band of disciples and made strenuous culinary efforts. Such invitations were given at the conclusion of a visit paid to the Buddha on the previous day and were accepted by him with silence which signified consent. On the morning of the next day the host announced in person or through a messenger that the meal was ready and the Buddha taking his mantle and bowl went to the house. The host waited on the guests with his own hands, putting the food which he had prepared into their bowls. After the repast the Buddha delivered a discourse or catechized the company.
He did the same with his own disciples when he collected food himself and returned home to eat it. He took but one meal a day[349], between eleven and twelve, and did not refuse meat when given to him, provided that he did not know the animals had been slaughtered expressly for his food. When he had given instruction after the meal he usually retired to his chamber or to a quiet spot under trees for repose and meditation. On one occasion[350] he took his son Rahula with him into a wood at this hour to impart some of the deepest truths to him, but as a rule he gave no further instruction until the late afternoon.
The Pitakas represent all believers as treating the Buddha with the greatest respect but the salutations and t.i.tles which they employ hardly exceed those ordinarily used in speaking to eminent persons[351]. Kings were at this time addressed as Deva, whereas the Buddha"s usual t.i.tle is Bhagava or Bhante, Lord. A religious solemnity and deliberation prevails in the interviews which he grants but no extravagance of adoration is recorded. Visitors salute him by bowing with joined hands, sit respectfully on one side while he instructs them and in departing are careful to leave him on their right hand. He accepts such gifts as food, clothes, gardens and houses but rejects all ceremonial honours. Thus Prince Bodhi[352] when receiving him carpeted his mansion with white cloths but the Buddha would not walk on them and remained standing at the entrance till they were taken up.
The introduction to the Ariyapariyesana-Sutta gives a fairly complete picture of a day in his life at Savatthi. It relates how in the morning he took his bowl and mantle and went to the town to collect food. While he was away, some monks told his personal attendant ananda that they wished to hear a discourse from him, as it was long since they had had the privilege. ananda suggested that they had better go to the hermitage of the Brahman Rammaka near the town. The Buddha returned, ate his meal and then said "Come, ananda, let us go to the terrace of Migara"s mother[353] and stay there till evening." They went there and spent the day in meditation. Towards evening the Buddha rose and said "Let us go to the old bath to refresh our limbs." After they had bathed, ananda suggested that they should go to Rammaka"s hermitage: the Buddha a.s.sented by his silence and they went together. Within the hermitage were many monks engaged in instructive conversation, so the Buddha waited at the door till there was a pause in the talk. Then he coughed and knocked. The monks opened the door, and offered him a seat. After a short conversation, he recounted to them how he had striven for and obtained Buddhahood.
These congregations were often prolonged late into the night. We hear for instance how he sat on the terrace belonging to Migara"s mother[354]
in the midst of an a.s.sembly of monks waiting for his words, still and silent in the light of the full moon; how a monk would rise, adjusting his robe so as to leave one shoulder bare, bow with his hands joined and raised to his forehead and ask permission to put a question and the Lord would reply, Be seated, monk, ask what you will. But sometimes in these nightly congregations the silence was unbroken. When King Ajatasattu went to visit him[355] in the mango grove of Jivaka he was seized with sudden fear at the unearthly stillness of the place and suspected an ambush. "Fear not, O King," said Jivaka, "I am playing you no tricks. Go straight on. There in the pavilion hall the lamps are burning ... and there is the Blessed One sitting against the middle pillar, facing the east with the brethren round him." And when the king beheld the a.s.sembly seated in perfect silence, calm as a clear lake, he exclaimed "Would that my son might have such calm as this a.s.sembly now has."