Reading section 6

The Mahayanist Buddhism of the Far East makes free use of such phrases as the Buddha in the heart, the Buddha mind and the Buddha nature. These seem to represent such Sanskrit terms as Buddhatva and Bodhicitta which can receive either an ethical or a metaphysical emphasis. The former line of thought is well shown in Santideva[117] who treats Bodhicitta as the initial impulse and motive power of the religious life, combining intellectual illumination and unselfish devotion to the good of others. Thus regarded it is a guiding and stimulating principle somewhat analogous to the Holy Spirit in Christianity. But the Bodhicitta is also the essential quality of a Buddha (and the Holy Spirit too is a member of the Trinity) and in so far as a man has the Bodhicitta he is one with all Buddhas.

This conception is perhaps secondary in Buddhism but it is also as old as the Upanishads and only another form of the doctrine that the spirit in every man (antaryamin) is identical with the Supreme Spirit. It is developed in many works still popular in the Far East[118] and was the fundamental thesis of Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen school. But the practical character of the Chinese and Japanese has led them to attach more importance to the moral and intellectual side of this doctrine than to the metaphysical and pantheistic side.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 100: _E.g._ in Mahaparinib. Sut. IV. 57, the Buddha says "There has been laid up by Cunda the smith (who had given him his last meal) a karma, redounding to length of life, to good fortune, to good fame, _to the inheritance of heaven_, and of sovereign power."]

[Footnote 101: Strictly speaking Madhyamaka is the name of the school Madhyamika of its adherents. Both forms are used, _e.g._ Madhyamakakarikas and Madhyamikasutra.]

[Footnote 102: Nagarjuna says Sunyam iti na vaktavyam asunyam iti va bhavet Ubhayam nobhayam ceti prajnaptyartham tu kathyate, "It cannot be called void or not void or both or neither but in order to somehow indicate it, it is called Sunyata."]

[Footnote 103: Sam. Nik. XXII. 90. 16.]

[Footnote 104: Gotama, the founder of the Nyaya philosophy, also admitted the force of the arguments against the existence of present time but regarded them as a _reductio ad absurdum_. Shadworth Hodgson in his _Philosophy of Reflection_, vol. I. p. 253 also treats of the question.]

[Footnote 105: The Sankhya philosophy makes a similar statement, though for different reasons.]

[Footnote 106: Vajracchedika. See _S.B.E._ vol. XLIX. It was translated into Chinese by Kumarajiva (384-417 A.D.).]

[Footnote 107: Or in other repetitions of the same formula, beings, ideas, good things, signs, etc., etc.]

[Footnote 108: Soyen Shaku, _Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot_, p. 47.]

[Footnote 109: See for a simple and persuasive statement of these abstruse doctrines a charming little book called _Wu-Wei_ by H. Borel.]

[Footnote 110: Translated from the Chinese by Teitaro Suzuki, 1900. The translation must be used with care, as its frequent use of the word _soul_ may lead to misunderstanding.]

[Footnote 111: Asanga's work _Mahayana-sutralankara_ (edited and translated by S. Levi) which covers much of the same ground is extant in Sanskrit as well as in Chinese and Tibetan translations. It is a lucid and authoritative treatise but does not appear to have ever been popular, or to be read now in the Far East. For Yogacara see also _Museon_, 1904, p. 370.]

[Footnote 112: The discussion of _tathata_ in Kathavatthu, XIX. 5 seems to record an early phase of these speculations.]

[Footnote 113: _Awakening of Faith_, Teitaro Suzuki, pp. 62 and 70.]

[Footnote 114: The process is generally called Vasana or perfuming.]

[Footnote 115: Vijnanamatra Sastra. Chinese version quoted by Teitaro Suzuki, _Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism_, p. 343. Apparently both upadhi and upadhi are used in Buddhist Sanskrit. Upadi is the Pali form.]

[Footnote 116: So the Madhyamika Sastra (XXV. 19) states that there is no difference between Samsara and Nirvana. Cf. Rabindranath Tagore, _Sadhana_, pp. 160-164.]

[Footnote 117: _E.g._ Bodhicaryavatara, chap. I, called praise of the Bodhicitta.]

[Footnote 118: _E.g._ the Pu-ti-hsin-li-hsiang-lun (Nanjio, 1304), translated from Nagarjuna, and the Ta-Ch'eng-fa-chieh-wu-cha-pieh-lun, translated from Sthiramati (Nanjio, 1258).]

CHAPTER XX

MAHAYANIST SCRIPTURES

In a previous chapter I have discussed the Pali Canon and I shall subsequently have something to say about the Chinese and Tibetan Canons, which are libraries of religious and edifying works rather than sacred books similar to the Vedas or the Bible. My present object is to speak of the Sanskrit literature, chiefly sutras, which appeared contemporaneously with the rise of Mahayanism in India.

The Mahayanist scriptures are the largest body of sacred writings extant in the world, but it is not easy either to define the limits of the Canon or to say when it was put together. According to a common tradition Kanishka played for the Church of the Great Vehicle much the same part as Asoka for the Theravadins and summoned a Council which wrote commentaries on the Tripitaka. This may be reasonably held to include a recension of the text commented on but we do not know what that text was, and the brief and perplexing accounts of the Council which we possess indicate not that it gave its imprimatur to Mahayanist sutras but that it was specially concerned with the Abhidharma works of the Sarvastivadin school.

In any case no Canon formed in the time of Kanishka can have been equivalent to the collections of writings accepted to-day in China and Tibet, for they contain works later than any date which can be assigned to his reign, as do also the nine sacred books revered in Nepal. It was agreed among Indian Buddhists that the scriptures were divided among the three Pitakas or baskets, but we may surmise that there was no unanimity as to the precise contents of each basket. In India the need for unanimity in such matters is not felt. The Brahmans always recognized that the most holy and most jealously preserved scriptures could exist in various recensions and the Mahabharata shows how generations of respectful and uncritical hearers may allow adventitious matter of all sorts to be incorporated in a work. Something of the same kind happened with the Pitakas. We know that the Pali recension which we possess was not the only one, for fragments of a Sanskrit version have been discovered.

There was probably a large floating literature of sutras, often presenting several recensions of the same document worked up in different ways. Just as additions were made to the list of Upanishads up to the middle ages, although the character of the later works was different from that of the earlier, so new sutras, modern in date and in tone, were received in the capacious basket. And just as the Puranas were accepted as sacred books without undermining the authority of the Vedas, so new Buddhist scriptures superseded without condemning the old ones. Various Mahayanist schools had their own versions of the Vinaya which apparently contain the same rules as the Pali text but also much additional narrative, and Asanga quotes from works corresponding to the Pali Nikayas, though his doctrine belongs to another age.[119] The Abhidharma section of the Pali Canon seems however to have been peculiar to the Theravada school. The Sarvastivadin Pitaka of the same name was entirely different and, judging from the Chinese Canon, the Mahayanists gave the title to philosophic works by such authors as Asanga and Vasubandhu, some of which were described as revelations from Maitreya.

Specially characteristic of Mahayanist Buddhism are the Vaipulya[120] sutras, that is sutras of great extension or development. These works, of which the Lotus is an example, follow the same scheme as the older sutras but are of wider scope and on a much larger scale, for they often consist of twenty or more chapters. They usually attempt to give a general exposition of the whole Dharma, or at least of some aspect of it which is extolled as sufficient for the right conduct of life. The chief speaker is usually the Buddha, who is introduced as teaching on the Vulture Peak, or some other well-known locality, and surrounded by a great assemblage many of whom are superhuman beings. The occasion of the discourse is commonly signalized by his sending forth rays of light which illuminate the universe until the scene includes other worlds. As early as the Anguttara Nikaya[121] we find references to the danger of a taste for ornate and poetic sutras and these compositions seem to be the outcome of that taste. The literary ideas and methods which produced them are illustrated by the Sutralankara of Asvaghosha, a collection of edifying tales, many of which use the materials supplied by the Pali Nikayas and Vinaya but present them in a more effective and artistic form. It was thought a pious task to amplify and embellish the simple narratives handed down by tradition.

The Mahayanist scriptures are composed in Sanskrit not in Pali, but it is only rarely--for instance in the works of Asvaghosha--that Buddhist Sanskrit conforms to the rules of the classical language. Usually the words deviate from this standard both in form and meaning and often suggest that the text as we have it is a Sanskritized version of an older work in some popular dialect, brought into partial conformity with literary usage. In the poetical portions, this process of sanskritization encountered greater difficulties than in prose, because metre and prosody often refused to admit the changes required by grammar, so that this poetical dialect cannot be called either Sanskrit, Pali or Magadhi but remains a mixture of learned and popular speech. But Sanskrit did not become a sacred language for the Mahayanists like Latin for Roman Catholics. It is rather Pali which has assumed this position among the Hinayanists, for Burmese and Sinhalese translations of the Pitakas acquired no authority. But in the north the principle[122] that every man might read the Buddha's word in his own vernacular was usually respected: and the populations of Central Asia, the Chinese, the Tibetans, and the Mongols translated the scriptures into their own languages without attaching any superstitious importance to the original words, unless they were Dharanis or spells.

About the time of the Christian era or perhaps rather earlier, greater use began to be made of writing for religious purposes. The old practice of reciting the scriptures was not discontinued but no objection was made to preserving and reading them in written copies. According to tradition, the Pali scriptures were committed to writing in Ceylon during the reign of Vattagamani, that is according to the most recent chronology about 20 B.C., and Kanishka caused to be engraved on copper plates the commentaries composed by the council which he summoned. In Asvaghosha[123] we find the story of a Brahman who casually taking up a book to pass the time lights on a copy of the Sutra of the Twelve Causes and is converted. But though the Buddhists remained on the whole true to the old view that the important thing was to understand and disseminate the substance of the Master's teaching and not merely to preserve the text as if it were a sacred formula, still we see growing up in Mahayanist works ideas about the sanctity and efficacy of scripture which are foreign to the Pali Canon. Many sutras (for instance the Diamond Cutter) extol themselves as all-sufficient for salvation: the Prajna-paramita commences with a salutation addressed not as usual to the Buddha but to the work itself, as if it were a deity, and Hodgson states that the Buddhists of Nepal worship their nine sacred books. Nor was the idea excluded that certain words, especially formulae or spells called Dharani, have in themselves a mysterious efficacy and potency.[124] Some of these are cited and recommended in the Lotus.[125] In so far as the repetition of sacred words or spells is regarded as an integral part of the religious life, the doctrine has no warrant in the earlier teaching. It obviously becomes more and more prominent in later works. But the idea itself is old, for it is clearly the same that produced a belief in the Brahmanic mantras, particularly the mantras of the Atharva Veda, and early Buddhism did not reject mantras in their proper place. Thus[126] the deities present themselves to the Buddha and offer to teach him a formula which will protect his disciples from the attacks of evil spirits. Hsuean Chuang even states that the council which sat at Rajagriha after the Buddha's death compiled five Pitakas, one of which consisted of Dharanis,[127] and it may be that the collection of such texts was begun as early as the collection of discourses and rules. But for many centuries there is no evidence that they were in any way confounded with the Dharma.

The Mahayanist scriptures are so voluminous that not even the clergy were expected to master any considerable part of them.[128] Indeed they make no claim to be a connected whole. The theory was rather that there were many vehicles plying on the road to salvation and many guide books. No traveller thought of taking the whole library but only a few volumes which suited him. Most of the Chinese and Japanese sects avowedly base themselves upon three sutras, selected according to the taste of each school from the hundreds quoted in catalogues. Thus the T'ien-t'ai sect has for its scriptures the Lotus, the Nirvana-sutra and the Prajna-paramita, while the Shin-shu sect admits only the three Amidist sutras.

The following are the names of some of the principal Mahayanist scriptures. Comparatively few of them have been published in Europe and some exist only in Chinese or Japanese translations.

1. Prajna-paramita or transcendental knowledge[129] is a generic name given to a whole literature consisting of treatises on the doctrine of sunyata, which vary greatly in length. They are classed as sutras, being described as discourses delivered by the Buddha on the Vulture Peak. At least ten are known, besides excerpts which are sometimes described as substantive works. The great collection translated into Chinese by Hsuean Chuang is said to consist of 200,000 verses and to comprise sixteen different sutras.[130] The earliest translation of one of these treatises into Chinese (Nanjio, 5) was made about 170 A.D. and everything indicates that portions of the Prajna-paramita are among the earliest Mahayanist works and date from about the first century of our era. Prajna not only means knowledge of the absolute truth, that is to say of sunyata or the void, but is regarded as an ontological principle synonymous with Bodhi and Dharma-kaya. Thus Buddhas not only possess this knowledge in the ordinary sense but they _are_ the knowledge manifest in human form, and Prajna is often personified as a goddess. All these works lay great stress on the doctrine of sunyata, and the non-existence of the world of experience. The longest recension is said to contain a polemic against the Hinayana.

The Diamond Cutter is one of the best known of these transcendental treatises and the two short works called Heart of the Prajna-paramita, which are widely read in Japan, appear to be brief abstracts of the essence of this teaching.

2. The Saddharma-Pundarika, or Lotus of the Good Law,[131] is one of the best known Mahayanist sutras and is highly esteemed in China and Japan. It purports to be a discourse delivered by Sakyamuni on the Vulture Peak to an assemblage of Bodhisattvas. The Lotus clearly affirms the multiplicity of vehicles, or various ways of teaching the law, and also the eternity of the Buddha, but it does not emphasize, although it mentions, the doctrine of sunyata. The work consists of two parts of which the second (chaps. XXI-XXVI) is a later addition. This second part contains spells and many mythological narratives, including one of an ancient Bodhisattva who burnt himself alive in honour of a former Buddha. Portions of the Lotus were translated into Chinese under the Western Tsin Dynasty 265-316 A.D. and it is quoted in the Maha-prajna-paramita-sastra ascribed to Nagarjuna.[132] The first part is probably not later than the first century A.D. The Lotus is unfortunately accessible to English readers only in a most unpoetic translation by the late Professor Kern, but it is a great religious poem which starting from humanity regards religion as cosmic and universal, rather than something mainly concerned with our earth. The discourses of Sakyamuni are accompanied in it by stupendous miracles culminating in a grand cosmic phantasmagoria in which is evoked the stupa containing the body of a departed Buddha, that is a shrine containing the eternal truth.

3. The Lalita-vistara[133] is a life of Sakyamuni up to the commencement of his mission. Though the setting of the story is miraculous and Buddhas and Bodhisattvas innumerable are freely spoken of, yet the work does not enunciate the characteristic Mahayanist doctrines so definitely as the other treatises here enumerated. It is said to have originally belonged to the school of the Sarvastivadins and to have been subsequently accepted by the Mahayanists, and though it is not an epic but a collection of ballads and legends, yet it often reads as if it were a preliminary study for Asvaghosha's Buddhacarita. It contains Sanskrit versions of old legends, which are almost verbal renderings of the Pali text, but also new material and seems to be conscious of relating novelties which may arouse scepticism for it interrupts the narrative to anathematize those who do not believe in the miracles of the Nativity and to extol the merits of faith (_sraddha_ not _bhakti_). It is probably coeval with the earlier Gandharan art but there are no facts to fix its date.[134]

4. The Lankavatara[135] gives an account of the revelation of the good Law by Sakyamuni when visiting Lanka. It is presumably subsequent to the period when Ceylon had become a centre of Buddhism, but the story is pure fancy and unconnected with history or with older legends. It relates how the Buddha alighted on Mt. Malaya in Lanka. Ravana came to pay his respects and asked for definitions of virtue and vice which were given. The Bodhisattva Mahamati (apparently Manjusri) proceeded to propound a series of more abstruse questions which are answered at considerable length. The Lankavatara represents a mature phase of speculation and not only criticizes the Sankhya, Pasupata and other Hindu schools, but is conscious of the growing resemblance of Mahayanism to Brahmanic philosophy and tries to explain it. It contains a prophecy about Nagarjuna and another which mentions the Guptas, and it appears to allude to the domination of the Huns. This allusion would make its date as late as the sixth century but a translation into Chinese which is said to correspond with the Sanskrit text was made in 513. If so the barbarians referred to cannot be the Huns. An earlier translation made in 443 does not agree with our Sanskrit text and perhaps the work existed in several recensions.

5. The Suvarna-prabhasa or Glitter of Gold[136] is a Vaipulya sutra in many ways resembling the Lotus. It insists on the supernatural character of the Buddha. He was never really born nor entered into Nirvana but is the Dharma-kaya. The scene is laid at Rajagriha and many Brahmanic deities are among the interlocutors. It was translated into Chinese about 420 A.D. and fragments of a translation into Uigur have been discovered in Turkestan.[137] The contents comprise philosophy, legends and spells.

6. Ganda-vyuha[138] or the Structure of the World, which is compared to a bubble. The name is not found in the catalogue of the Chinese Tripitaka but the work is said to be the same as the Avatamsaka sutra which is popular in the Far East under the name of Hua-yen in China or Ke-gon in Japan. The identity of the two books could not have been guessed from the extracts and analyses which have been published but is guaranteed by high authorities.[139] It is possible however that the Ganda-vyuha is only a portion of the larger work called Avatamsaka. So far as can be judged from the extracts, this text preaches in a fully developed form, the doctrines of Sunyata, Dharma-kaya, the omnipresence of the Buddha and the redemption of the world by the exertions of Bodhisattvas. Yet it seems to be early, for a portion of it was translated into Chinese about 170 A.D. (Nanjio, 102) and about 405 Kumarajiva translated a commentary on it ascribed to Nagarjuna (Nanjio, 1180).

7. Tathagata-guhyaka. This work is known by the analysis of Rajendralala Mitra from which it appears to be a Tantra of the worst class and probably late. Its proper title is said to be Sriguhyasamaja. Watanabe states that the work catalogued by Nanjio under No. 1027 and translated into Chinese about 1000 A.D. is an expurgated version of it. The Sikshasamuccaya cites the Tathagata-guhya-sutra several times. The relations of these works to one another are not quite clear.

8. Samadhiraja[140] is a Vyakarana or narrative describing different forms of meditation of which the Samadhiraja is the greatest and best. The scene is laid on the Vulture's Peak and the principal interlocutors are Sakyamuni and Candraprabha, a rich man of Rajagriha. It appears to be the same as the Candrapradipa-sutra and is a complete and copious treatise, which not only expounds the topic from which it takes its name but incidentally enumerates the chief principles of Mahayanism. Watanabe[141] states that it is the Yueeh-teng-san-mei-ching (Nanjio, 191) translated about 450 and again in 557 A.D.

9. Dasabhumisvara.[142] An account of the ten stages in the career of a Bodhisattva before he can attain to Buddhahood. The scene is laid in the paradise of Indra where Sakyamuni was temporarily sojourning and the principal interlocutor is a Bodhisattva named Vajragarbha. It is said to be the same as the Dasabhumika-sutra first translated into Chinese about 300 A.D. (Nanjio, 105 and 110) but this work appears to be merely a portion of the Ganda-vyuha or Avatamsaka mentioned above.

These nine works are all extant in Sanskrit and are known in Nepal as the nine Dharmas, the word Dharma being an abbreviation for _Dharmaparyaya_, revolution or exposition of the law, a term frequently used in the works themselves to describe a comprehensive discourse delivered by the Buddha. They are all quoted in the Sikshasamuccaya, supposed to have been written about 650 A.D. No similar collection of nine seems to be known in Tibet or the Far East and the origin of the selection is obscure. As however the list does not include the Svayambhu Purana, the principal indigenous scripture of Nepal, it may go back to an Indian source and represent an old tradition.

Besides the nine Dharmas, numerous other sutras exist in Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan and the languages of Central Asia. Few have been edited or translated and even when something is known of their character detailed information as to their contents is usually wanting. Among the better known are the following.

10. One of the sutras most read in China and admired because its style has a literary quality unusual in Buddhist works is commonly known as the Leng-yen-ching. The full title is Shou-leng-yen-san-mei-ching which is the Chinese transliteration of Surangama Samadhi.[143] This sutra is quoted by name in the Sikshasamuccaya and fragments of the Sanskrit text have been found in Turkestan.[144] The Surangama-Samadhi Sutra has been conjectured to be the same as the Samadhiraja, but the accounts of Rajendralala Mitra and Beal do not support this theory. Beal's translation leaves the impression that it resembles a Pali sutta. The scene is laid in the Jetavana with few miraculous accessories. The Buddha discusses with Ananda the location of the soul and after confuting his theories expounds the doctrine of the Dharma-kaya. The fragments found in Turkestan recommend a particular form of meditation.