Reading section 14

It is necessary to mention this phase of decadence but no good purpose would be served by dwelling further on the absurd and often disgusting prescriptions of such works as the Tathagata-guhyaka. If the European reader is inclined to condemn unreservedly a religion which even in decrepitude could find place for such monstrosities, he should remember that the aberrations of Indian religion are due not to its inherent depravity, but to its universality. In Europe those who follow disreputable occupations rarely suppose that they have anything to do with the Church. In India, robbers, murderers, gamblers, prostitutes, and maniacs all have their appropriate gods, and had the Marquis de Sade been a Hindu he would probably have founded a new tantric sect. But though the details of Saktism are an unprofitable study, it is of some importance to ascertain when it first invaded Buddhism and to what extent it superseded older ideas.

Some critics[304] seem to imply--for their statements are not very explicit--that Saktism formed part if not of the teaching of the Buddha, at least of the medley of beliefs held by his disciples. But I see no proof that Saktist beliefs--that is to say erotic mysticism founded on the worship of goddesses--were prevalent in Magadha or Kosala before the Christian era. Although Siri, the goddess of luck, is mentioned in the Pitakas, the popular deities whom they bring on the scene are almost exclusively masculine.[305] And though in the older Brahmanic books there are passages which might easily become tantric, yet the transition is not made and the important truths of religion are kept distinct from unclean rites and thoughts. The Brihad-aranyaka contains a chapter which hardly admits of translation but the object of the practices inculcated is simply to ensure the birth of a son. The same work (not without analogies in the ecstatic utterances of Christian saints) boldly compares union with the Atman to the bliss of one who is embraced by a beloved wife, but this is a mere illustration and there is no hint of the doctrine that the goal of the religious life is obtainable by _maithuna_. Still such passages, though innocent in themselves, make it easy to see how degrading superstitions found an easy entrance into the noblest edifices of Indian thought and possibly some heresies condemned in the Kathavatthu[306] indicate that even at this early date the Buddhist Church was contaminated by erotic fancies. But, if so, there is no evidence that such malpractices were widespread. The appendices to the Lotus[307] show that the worship of a many-named goddess, invoked as a defender of the faith, was beginning to be a recognized feature of Buddhism. But they contain no indications of left-handed Tantrism and the best proof that it did not become prevalent until much later is afforded by the narratives of the three Chinese pilgrims who all describe the condition of religion in India and notice anything which they thought singular or reprehensible. Fa-Hsien does not mention the worship of any female deity,[308] nor does the Life of Vasubandhu, but Asanga appears to allude to Saktism in one passage.[309] Hsuean Chuang mentions images of Tara but without hinting at tantric ritual, nor does I-Ching allude to it, nor does the evidence of art and inscriptions attest its existence. It may have been known as a form of popular superstition and even have been practised by individual Bhikshus, but the silence of I-Ching makes it improbable that it was then countenanced in the schools of Magadha. He complains[310] of those who neglect the Vinaya and "devote their whole attention to the doctrine of nothingness," but he says not a word about tantric abuses.[311]

The change probably occurred in the next half century[312] for Padma-Sambhava, the founder of Lamaism who is said to have resided in Gaya and Nalanda and to have arrived in Tibet in 747 A.D., is represented by tradition as a tantric wizard, and about the same time translations of Tantras begin to appear in Chinese. The translations of the sixth and seventh centuries, including those of I-Ching, comprise a considerable though not preponderant number of Dharanis. After the seventh century these became very numerous and several Tantras were also translated.[313] The inference seems to be that early in the eighth century Indian Buddhists officially recognized Tantrism.

Tantric Buddhism was due to the mixture of Mahayanist teaching with aboriginal superstitions absorbed through the medium of Hinduism, though in some cases there may have been direct contact and mutual influence between Mahayanism and aboriginal beliefs. But as a rule what happened was that aboriginal deities were identified with Hindu deities and Buddhism had not sufficient independence to keep its own pantheon distinct, so that Vairocana and Tara received most of the attributes, brahmanic or barbarous, given to Siva or Kali. The worship of the goddesses, described in their Hinduized form as Durga, Kali, etc., though found in most parts of India was specially prevalent in the sub-himalayan districts both east and west. Now Padma-Sambhava was a native of Udyana or Swat and Taranatha represents the chief Tantrists[314] as coming from there or visiting it. Hsuean Chuang[315] tells us that the inhabitants were devout Mahayanists but specially expert in magic and exorcism. He also describes no less than four sacred places in it where the Buddha in previous births gave his flesh, blood or bones for the good of others. Have we here in a Buddhist form some ancient legend of dismemberment like that told of Sati in Assam? Of Kashmir he says that its religion was a mixture of Buddhism with other beliefs.[316] These are precisely the conditions most favourable to the growth of Tantrism and though the bulk of the population are now Mohammedans, witchcraft and sorcery are still rampant. Among the Hindu Kashmiris[317] the most prevalent religion has always been the worship of Siva, especially in the form representing him as half male, half female. This cult is not far from Saktism and many allusions[318] in the Rajatarangini indicate that left-hand worship was known, though the author satirizes it as a corruption. He also several times mentions[319] Matri-cakras, that is circles sacred to the Mothers or tantric goddesses. In Nepal and Tibet tantric Buddhism is fully developed but these countries have received so much from India that they exhibit not a parallel growth, but late Indian Tantrism as imported ready-made from Bengal. It is here that we come nearest to the origins of Tantrism, for though the same beliefs may have flourished in Udyana and Kashmir they did not spread much in the Panjab or Hindustan, where their progress was hindered at first by a healthy and vigorous Hinduism and subsequently by Mohammedan invasions. But from 700 to 1197 A.D. Bengal was remote alike from the main currents of Indian religion and from foreign raids: little Aryan thought or learning leavened the local superstitions which were infecting and stifling decadent Buddhism. Hsuean Chuang informs us that Bhaskaravarma king of Kamarupa[320] attended the fetes celebrated by Harsha in 644 A.D. and inscriptions found at Tezpur indicate that kings with Hindu names reigned in Assam about 800 A.D. This is agreeable to the supposition that an amalgamation of Sivaism and aboriginal religion may have been in formation about 700 A.D. and have influenced Buddhism.

In Bihar from the eighth century onwards the influence of Tantrism was powerful and disastrous. The best information about this epoch is still to be found in Taranatha, in spite of his defects.

He makes the interesting statement that in the reign of Gopala who was a Buddhist, although his ministers were not (730-740 A.D.), the Buddhists wished their religious buildings to be kept separate from Hindu temples but that, in spite of protests, life-sized images of Hindu deities were erected in them.[321] The ritual too was affected, for we hear several times of burnt offerings[322] and how Bodhibhadra, one of the later professors of Vikramasila, was learned in the mystic lore of both Buddhists and Brahmans. Nalanda and the other viharas continued to be seats of learning and not merely monasteries, and for some time there was a regular succession of teachers. Taranatha gives us to understand that there were many students and authors but that sorcery occupied an increasingly important position. Of most teachers we are told that they saw some deity, such as Avalokita or Tara. The deity was summoned by the rites already described[323] and the object of the performer was to obtain magical powers or siddhi. The successful sorcerer was known as siddha, and we hear of 84 mahasiddhas, still celebrated in Tibet, who extend from Rahulabhadra Nagarjuna to the thirteenth century. Many of them bear names which appear not to be Indian.

The topics treated of in the Tantras are divided into Kriya (ritual), Carya (apparently corresponding to Vinaya), Yoga, and Anuttara-yoga. Sometimes the first three are contrasted with the fourth and sometimes the first two are described as lower, the third and fourth as higher. But the Anuttara-yoga is always considered the highest and most mysterious.[324] Taranatha says[325] that the Tantras began to appear simultaneously with the Mahayana sutras but adds that the Anuttara-yoga tantras appeared gradually.[326] He also observes that the Acarya Ananda-garbha[327] did much to spread them in Magadha. It is not until a late period of the Pala dynasty that he mentions the Kalacakra which is the most extravagant form of Buddhist Tantrism.

This accords with other statements to the effect that the Kalacakra tantra was introduced in 965 A.D. from Sambhala, a mysterious country in Central Asia. This system is said to be Vishnuite rather than Sivaite. It specially patronizes the cult of the mystic Buddhas such as Kalacakra and Heruka, all of whom appear to be regarded as forms of Adi-Buddha or the primordial Buddha essence. The Siddha named Pito is also described as the author of this doctrine,[328] which had less importance in India than in Tibet.

On the other hand Taranatha gives us the names of several doctors of the Vinaya who flourished under the Pala dynasty. Even as late as the reign of Ramapala (? 1080-1120) we hear that the Hinayanists were numerous. In the reign of Dharmapala (_c_. 800 A.D.) some of them broke up the great silver image of Heruka at Bodh-Gaya and burnt the books of Mantras.[329] These instances show that the older Buddhism was not entirely overwhelmed by Tantrism[330] though perhaps it was kept alive more by pilgrims than by local sentiment. Thus the Chinese inscriptions of Bodh-Gaya though they speak at length of the three bodies of Buddha show no signs of Tantrism. It would appear that the worship celebrated in the holy places of Magadha preserved a respectable side until the end. In the same way although Tantrism is strong in the literature of the Lamas, none of the many descriptions of Tibet indicate that there is anything scandalous in the externals of religion. Probably in Tibet, Nepal and mediaeval Magadha alike the existence of disgraceful tantric literature does not indicate such widespread depravity as might be supposed. But of its putrefying influence in corrupting the minds of those who ought to have preserved the pure faith there can be no doubt. More than any other form of mixed belief it obliterated essential differences, for Buddhist Tantrism and Sivaite Tantrism are merely two varieties of Tantrism.

What is happening at Bodh-Gaya at present[331] illustrates how Buddhism disappeared from India. The abbot of a neighbouring Sivaite monastery who claims the temple and grounds does not wish, as a Mohammedan might, to destroy the building or even to efface Buddhist emblems. He wishes to supervise the whole establishment and the visits of pilgrims, as well as to place on the images of Buddha Hindu sectarian marks and other ornaments. Hindu pilgrims are still taken by their guides to venerate the Bodhi tree and, but for the presence of foreign pilgrims, no casual observer would suppose the spot to be anything but a Hindu temple of unusual construction. The same process went a step further in many shrines which had not the same celebrity and effaced all traces and memory of Buddhism.

At the present day the Buddha is recognized by the Brahmans as an incarnation of Vishnu,[332] though the recognition is often qualified by the statement that Vishnu assumed this form in order to mislead the wicked who threatened to become too powerful if they knew the true method of attaining superhuman powers. But he is rarely worshipped _in propria persona_.[333] As a rule Buddhist images and emblems are ascribed to Vishnu or Siva, according to sectarian preferences, but in spite of fusion some lingering sense of original animosity prevents Gotama from receiving even such respect as is accorded to incarnations like Parasu-rama. At Bodh-Gaya I have been told that Hindu pilgrims are taken by their guides to venerate the Bodhi-tree but not the images of Buddha.

Yet in reviewing the disappearance of Buddhism from India we must remember that it was absorbed not expelled. The result of the mixture is justly called Hinduism, yet both in usages and beliefs it has taken over much that is Buddhist and without Buddhism it would never have assumed its present shape. To Buddhist influence are due for instance the rejection by most sects of animal sacrifices: the doctrine of the sanctity of animal life: monastic institutions and the ecclesiastical discipline found in the Dravidian regions. We may trace the same influence with more or less certainty in the philosophy of Sankara and outside the purely religious sphere in the development of Indian logic. These and similar points are dealt with in more detail in other parts of this work and I need not dwell on them here.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 264: Written before the war.]

[Footnote 265: Even at Kanauj, the scene of Harsha's pious festivities, there were 100 Buddhist monasteries but 200 Deva temples.]

[Footnote 266: Rice, _Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions_, p. 203.]

[Footnote 267: See the note by Buehler in _Journ. Pali Text Soc._ 1896, p. 108.]

[Footnote 268: Rajatarangini, III. 12.]

[Footnote 269: See for the supposed persecution of Buddhism in India, _J.P.T.S._ 1896, pp. 87-92 and 107-111 and _J.R.A.S._ 1898, pp. 208-9.]

[Footnote 270: As contained in the Sankara-dig-vijaya ascribed to Madhava and the Sankara-vijaya ascribed to Anandagiri.]

[Footnote 271: Taranatha in his twenty-eighth and following chapters gives an account, unfortunately very confused, of the condition of Buddhism under the Pala dynasty. See also B.K. Sarkar, _Folklore Element in Hindu Culture_, chap. XII, in which there are many interesting statements but not sufficient references.]

[Footnote 272: See Vidyabhusana's _Mediaeval School of Indian Logic_, p. 150, for an account of this monastery which was perhaps at the modern Parthaghata. I have found no account of what happened to Nalanda in this period but it seems to have disappeared as a seat of learning.]

[Footnote 273: See Taranatha, chap. XXVIII.]

[Footnote 274: Chap. XXXVI. It is interesting to notice that even at this late period he speaks of Hinayanists in Bengal.]

[Footnote 275: Often called Muhammad Bakhtyar but Bakhtyar seems to have been really his father's name.]

[Footnote 276: Raverty, _Tabat-i-Nasiri_, p. 552. "It was discovered that the whole of that fortress and city was a college and in the Hindi tongue they call a college Bihar."]

[Footnote 277: Many of them have been collected by Pandit Haraprasad Sastri in _Jour. As. Soc._ Bengal, 1895, pp. 55 ff. and in his _Discovery of living Buddhism in Bengal_, Calcutta, 1897.]

[Footnote 278: Chap. XL _ad fin._ Is the Ramacandra whom he mentions the last Yadava King (about 1314)? Taranatha speaks of his son.]

[Footnote 279: Caitanya-caritamrita, chap. VII, transl. by Jadunath Sarkar, p. 85. This biography was written in 1582 by Krishnadas. Caitanya died in 1533.]

[Footnote 280: _Census of India_, 1901: vol. VI. Bengal, pp. 427-430.]

[Footnote 281: _The Archaeological Survey of Mayurabhanj_ (no date? 1911), vol. I. pp. cv-cclxiii. The part containing an account of Buddhism in Orissa is also printed separately with the title _Modern Buddhism_, 1911.]

[Footnote 282: For Ramai Pandit see Dinesh Chandra Sen, _Hist. Bengali Language and Lit._ pp. 30-37, and also B.K. Sarkar, _Folklore Element in Hindu Culture_, p. 192, and elsewhere. He appears to have been born at the end of the tenth century and though the Sunya Purana has been re-edited and interpolated parts of it are said to be in very old Bengali.]

[Footnote 283: Nagendranath Vasu quotes a couplet from the Mahabharata of the poet Saraladasa: "I pay my humble respects to the incarnation of Buddha who in the form of Buddha dwells in the Nilacala, _i.e._ Puri." The Imperial Gazetteer of India (s.v. Puri Town) states that in modern representations of Vishnu's ten avataras, the ninth, or Buddhavatara, is sometimes represented by Jagannatha.]

[Footnote 284: I give the dates or the authority of Narandra Nath while thinking that they may be somewhat too early. The two authors named wrote the Sunya Samhita and Nirguna Mahatmya respectively.]

[Footnote 285: _l.c._ clxxvi ff., ccxix-ccxxiii, ccxxxi.]

[Footnote 286: Author of a poem called Dharmagita.]

[Footnote 287: _l.c._ cxvi ff. and ccxxxii.]

[Footnote 288: _l.c._ ccxxxiv ff.]

[Footnote 289: See Haraprasad Sastri, _l.c._ He gives a curious account of one of his temples in Calcutta. See also B.K. Sarkar, _Folklore Element in Hindu Culture_ for the decadence of Buddhism in Bengal and its survival in degenerate forms.]

[Footnote 290: See B.H. Hodgson, _Essays on the languages, literature and religion of Nepal and Tibet_, 1874. For the religion of Nepal see also Wright, _History of Nepal_, 1877; C. Bendall, _Journal of Literary and Archaeological Research in Nepal_, 1886; Rajendralal Mitra, _Sanskrit Buddhist literature of Nepal_; and especially S. Levi, _Le Nepal_, 3 vols. 1905-8.]

[Footnote 291: S. Levi in _J.A._ II. 1904, p. 225. He gives the date as 627.]

[Footnote 292: The doctrine of the Adi-Buddha is fully stated in the metrical version of the Karanda-vyuha which appears to be a later paraphrase of the prose edition. See Winternitz, _Gesch. Ind. Lit_. II. i. 238.]

[Footnote 293: Compare the fusion of Sivaism and Buddhism in Java.]

[Footnote 294: Or Vajracarya-arhat-bhikshu-buddha, which in itself shows what a medley Nepalese Buddhism has become.]

[Footnote 295: See above chap. XX. for some account of these works.]

[Footnote 296: Dedicated to the sacred river Vagvati or Bagmati.]

[Footnote 297: Hardly any Buddhist Tantras have been edited in Europe. See Bendall, _Subhashita-sangraha_ for a collection of extracts (also published in _Museon_, 1905), and De la Vallee Poussin, _Bouddhisme, Etudes el Materiaux. Id._ Pancakrama, 1896.

While this book was going through the press I received the Tibetan Tantra called Shrichakrasambhara (Avalon's Tantric Texts, vol. VII) with introduction by A. Avalon, but have not been able to make use of it.]

[Footnote 298: See Foucher, _Iconographie bouddhique_, pp. 8 ff. De la Vallee Poussin, _Bouddhisme, Etudes et Materiaux_, pp. 213 ff. For Japanese tantric ceremonies see the Si-Do-In-Dzon in the _Annales du Musee Guimet_, vol. VIII.]

[Footnote 299: In ancient Egypt also the Kher heb or magician-priest claimed the power of becoming various gods. See Budge, _Osiris_, II. 170 and Wiedemann, _Magic im alten Aegypten_, 13 ff.]

[Footnote 300: The Brahma-viharas. _E.g._ Dig. Nik. XIII.]

[Footnote 301: Mahasukhakaya or vajrakaya.]

[Footnote 302: De la Vallee Poussin, _Bouddhisme, Etudes et Materiaux_, p. 153.]

[Footnote 303: See _Subhashita-sangraha_ edited by Bendall. Part II. pp. 29 ff. especially p. 41. Parasvaharanam karyam paradaranishevanam Vaktavyam canritam nityam sarvabuddhamsca ghatayet. See also Tathagata-guhyaka in Rajendralal Mitra's _Sanskrit Literature in Nepal_, pp. 261-264.]

[Footnote 304: For instance De la Vallee Poussin in his _Bouddhisme, Etudes et Materiaux_, 1896. In his later work, _Bouddhisme, Opinions sur l'histoire de la dogmatique_, he modifies his earlier views.]

[Footnote 305: See Dig. Nik. XX. and XXXII.]

[Footnote 306: Kathav. XXIII. 1 and 2.]

[Footnote 307: These appendices are later additions to the original text but they were translated into Chinese in the third century. Among the oldest Sanskrit MSS. from Japan is the Ushnisha-vijaya-dharani and there is a goddess with a similar name. But the Dharani is not Saktist. See text in Anec. Oxon. Aryan series.]

[Footnote 308: He speaks of Kwan-shih-yin but this is probably the male Avalokita.]

[Footnote 309: Mahayana-sutralankara, IX. 46. Of course there may be many other allusions in yet unedited works of Asanga but it is noticeable that this allusion to _maithuna_ is only made in passing and is not connected with the essence of his teaching.]