2 Richard’s trans. (p. 27). Cf. Suzuki’s trans. (p. 11a): ‘Be it clearly understood that the essence of the five skandhas is uncreate, there is no annihilation of them; that, since there is no annihilation of them, they are in their [metaphysical] origin Nirvana itself.’
8 Richard’s trans. (p. 31). Cf. Suzuki’s trans. (p. rat): ‘...all things (sarvadharma) from the beginning are in their nature Nirvana itself.’
Thus does Ashvaghosha bear witness to the soundness of the supreme philosophy of the Mahayana School underlying the Bardo Thodol; and, as an independent commentator, confirms our own interpretations.
VI. NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY Very much matter might also be incorporated herein to show the differences which exist between the two great Schools of Buddhism, the Northern and the Southern School, sometimes known as the A/ahayana (meaning the ‘ Greater Path’) and the Hinayana (meaning the ‘Lesser Path’—a rather belittling name never used by Southern Buddhists of themselves)."
Northern Buddhism is chiefly distinguished by its hierarchical and more highly organized priesthood, its emphasis upon rituals, its elaborate doctrinc of divine emanations, its Christian-like worships and masses, its Tantricism, its Dhyani Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and extensive pantheon, its belief in a Primordial Buddha, its greater insistence on Yoga, its subtle philosophy, and its transcendental teachings concerning the Tri-K ya.
In Southern Buddhism, on the contrary, there is a very loosely organized priesthood with no recognized heads like the Dalai Lama, who is the God-King, and the Tashi Lama, who is the Higher Spiritual Head of Lamaism. There are no recognized rituals comparable to the rituals of the Northern School, little or nothing clearly Tantric, and no worship of Dhyani Buddhas or of a Primordial Buddha, but a limited belief in devas and demons. The only Bodhisattva appealed to and imaged in temples is the coming Buddha, Maitreya. Although theoretically Yoga is insisted upon, it appears to have been but little practised among Southern Buddhists since the times of Buddhagosa and his immediate suc- 1 Here Sj. Atal Behari Ghosh has contributed the following note: ‘ Mahayana may, and possibly does, mean the “‘ Greater ”’ or ‘‘ Higher Path”? (or ‘‘ Voyage’’), and Hinayana the ‘‘ Lesser”? or ‘‘ Lower Path” (or ‘‘ Voyage”). Ya (of Yana) means ‘‘to go”, and Yama “that by which one goes”. Western Orientalists have adopted “Vehicle” as an equivalent of Yaua, as that is the common meaning given in school-books, but ‘‘ Path” is preferable.’
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 233 cessors, when Buddhist Ceylon is said to have been famous— as Buddhist Tibet is now—for its great saints, or yogis. That there exists a transcendental Buddhism, based chiefly upon Tantric teachings and applied Yoga, such as the lamas claim to possess through oral transmission direct from the time of the Buddha, Southern Buddhism denies, for it holds that the Buddha taught no higher or other doctrines than those recorded in the 7ri-Pitaka or Pali Canon. Similarly, the doctrine of the Esoteric Trinity, or 77i-Kaya, Southern Buddhism does not propound, although there are clear references to the Dkarma-Kaya in the Aggaiia Sittanta of the Digha Nikaya, wherein the Buddha speaks of the Dharma-Kaya to a Brahmin priest named Vasctta (Skt. Vashishtha); and the Sinhalese work known as the Dharma-Pradipika contains elaborated expositions of Ripa-Kaya and Dharma-K aya.
The hypothesis of Christian apologists that Northern Buddhism in its differentiation from Southern Buddhism was primarily affected by early Christian missionaries scems to be disproved—in so far as really fundamental doctrines are concerned—by the far-reaching fact (but recently made known to Western scholars through the recovery of some of the writings of the greatest of the Fathers of the Northern Buddhist Church, namely, the Patriarch Ashvagosha) that Northern Buddhism was fundamentally the same in the first century A. D. as it is now and was prior to the Christian era. If there were Christian influences, as claimed, brought in by the Nestorians, or St. Thomas, or later missionaries, it appears that they could only have been superficial at most.?. In our own view—which is, of 1 Cf. P. Lakshmi Narasu, The Essence of Buddhism (Madras, 1912), p. 352n.
2 Huc, in his Zravels in Tartavy (Hazlett’s trans, ii. 84), notes that Tson Khapa, the founder of the Gelugpa, or Established Reformed Church of Tibet, was acquainted with Christianity through Roman priests who seem to have had a mission near the place of his birth, in the Province of Amdo, China. But Tsoh Khapa having been born during the latter half of the fourteenth century and having founded the Gelugpa during the early fifteenth, such probable Christian influence would be of no importance in relation to the primitive unreformed Ningmapa Church founded by Padma Sambhava in the eighth century, whence our Manuscript had its origin. Thescmi-reformed Kargyutpa Sect, too, antedates the Gelugpa, having been founded in the last half of the eleventh 3069 Hh 3069 Hh course, merely hypothetical, seeing how little is at present known of the interdependent influences of Hinduism, Buddhism, and other Oriental religions and Christianity—it is Christianity which probably has been shaped, not only in its pre-Christian symbolology and in its rituals, but in its beliefs, by the Faiths preceding it, and out of which it evolved. For example, Christian monasticism, as best studied in the first centuries of the Christian era in Egypt, with its yoga-like practices, has had, apparently, direct relationship with the more ancient monastic systems such as those of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Taoism. The two great doctrines of Christianity, namely, those of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, are not, as formerly believed, unique; not only did both develop in pre-Christian times in India, but were principal doctrines in the Osirian Faith of Egypt at least six thousand years ago, The primitive Christian Gnostic Church, as the exponent of an esoteric Christianity, was also in general accord with the old Oriental teachings touching Rebirth and A arma, which the later or exotcric Christian Church eventually repudiated, the Second Council of Constantinople, in A.D. 553, decreeing that ‘Whosoever shall support the mythical doctrine of the preexistence of the soul and the consequent wonderful opinion of its return, let him be anathema’. The Sermon on the Mount century by Marpa (sce p. 1357), whose chief gv was the Indian Pandit Atisha (cf. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet, pp. 54-75).
1 Origen, the pupil of St. Clement of Alexandria, and the best-informed and most learned of the Church Fathers, who held the doctrine of rebirth and karma to be Christian, and against whom, two hundred and ninety-nine years after he was dead, excommunication was decreed by the exoteric Church, on account of his beliefs, has said; ‘But that there should be certain doctrines not made known to the multitude, which are [revealed] after the exoteric ones have been taught, is not a peculiarity of Christianity alone, but also of philosophic systems, in which certain truths are exoteric and others esoteric’ (Ovigen Contra Celsum, Book I, c. vii). That Origen was a sound Christian in this view—despite his condemnation as a ‘heretic’ by the corrupt Second Council of Constantinople, held by the exoteric Church—is clear from sayings attributed to the Founder of Christianity Himself: ‘Unto you [the chosen disciples] it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God; but unto them that are without [i.e. the multitude] all these things are done in parable: that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand’ (Mark, iv. 11-12); cf. St. Paul in x Corinthians, ii. 7; iii. 1-2; and Pistis Sophia, i. 9, 12, 15, and passim, translation by G. R. S. Mead (London, 1896).
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 235 itself, as a study of the pre-Christian Pali Canon indicates, might very well be regarded, as many Buddhist scholars do regard it, as a Christian restating of doctrines which the Buddha, too, formulated as an inheritance from prehistoric Buddhas! It is chiefly the doctrines of the modern Christian Churches that pride themselves in having no esoteric teachings, and not those of primitive, or Gnostic, Christianity,that did propound an elaborate esotericism, which differ widely from the doctrines of Buddhism and other Oriental religions; and among these doctrines the more outstanding are: (1) the doctrine of the one life on earth to be followed bya never-ending paradise or else an eternal hell; (2) of the forgiveness of sins through the blood sacrifice of a Saviour; and (3) of the uniqueness of the Divine Incarnation as exemplified in the Founder of Christianity.
For the student of the West, whose outlook has been more or less affected by this theology of Church-council Christianity, rather than by primitive, or Gnostic, Christianity, there is need to realize exactly how Buddhism differs in fundamentals from modern Christianity.
Thus, unlike modern, or Church-council, Christianity which teaches dependence upon an outside power or Saviour, Buddhism teaches dependence on self-exertion alone if one is to gain salvation. In practice, and to a limited degree in theory, this fundamental doctrine of self-dependence is modified in Lamaism—as illustrated in the Bardo Tkidol— and direct appeal is made by the devotee to the Dhyani Buddhas and tutelary deities, very much as to Jesus and saints and angels by Christians. Similarly, Northern Buddhism and Church-council Christianity, unlike, Southern Buddhism, have their masscs and their eucharistical ceremonies.
Secondly, as pointed out above, Church-council Christianity condemns the doctrines of Rebirth and K arma(which primitive, or Gnostic, Christianity upheld), and Buddhism champions them.
Thirdly, the two Faiths hold divergent views concerning 1 Ct. A. J. Edmunds, Buddhist Texts in John (Philadelphia, ro11z); also Buddhist and Christian Gospels (Philadelphia, 1908).
the existence or non-existence of a Supreme Deity. ‘The Fatherhood of God’ as a personal and anthropomorphic deity is the corner-stone of Christian Theology, but in Buddhism— although the Buddha neither denied nor affirmed the existence of a Supreme Deity—it has no place, because, as the Buddha maintained, neither believing nor not believing in a Supreme God, but self-exertion in right-doing, is essential to comprehending the true nature of life.
The Buddha ‘argued not that Ishvara was cause, nor did He advocate some cause heretical, nor yet again did He affirm there was no cause for the beginning of the world’. He argued: ‘If the world was made by Ishvara deva,...there should be no such thing as sorrow or calamity, nor doing wrong nor doing right; for all, both pure and impure deeds, these must come from Ishvara deva...Again, if Ishvara be the maker, all living things should silently submit, patient beneath the maker’s powcr, and then what use to practisc virtue? *Twere equal, then, the doing right or wrong,...Thus, you see, the thought of Ishvara is overthrown in this discussion (shéstra).’ 1 Although the Great Teacher has set aside, as being nonessential to mankind’s spiritual enlightenment, the belicf and the non-belief in a Supreme Deity—more especially in an anthropomorphic Supreme Deity—He has, however, made the corner-stone of Buddhism (as it is of Hinduism) the belicf in a Supreme Power or Universal Law, called the Law of Cause and Effect by the Science of the West and, by the Science of the East, Karma. ‘What ye sow, that shall ye reap’, saith the Buddha; even as St. Paul wrote long afterward, ‘ Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap’.
Again, as elsewhere stated, Buddhism denies that there can be a permanent, unchanging, personal entity such as Christian Theology calls ‘soul’. It also denies the possibility of reaching a state of eternal felicity within the Sangsdéra (i.c. the universe of phenomena); for Reality, or Mzrvaua, is for all ? Ct, the Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king (vv. 1455-68), a professed Chinese version of Ashvaghosha’s Buddhakarita, made by an Indian Buddhist priest named Dharmaraksha about the year a.p. 420, trans. by S. Beal in The Sacred Books of the East, xix (Oxford, 1883), pp. 206-8.
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY 237 Schools of Buddhism non-sangsaric, being beyond all heavens, hells, and worlds, in a state only capable of being understood through personal realization of it.
The Buddha has, therefore, not taught of any Father in Heaven, nor of any Only Begotten Son, nor of any method of salvation for mankind save that won by self-exertion léading to Right Knowledge. He, as all Buddhists believe, found the way as a result of innumerable lifetimes of spiritual evolution, and became the Fully Awakened, the Enlightened One, exhausting completely the Sanxgsaéra of Impermanency and of Sorrow. Through His own cxertions alone He reached the Goal of all existence—Supramundaneness. Buddhists vencrate Him, not as Christians do a Saviour, but as a Guide, in whose footsteps each must tread if Truth is to be realized and Salvation attained.
Although, as in the Bardo Thodol, there are prayers addressed to higher than human powers, and although all Buddhists pay what is really a sort of worship to the Buddha, the doctrine of Right Knowledge through self-development is never quite lost sight of; there is never that almost complete dependence upon outside forces which Christianity inculcates, nor is there anywhere a parallel to the Christian belicf in the forgiveness of sins through repentance, or faith in a Saviour, or through vicarious atonement. Some of the rituals of Northern Buddhism may seem to suggest a Christianlike theory of the forgiveness or absolution of sins, which, more than any other subsidiary doctrine peculiar to Northern Buddhism, may possibly yet be shown to have been shaped— if any of the Mahayana doctrines have been—by Christianity. But in their last analysis these rituals really imply,—setting aside any possible transformation due to Christianity,—as the whole of Southern Buddhism more clearly teaches, that it is only merit, or an equal amount of good karma, which can neutralize the same amount of evil karma, as, in physics, two equally balanced opposing forces neutralize one another.
But as in all religions, so in Buddhism, there is apt to be very wide divergency between original teachings and actual doctrines and practices; and, accordingly, the Bardo Thédol as a ritual treatise is no exception. Nevertheless, underneath the symbolism of the Bardo Thodol there are to be discovered, by those that have eyes to see, the essential teachings of Northern Buddhism, sometimes called, in contrast with Southern Buddhism, the Higher Buddhism.
VII. THE MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN JUDGEMENT.
In connexion with the difficult problem of origins, referred to in that part of our Introduction concerning the Judgement (pp. 35-9), and of the probable influences of Buddhism and other Oriental Faiths, including the Osirian Faith, on Christianity, it is interesting to compare with the Bardo Thddol version of the Judgement (pp. 165-9) the similar version in the medieval treatise entitled Te Lamentation of the Dying Creature (date uncertain, but probably of 14th to 15th cent.) contained in the British Museum MS. Harl. 1706 (fol. 96), Comper’s ed. (pp. 137-68): ‘ The Dying Creature enset with Sickness incurable sorrowfully Complaincth him thus:“ Alas that ever I sinned in my life. To me is come this day the dreadfullest tidings that ever I heard. Here hath been with me a sergeant of arms whose name is Cruelty, from the King of all’ Kings, Lord of all Lords, and Judge of all Judges; laying on me the mace of His office, saying unto me: ‘I arrest thee and warn thee to make ready...The Judge that shall sit upon thee, He will not be partial, nor He will not be corrupt with goods, but He will minister to thee justice and equity...”
‘The Lamentation of the Dying Creature: “ Alas! alas! Excuse me I can not, and whom I might desire to speak for me I wot (i.e. know) not. The day and time is so dreadful; the Judge is so rightful; mine enimies be so evil; my kin, my neighbours, my friends, my servants, be not favourable to mc; and I wot well they shall not be heard there.”
‘The Complaint of the Dying Creature to the Good Angel: “O my Good Angel, to whom our Lord took me to keep, where be thee now? Me thinketh ye should be here, and answer for me; for the dread of death distroubleth me, so THE CHRISTIAN JUDGEMENT 239 that I cannot answer for myself. Here is my bad angel ready, and is one of my chief accusers, with legions of fiends with him. I have no creature to answer for me. Alas it is an heavy case!”
‘ The Answer of the Good Angel to the Dying Creature: “ As to your bad deeds, I was never consenting. I saw your natural inclination more disposed to be ruled by your bad angel than by me. Howbeit, ye cannot excuse you, but when ye were purposed to do anything that was contrary to the commandments of God I failed not to remember (i.e. remind) you that it was not well; and counselled thee to fice the place of peril, and the company that should stir or move you thereto. Can ye say nay thereto? Howcan you think that I should answer for you?”’
Though the Dying Creature appeals for assistance to Reason, to Dread, to Conscience, and to the Five Wits—very much after the manner of Lveryman, probably the best known of the medieval Christian mystery plays (which scem to be the outcome of the spread of Orientalism into Europe)—none can succour him. Thence, in his final appeal to the Virgin, through Faith, Hope, and Charity as mediators, and in the Virgin’s resulting appeal to the Son, there is introduced the Christian doctrine of the forgiveness of sins, in opposition to the doctrine of arma as expounded by the Lardo Thodol. Such introduction suggests that this curious Christian version of the Judgement may possibly have had a pre-Christian and non-Jewish Oriental source, wherein the dectrine of £arma (and the correlated doctrine of rebirth) remained unmodified by the European medievalism which shaped The Lamentation of the Dying Creature (see p. 3”). The ancient doctrine of karma (to which the primitive, or Gnostic, Christians adhered, ere Church-council Christianity took shape), being taught in the following answers to the Dying Creature, gives some plausibility, even from internal evidence, to this purely tentative view: Conscience: ‘Ye must sorrowfully and meckly suffer the judgements that ye have deserved.’
The Five Wits: ‘Therefore of your necessity your defaults must be laid upon you...Wherefore of right the peril must be yours.’
Also compare the similar account of the Judgement in the Orologium Sapicntieg (14th cent.), chap. V, in Douce MS. 322 (fol. 20), Comper’s ed., from which the following passage (p. 118) is taken: ‘O thou most righteous Doomsman, how strait and hard be thy dooms; charging [i.e. accusing] and hard deeming me, wretched, in those things the which few folk charge or dread, forasmuch as they seem small and little. O the dreadful sight of the righteous Justice, that is now present to me by dread, and suddenly to come in deed.’
Reference might also be made to the wall-painting of the Judgement in Chaldon Church, Surrey, England, dating from about A.D. 1200 and discovered in 1870, which parallels in a very striking manner our Tibetan painting of the Judgement.' Thus, in both paintings there is the judging of the dead in an intermediate or dardo state, the heaven-world being above and the hell-world below. In the Chaldon Christianized version, St. Michael, in place of Shinje, holds the scales; instead of karmic actions, souls are being weighed; the Six Karmic Pathways leading to the Six Lokas have become a single ladder leading to a single heaven; at the top of the ladder, in place of the Six Buddhas of the Six Lokas, there is the Christ waiting to welcome the righteous, the sun being shown on His right hand and the moon on His left—as though He were a Buddha. In the Hell-world, in both versions, there is the cauldron in which evil-doers are being cooked under the supervision of demons; and, in the Christianized version, the ‘Hill of Spikes’ of the Buddhist version is represented by a ‘Bridge of Spikes’, which the condemned souls are compelled to traverse.
1 Cf. G. Clinch, Old English Churches (London, 1900), pp. 162-4, where a photograph of the Chaldon wall-painting is reproduced; also E. S. Bouchier, Notes on the Stained Glass of the Oxford District (Oxford, 1918), pp. 66-7, concerning a stained glass window in Brightwcll Baldwin Church, depicting the soul-weighing episode of the Judgement: ‘Below, the hand of St, Michael in white glass supports a yellow balance, in the left tray of which a half-length soul with yellow hair is praying, while beneath the right a small devil, with horns, tail, claws, and yellow wings, is trying to pull it down.’
THE CHRISTIAN JUDGEMENT 241 All such parallels as these tend to strengthen our opinion that the greater part of the symbolism nowadays regarded as being peculiarly Christian or Jewish seems to be due to adaptations from Egyptian and Eastern religions. They suggest, too, that the thought-forms and thought-processes of Orient and of Occident are, fundamentally, much alike—that, despite differences of race and creed and of physical and social environment, the nations of mankind are, and have been since time immemorial, mentally and spiritually one.