BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Olcott, Henry Steel
325. Q. Has Buddhism any right to be considered a scientific religion, or may it be classified as a "revealed" one?
A. Most emphatically it is not a revealed religion. The Buddha did not so preach, nor is it so understood. On the contrary, he gave it out as the statement of eternal truths, which his predecessors had taught like himself.
326. Q. Repeat again the name of the Sutta, in which the Buddha tells us not to believe in an alleged revelation without testing it by one's reason and experience?
A. The Kālāma Sutta, of the Anguthara Nikāya.
327. Q. Do Buddhists accept the theory that everything has been formed out of nothing by a Creator?
A. The Buddha taught that two things are causeless, viz., Ākāsha, and Nirvāna. Everything has come ont of Ākāsha, in obedience to a law of motion inherent in it, and, after a certain existence, passes away. Nothing ever came out of nothing. We do not believe in miracles; hence we deny creation, and cannot conceive of a creation of something out of nothing. Nothing organic is eternal. Everything is in a state of constant flux, and undergoing change and reformation, keeping up the continuity according to the law of evolution.
328. Q. Is Buddhism opposed to education, and to the study of science?
A. Quite the contrary: in the Sigālowāda Sutta in a discourse preached by the Buddha, He specified as one of the duties of a teacher that he should give his pupils "instruction in science and lore". The Buddha's higher teachings are for the enlightened, the wise, and the thoughtful.
329. Q. Can you show any further endorsement of Buddhism by science?
A. The Buddha's doctrine teaches that there were many progenitors of the human race; also that there is a principle of differentiation among men; certain individuals have a greater capacity for the rapid attainment of Wisdom and arrival at Nirvāna than others.
330. Q. Any other?
A. Buddhism supports the teaching of the indestructibility of force.
331. Q. Should Buddhism be called a chart of science or a code of morals?
A. Properly speaking, a pure moral philosophy, a system of ethics and transcendental metaphysics. It is so eminently practical that the Buddha kept silent when Malunka asked about the origin of things.
332. Q. Why did he do that?
A. Because he thought that our chief aim should be to see things as they exist around us and try to make them better, not to waste time in intellectual speculations.
333. Q. What do Buddhists say is the reason for the occasional birth of very good and wise children of bad parents, and that of very bad ones of good parents?
A. It is because of the respective Karmas of children and parents; each may have deserved that such unusual relationships should be formed in the present birth.
334. Q. Is anything said about the body of the Buddha giving out a bright light?
A. Yes, there was a divine radiance sent forth from within by the power of his holiness.
335. Q. What is it called in Pālī?
A. Buddharansi, the Buddha rays.
336. Q. How many colours could be seen in it?
A. Six, linked in pairs.
337. Q. Their names?
A. Nīla, Pita, Lohita, Avadata, Mangastā, Prabhasvra.
338. Q. Did other persons emit such shining light?
A. Yes, all Arhats did and, in fact, the light shines stronger and brighter in proportion to the spiritual development of the person.
339. Q. Where do we see these colours represented?
A. In all vihāras where there are painted images of the Buddha. They are also seen in the stripes of the Buddhist Flag, first made in Ceylon but now widely adopted throughout Buddhist countries.
340. Q. In which discourse does the Buddha himself speak of this shining about him?
A. In the Mahā-Parinibbana Suttā, Ānanda his favourite disciple, noticing the great splendour which came from his Master's body, the Buddha said that on two occasions this extraordinary shining occurs, (a) just after a Tathāgatā gains the supreme insight, and (b) on the night when he passes finally away.
341. Q. Where do we read of this great brightness being emitted from the body of another Buddha?
A. In the story of Sumedha and Dipānkāra Buddha, found in the Nidānakathā of the Jātaka book, or story of the reincarnations of the Bodhisattva Siddhārtha Gautama.
342. Q. How is it described?
A. As a halo of a fathom's depth.
343. Q. What do the Hindus call it?
A. Tejas; its extended radiance they call Prākāsha.
344. Q. What do Europeans call it now?
A. The human aura.