THE RISE AND SPREAD OF BUDDHISM
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Olcott, Henry Steel
279. Q. As regards the number its followers, how does Buddhism at this date compare with the other chief religions?
A. The followers of the Buddha Dharma outnumber those of every other religion.
280. Q. What is the estimated number?
A. About five hundred millions (5,000 lakhs or 500 crores): this is five-thirteenths, or not quite half, of the estimated population of the globe.
281. Q. Have many great battles been fought and many countries conquered; has much human blood been spilt to spread the Buddha Dharma?
A. History does not record one of those cruelties and crimes as having been committed to propagate our religion. So far as we know, it has not caused the spilling of a drop of blood. (See footnote ante—Professor Kolb's testimony.)
282. Q. What, then, is the secret of its wonderful spread?
A. It can be nothing else than its intrinsic excellence: its self-evident basis of truth, its sublime moral teaching, and its sufficiency for all human needs.
283. Q. How has it been propagated?
A. The Buddha, during the forty-five years of his life as a Teacher, travelled widely in India and preached the Dharma. He sent his wisest and best disciples to do the same throughout India.
284. Q. When did He send for his pioneer missionaries?
A. On the full-moon day of the month Wap (October).
285. Q. What did he tell them?
A. He called them together and said: "Go forth, Bhikkhus, go and preach the law to the world. Work for the good of others as well as for your own.... Bear ye the glad tidings to every man. Let no two of you take the same way."
286. Q. How long before the Christian era did this happen?
A. About six centuries.
287. Q. What help did Kings give?
A. Besides the lower classes, great Kings, Rājās and Mahārājās were converted and gave their influence to spread the religion.
288. Q. What about pilgrims?
A. Learned pilgrims came in different centuries to India and carried back with them books and teachings to their native lands. So, gradually, whole nations forsook their own faiths and became Buddhists.
289. Q. To whom, more than to any other person, is the world indebted for the permanent establishment of Buddha's religion?
A. To the Emperor Ashoka, surnamed the Great, sometimes Piyadāsi, sometimes Dharmāshoka. He was the son of Bindusāra, King of Magadha, arid grandson of Chandragupta, who drove the Greeks out of India.
290. Q. When did he reign?
A. In the third century B.C., about two centuries after the Buddha's time. Historians disagree as to his exact date, but not very greatly.
291. Q. What made him great?
A. He was the most powerful monarch in Indian history, as warrior and as statesman; but his noblest characteristics were his love of truth and justice, tolerance of religious differences, equity of government, kindness to the sick, to the poor, and to animals. His name is revered from Siberia to Ceylon.
292. Q. Was he born a Buddhist?
A. No, he was converted in the tenth year after his anointment as King, by Nigrodha Samanera, an Arhat.
293. Q. What did he do for Buddhism?
A. He drove out bad Bhikkhus, encouraged good ones, built monasteries and dāgobas everywhere, established gardens, opened hospitals for men and animals, convened a council at Patna to revise and re-establish the Dharma, promoted female religious education, and sent embassies to five Greek kings, his allies, and to all the sovereigns of India, to preach the doctrines of the Buddha. It was he who built the monuments at Kapilavastu, Buddha Gāya, Isipatana and Kusinārā, our four chief places of pilgrimage, besides thousands more.
294. Q. What absolute proofs exist as to his noble character?
A. Within recent years there have been discovered, in all parts of India, fourteen Edicts of his, inscribed on living rocks, and eight on pillars erected by his orders. They fully prove him to have been one of the wisest and most high-minded sovereigns who ever lived.
29.5. Q. What character do these inscriptions give to Buddhism?
A. They show it to be a religion of noble tolerance, of universal brotherhood, of righteousness and justice. It has no taint of selfishness, sectarianism or intolerance. They have done more than anything else to win for it the respect in which it is now held by the great pandits of western countries.
296. Q. What most precious gift did Dharmāshoka make to Buddhism?
A. He gave his beloved son, Mahinda, and daughter, Sanghamitta, to the Order, and sent them to Ceylon to introduce the religion.
297. Q. Is this fact recorded in the history of Ceylon?
A. Yes, it is all recorded in the Mahāvansa, by the keepers of the royal records, who were then living and saw the missionaries.
298. Q. Is there some proof of Sanghamitta's mission still visible?
A. Yes; she brought with her to Ceylon a branch of the very Bodhi tree under which the Buddha sat when he became Enlightened, and it is still growing.