Buddhism and Christianity: A Parallel and a Contrast

351. The beginning of the dissensions is related in Kullavagga vii. with much legendary adornment. There too, in vii. 5, and in Mahavagga, x. 1. 6, the distinction is drawn between “dissension” and “schism,” and the woe predicted for the breaker-up of the Sangha when it was at peace: “He is boiled for a kalpa in Niraya, doomed for so long to a penance of misery.” The reconciler of a divided Sangha was made happy for a kalpa in heaven.

352. T. W. Rhys Davids, Handbook of Buddhism, p. 182.

353. Beal, Chinese Buddhism, p. 101: “a worship of association and memory.”

354. Agni. Indra, Sūrya; Kern, Buddhismus, vol. ii. p. 156; Sir Monier Williams, Buddhism, p. 175.

355. “A being whose essence (sattva) has become intelligence (bodhu) derived from self-enlightening intellect, and who has only once more to pass through human existence before attaining Buddhahood.”—Eitel, Sanskrit-Chinese Dict., p. 26; Sir Monier Williams’ Buddhism, p. 98.

356. Wassilief, Le Bouddhisme, etc., pp. 124 seq.; Burnouf, Le Lotus de la bonne Loi, p. 302.

357. Nâgârdjuna, the Nagasēna of the Milindipanha, was the chief representative, if not founder, of one of the Mahāyāna Schools. He has been regarded as a mythical personage, and the name has been supposed to be the generic one of various authors and doctors of the system. For an account of Hināyāna and Mahāyāna doctrine, with its subdivisions, see Wassilief, Le Bouddhisme, etc., pp. 9 seq., 118 seq.; Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, pp. 19-57. Nâlanda must have been a very important centre in Buddhist times.—Fergusson, Tree and Serpent Worship, p. 79.

358. Dr. Edkins says about 190 A.D.

359. Burnouf, Introd. à l’histoire du Bud. Ind.vol.i.pp. 220, 224 (Paris, 1844); also Burnouf, Le Lotus de la bonne Loi, chap. xxiv. pp. 261-268; also Appendix III. pp. 498-511 (Paris, 1852).

360. Müller, Gifford Lectures, Natural Religion, p. 543; Dr. Beal, Buddhism in China, p. 123; Sir Monier Williams, Buddhism, p. 195.

361. Hodgson, Illustrations of the Literature and Religion of the Buddhists, p. 30; Burnouf, Introduction, etc., pp. 116-121; also in note at p. 118, quoting Hodgson.

362. Though strong affinities exist between Gnosticism and Buddhism, which may indicate later connection, in their origin they appear to have been quite distinct. The methods, aims, and terminology of Gnosticism, all betoken derivation from purely Western sources. It is quite possible that Gnosticism may have given Adi-Buddha to the East, but the question of their relations is still undetermined. See Weber, Hist. Ind. Lit.p. 309; Obry’s Nirvana, etc., p. 161; Bishop Lightfoot, Essay on the Essenes (Epistle to Colossians), p. 157; Home and Foreign Review, vol. iii. pp. 143 seq. (1863).

363. Sir Monier Williams, Buddhism, p. 203; Dr. Beal, Chinese Buddhism, p. 128; Dr. Eitel, Lectures, p. 98.

364. Kullavagga, v. 21. 4; Sacred Books of the East, vol. xx.

365. Introd. § vi. p. 558: “La plume se refuse à transcrire des doctrines aussi misérables quant à la forme, qu’odieuses et dégradantes pour le fond.”

366. Âryasanga, founder of the Yôgacharya or contemplative system of Mahāyāna (circa 400 A.D.). For an account of his doctrine, see Wassilief, Le Boudd. pp. 288 seq., and Schlagintweit, Bud. in Tibet, pp. 39 seq., 46 seq.; Rhys Davids, Buddhism, p. 207 seq.

367. A writer in the Nineteenth Century, October 1889, professes to describe the testimony of the only reporter who has written of Lhása since Huc and Gabet were expelled from it forty-five years ago. According to this witness, the Church is now actually in grip of the State, though nominally dominant. Of five members of the Council of the Grand Lama four are laymen, superior military officers, with the Regent at their head. Till the Grand Lama is eighteen years of age, the Regent is supreme, and for sixty years, not a single Grand Lama, chosen as an infant, has survived his eighteenth birthday!!

368. Buddhism, however, introduced into Tibet the benefits of the art of writing, the reduction of its language to an alphabet, and grammar; and not only the sacred literature represented by the collection of the Kandjur, but the very miscellaneous literature of the Tandjur. Several of its Buddhist missionaries and the kings who favoured them were really great men. Kublai Khan and the first Lamistic Pope Phags-pa, 1259-94, rendered lasting service to the cause of civilisation. See Köppen’s Die Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche, being vol. ii. of his celebrated and most laborious work, Die Religion des Buddha; T. W. Rhys Davids, Art. Lamaism, Encyc. Brit. vol. xiv.; Sir Monier Williams, Buddhism, pp. 262-302.

369. The most recent and reliable information as to this perverted form of Buddhism—if it is to be called Buddhism, for it seems to be no more Buddhism than Vandoux worship can be called Christianity—will be found in the works of T. W. Rhys Davids; Sir Monier Williams, Buddhism; Babu Sarat Chunder Das, “Religious Hist. of Thibet,” Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng. 1881; Life and Works of Alex. Csoma de Koros, Th. Duka, Lond. 1885; E. Colborne Baber, Travels and Researches in Western China; Bushell’s “Hist. of Thibet,” Journ. R.A.S. vol. xii. 1878-79.

370. An invocation of Avalôkitês’vara, who is believed to have delivered it to the Tibetans.—Klaproth, Fragments Bouddhiques, p. 27; Hodgson, Illustrations, p. 171; Charles Loring Brace, Gesta Christi, p. 455.

371. Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, pp. 227-272.

372. Chinese Review, vol.xi.p. 162; Beal, Buddhism in China, p. 233.

373. Once when a heathen asked Hillel to show him the whole Jewish religion in a few words, he replied, “Do not unto others what thou wouldst not should be done unto thee.” Kuenen’s Religion of Israel, p. 243 (quotes Talmud, Sabbath, 31 a.)

374. See Isaiah xxxii. 5, 6. Socrates says in Phaedo, “to use words wrongly and indefinitely is not merely an error in itself; it also creates evil in the soul.” A vast amount of mischief is done by the misapplication of good adjectives to bad subjects. All true reformers, with Confucius, labour for a rectification of names.

375. Shu King, Shi King, Pref. and Introd. pp. 1-27, by Dr. Legge; Sacred Books of the East, vol. iii.

376. Mémoire sur la Vie et les Opinions de Lao-tsze.

377. Translation of the Tâo-teh-King, under the title, Le Livre de la Voie et de la Vertu.

378. μέθοδος, Prof. Douglas, Confucianism and Taoism, p. 189.

379. It is very interesting to find, so long before Christianity, and so far from its cradle, this fundamental rule in Christian morals. In the Book of Proverbs its enunciation may have preceded that in the Tao-teh-King in point of time; but its being uttered at the end of the world, along with the “golden rule” of Confucius, prove how essentially one are the moral instincts of humanity.

380. Dr. Legge’s Preface to vol. iii. of Sacred Books of the East, p. xxi; also Art. Lao-tsze, Encyc. Brit. vol. xiv.

381. Dr. Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, pp. 128, 202; Beal, Introduction to Fa-Hian, p. 27.

382. Douglas, Confucianism, p. 84; Beal, Buddhism in China, p. 235; Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 333.

383. In the whole range of the Catacombs no crucifix, and only very few crosses have been found, and these generally in a disguised form. The communion of the early Church was with Christ risen and triumphant; it was only when the spirit and fervour of worship declined that it made so much of the crucifixion.—Northcote and Brownlow’s Abridgment of De Rossi’s Roma Sotterranea; Smith and Cheetham, Dict. of Christian Antiq., Art. Catacombs, pp. 294 seq.; Witherow, Catacombs, pp. 260, 281.

384. The efficiency of relic-worship may be said to have been established as early as the fourth century. Julian compares the churches to whited sepulchres, full of dead men’s bones. Development of image-worship proceeded pari passu with the erection of fine churches and their adornment with painting and sculpture. There were all along strong protests from individual bishops, and even prohibitions by Councils, but the fashion was too strong for their fulminations. Even in the eighth century the iconoclastic reformation of Leo the Isaurian was too late. His zeal, moreover, was wrongly directed. He assailed high art, and condemned only the truly fine paintings, sparing the ruder and more ancient productions, and leaving untouched the worship of and disgraceful traffic in relics, real and spurious. It is not to be wondered at that in opposition to all this Gregory in the West became the champion of art as an aid to devotion.—Milman, Lat. Christianity, vol. ii. p. 152.

385. In protesting against the Mass, the Reformed Churches maintain the universal priesthood, and therefore perpetual sacrifice, of the visible Church. As Christ’s witness on earth, the Church must be always offering itself, in thanksgiving for its own redemption, for the salvation of the world.

386. Fergusson, Tree and Serpent Worship, p. 67; Cunningham, Bhilsa Topes, p. 130.

387. Dr. Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 126; Judges vi. 31.

388. Originally called Bódhitara, but renamed by his teacher Payantara, in token of his religious “insight.” He is said to have brought to China the famous alms-bowl, which all the Buddhas of the Kalpa have used, and will use, and whose final disappearance will indicate that the religion is about to perish. Thus Buddhism has also its San Greal. Bôdiharma is called the “wall-gazing Brahman,” though a Kshatrya, because on his arrival in China he spent nine years in silent meditation.—Eitel, Sanskrit Chinese Dict. p. 24.

389. Dr. Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 130.

390. Men who have in vain sought God without have happily found Him in the witness of their own conscience and affection, but generally they who conceitedly reject the revelation without them only obscure the seeing faculty within. “When mysticism threw off external authority it went mad, as in the revolutionary pantheism of the Middle Ages. When it incorporated itself more and more in revealed truth, it became a benign power—as on the eve of the Reformation.”—Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, vol. ii. p. 356.