Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c7.100

c7.100

Some mention of religion must be made. The universal and state religion even under most of the Tamil kings* was Buddhism. Any detailed account of Buddhism would be out of place here; and the information is easily obtained elsewhere. But this much should be understood, that it is a moral philosophy, founded by the great reformer, Gotama Buddha (d. 543 B.C.), and distinguished more or less clearly from the Brahmanical Hinduism on which it is founded, by its condemnation of ritual observances and sacrifices, its rejection of all kinds of animism, its insistence on the equality and brotherhood of all men, and by its monastic institutions. The existence of gods and heavens is not denied, but they, like man and earth, are not eternal, and do not give the highest unchanging bliss; those whose merits bring them even to the highest heavens are not freed from the necessity for rebirth in this or other worlds. The existence of individual souls is denied, as is also that of a God or creator. Personal existence is an evil; the goal before all humanity is the attainment of an unconditional state free from the operation of causality, and called Nirvāṇa; this state is beyond the range of perception of gods and unenlightened men. It corresponds to the fourth state of the Vēdāntist, of union with Brahma, that is Being, of which nought else can be predicated save existence. But many Southern Buddhists hold Nirvāṇa to be strictly annihilation, there being no remainder when the elements composing individuality are dispersed.