On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c8.s7.5

v1.c8.s7.5

This passage contains several phrases and expressions which may seem to require some comment or explanation. Thus in the first sentence we are told that Buddha's "religious system is apprehended by people according to their kind (如來理孝隨類得解)", that is, every one understands Buddha's teaching according to his individual nature and capacity. The statement is derived from the canonical Scriptures in which we are told that the Buddha preached in one language, but that all kinds of creatures understood him in their own ways. He spoke, we are told, the "Aryan language" but Chinese, and Yavans, and the peoples of Bactria and Bokhara, heard him as speaking in their own tongues. Moreover each man in a congregation which the Buddha addressed heard his own besetting sin reproved, and the same words called the unchaste to chastity and the avaricious to liberality.¹ This may have been right, and attended with only good consequences while the Buddha was bodily present among men, teaching and preaching and giving rules and precepts. But at Yuan-chuang's time a long period had elapsed since the decease of the Buddha. His teachings had been collected, committed to writing, transmitted and preserved with very unequal faithfulness. Great differences of opinion also had arisen as to whether certain doctrines were or were not the Buddha's teaching. Hence in Yuan-chuang's time the orthodox religion as professed in India was genuine or adulterated according to the moral and intellectual characters of its professed adherents. Some held to what they were taught to believe was the original Canon settled by the first Council. Others doubted and argued, wrested Scripture from its proper meaning to suit their personal views, and lightly admitted spurious texts to have authority.