Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c12.s1: (1) Time of the advent of Buddhism
Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c12.s1
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(1) Time of the advent of Buddhism
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The rise of Buddhism took place at an opportune time when not only India with her brāhmanic and non-brāhmanic teachers but also Greece, Persia and China were experiencing a stir in religious matters through the advent of Socrates with his distinguished pupils and contemporary philosophers in Greece, of Zoroaster in Persia, and of Lao-tse and Confucius in China. In India the elaboration of the brāhmanic sacrifices accompanied with the killing of hundreds of victims had grown into a highly complex system of ritualism, and there also appeared the brāhmanic thinkers who began to question whether, after all, the offerings to the gods, with their laborious construction of altars and collection of numberless requisites, recitations of mantras, chanting of hymns, expiation of errors in the rituals, really achieved the objects for which they were performed? The sacrifices, if rightly performed, were believed as able to secure for the performers not only wealth, health, long life and strength, the good will and grace of the gods in this world, and happiness in the next, but also final beatitude or emancipation. But there were the dubious who began to question within themselves whether there was not the chance of this belief being wrongly based. Side by side with the elaborate rituals performed by the householders, for celebrating the sacrifices there were provisions for shortened forms of them, as also of mere cogitation of the Supreme, unaccompanied with any rituals, e.g., for the Vānaprasthas and the Yatis. If these latter were right in the pursuit of the course prescribed for them, could not a similar course suited to the masses, but devoid of, or accompanied only, with very simple rituals, be prescribed for the house-holders? Similar views, more or less developed and opposed to the karmakāṇḍa of the Brāhmaṇas and specially to the cruel slaying of animals in the sacrifices, were already in the air before Buddha arose to preach his doctrines.¹ Brāhmanism allowed various shades of philosophic and religious views to grow up within its fold without taking objection to their existence within its limits. But the key to the reception of this toleration lay in the fact that the dissentient view, side by side with its opposition to one or more of the brāhmanic doctrines, showed its allegiance to one or more of the ultimate fundamental tenets of brāhmanism such as the admission of sanctity of the Vedas, belief in their being revealed books, worship of any of the brāhmanic gods as such, recognition of the Varṇāśramas and submission to the authority of the brāhmaṇas. But there was a limit to the degree to which the heresy of its views could be carried by a brāhmanic sect as such. This limit was crossed by Buddha, who stood up as a rock to stop the flow of the religion in order to direct the faiths of the people along the channels of his own.
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¹ See *ante*, p. 13; Barua, *Pre-Buddhistic Indian Philosophy*, p. 193-4.
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He preached that religious truths lay not in the sacrifices, not in the Vedic works which prescribed these sacrifices, not in the worship of the many deities of brāhmanic pantheon, not in the observance of the caste-rules, not in the magical practices of the *Atharva Veda*, not in the extreme forms of self-mortifications, and not, in short, in the many other pet beliefs and practices (the *sīlabbataparāmāsa*)¹ that came as corollaries to an allegiance to the bases of brāhmanic faiths, but in self-culture ‘culminating in *arhatship*’ which constitutes the key-stone of Buddhism.²
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¹ One of the fundamental conditions for becoming a *sotāpanna* is to give up the belief in the efficacy of rituals, the other two being the eschewing of *sakkāyadiṭṭhi* (the heresy of individuality) and *vicikicchā* (doubt as opposed to firm faith in Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha).
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² Rhys Davids, *Hibbert Lectures*, p. 29. “For the first time in the history of the world, it proclaimed a salvation which each man could gain for himself in this world, during this life, without any the least reference to the God, or to gods, either great or small