Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c12.s3.60

v1.c12.s3.60

The last factor but not the least was the resort to occult powers to bring conviction home to the minds of the unconvinced and make them converts. In writing of the spread of a religion, or the life of a founder of a religion, scholars, as a rule, leave this factor out of account, as it is not looked upon as in keeping with the standpoint of the present-day material sciences. It may be said that if once the possession and use of the occult powers be admitted and believed, there will be no criterion by which to sift out the actual expression of the occult powers from the fiction with which the credulous writers would in course of time mix them up, and in consequence, the grossest absurdities will have credence. But apart from the question as to which of the exhibitions of such powers are to be believed and which to be disbelieved, the point that has to be settled is whether it is reasonable to leave altogether out of account a factor without which there would certainly be left a gap in the aggregate of causes that are responsible for the degree and range of influence of a particular religion at a particular time. We often notice in the account of the life of the founder of a religion or its branch that mere appeals to the intellect and reason often fail to convince a person of the truth of a statement or the power of the arguer to lead to the path that takes one to the *summum bonum* of human life. Argumentators, however powerful, are often found to cause bitterness of feeling unless they are aided by other factors including the one under discussion. An exemplary character, a persuasive tongue, acuteness of intelligence, self-abnegation and other elements that make a strong and imposing personality are not sufficient to produce the results that were actually achieved by the founders of religions like Christ, Buddha, Muhammad, and others. A single leper healed by the mere touch of Christ, the power of vision restored to a single blind man are more effective in the spread of a religion than numberless victories in disputations. In the missionary career of Buddha and of his disciples we meet with many cases where arguments failed to achieve the desired ends, and ultimately, resort was taken to occult powers. Buddha utilized his occult powers (pātihāriya) in three ways, viz. iddhis (the ṛddhis of the Hindu Yogaśāstras) which impressed his audience with awe at the sight of physical manifestation of powers ostensibly in transgression of the natural laws, ādesanā or the exhibition of power of thought-reading; and anusāsanī or the warning to a person to give up his discursive or evil thoughts revealed to Buddha through thought-reading.¹ He foresaw the abuses incidental to the cultivation and use of such powers by his disciples, for many of them might be in a lower plane of spiritual culture and utilize them for selfish ends. To avoid such abuses, he strictly enjoined his disciples not to display such powers before the householders.²