Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c12.s4: 4. The Original Element in Buddhism
Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c12.s4
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4. The Original Element in Buddhism
c12.s4.1
The research of origins must not blind us to the essential fact that there was something new in Buddhism, though it must serve to warn us against too hasty conclusions as to what that new element was. We cannot, it must be admitted, claim for Buddhism the conception of causation as something new; the Sāṃkhya-Yoga had clearly mastered this conception, and had developed also the idea of the world as a process of becoming applicable to what we regard as psychic happenings; the Yoga also had reached the conception of all nature as impermanent, misery, subject to change, not-self. The further development of the idea by Buddhism was accompanied by the refusal to regard as within the sphere of legitimate inquiry the nature of what, if anything, lay behind the world we know. This agnostic element, not in itself original, leaves the way open to the mystery of Nirvāṇa, which some accept as covering nothingness, while others can treat as something ineffable, and an idea whose mere existence is enough to satisfy all desires.
c12.s4.2
Unquestionably, however, the moral training of the Buddhist system is marked by superiority to that of the Yoga, however deeply penetrated it may be by influences of the latter. The conviction of misery in Buddhism is real; it demands and receives serious treatment; both conduct and intuition are requisite for its removal, and conduct and intuition alike are aided by the development of the order in which one succours another by aid and advice. Whatever the defects of monastic organization, the root idea was valuable, and even for the laity something was done, though the Buddha had no such faith as would render it possible to lay down a doctrine applicable to all aspects of life. In the Yoga, on the other hand, the misery of spirit is after all an idle misconception; in truth there is no misery, and spirit is not bound in matter. Its philosophy remains, therefore, far less real in its influence on life and thought than Buddhism. The contrast is sufficiently seen in the missionary enterprise of Buddhism, a conception for which the cold intellectualism of the Sāṃkhya and Yoga has no place.
c12.s4.3
Yet it would be idle to suppose that these merits would have secured Buddhism its vast success and popularity save for the personality of its founder. He appeared, we must recognize, in an age when individuality had become recognized, when in India as in other lands powerful personalities were appearing and attracting respect and creating schools. Did he preach and practice love to mankind with a fervour which is almost wholly lost in the mechanical exercises of the production of the feeling of universal love which later Buddhism inculcates? Was he conscious of a mission beyond human power, and did he claim a divinity which Indian thought would readily concede to spiritual earnestness beyond normal measure? Our answer must vary with our individuality; one thing at least we must admit; despite its philosophical weaknesses and its incoherences, the founder of Buddhism must rank as one of the most commanding personalities ever produced by the eastern world.