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Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24: Chapter XVII. The Doctrine of Salvation, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas

Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24

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English

Contents

Chapter XVII. The Doctrine of Salvation, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas

1. The Problem of Salvation

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THE metaphysics of the Mahāyāna in the incoherence of its systems shows clearly enough the secondary interest attaching to it in the eyes of the monks, whose main interest was concentrated on the attainment of release; the Mahāyāna no less than the Hīnayāna is concerned vitally with this practical end, and its philosophy is of value merely in so far as it helps men to attain their aim.

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Now the knowledge of the ultimate truth, whatever the system, is not to be regarded as adequate to secure for man the release for which he hopes. It is true that both Vijñānavāda and Madhyamaka assert that release is possible, despite the formidable or insuperable difficulties which the metaphysics of either system presents to such an event. But both realize far too clearly the substantial existence of the world of phenomena to be under the impression that mere knowledge is always and in every case the mode of attaining enlightenment. There is a precise parallel between their view and that of the Vedānta; at a definite stage in the progress of the saint, there comes the period when the true knowledge is of decisive value in winning him release, but it is at the due stage only that such a result can be achieved. The Vedāntin must not neglect the duties of the world in which he lives, or ignore the devotion due to Brahmā; the Buddhist equally must not think that mere knowledge of the void¹ dispenses him from the practice of the noblest of virtues, that of charity. Granted that it is true that in ultimate truth there is no distinction between virtue and vice, between infection of thought and purification, the vicious man so taught will pursue the way to destruction, while the good man will realize that all action is unreal, and will continue to do good, but with absolute detachment and freedom from desire of any kind.

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¹ Or of the Brahman in the case of the Vedāntin. Compare the *Bhagavadgītā* doctrine of action; Poussin, JA. 1903, ii. 385 ff. See Ç., p 117, citing the *Ratnacūḍa Sūtra*.

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The end, it is true, is the destruction of the illusion which veils the absolute void, or the void intellect, but it is impossible to deal with the illusion by the simple process of denying its reality. If there is no reality in consciousness, as the Madhyamaka asserts, nonetheless we must face the necessity of removing the illusion of reality, and the problem therefore is not seriously altered or simplified.¹ We must lay aside our knowledge that experience is false, because it is experience, and that all ideas on examination prove unreal because of the antinomies they contain, and pursue a knowledge (darçana), inferior indeed but indispensable, which will take account of the facts of experience, and find a path or vehicle or means to attain to the deliverance which is desired.

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¹ BCA. ix. 4 ff.

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In a concrete form the problem may be posed as the method of reversing the chain of causation, and thus terminating the constant stream of lives. In the Hīnayāna the process, as we have seen, is simple enough in its operation. Each intellectual series or individual stands by himself as a causal sequence; there is no room in the conception for either the intervention of a deity, for freedom of will, or for human solidarity. It is the great achievement of the Mahāyāna that it has succeeded without too great violence to earlier ideas in finding a place both for human freedom and for solidarity among men and beings of higher order of merit. The method to attain such an end was presented by the floating character of the distinction between relative truth and imaginary knowledge; either was, from the point of view of absolute truth, without validity, and the boundary line between the two classes was difficult to draw, affording the Mahāyāna the opportunity to redefine the conception of truth and advance to the rank of relative reality matters once relegated to the position of mere imagination.

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In accord with the Hīnayāna, the Mahāyāna holds that the mode of stopping the activity of the chain of causation demands essentially the co-operation of intuition (*prajñā*) and merit (*puṇya*). Intuition, viewed as the cause of release, involves study, reflection, meditation, and the diverse forms of applications of active attention (*smṛty-upasthāna*);¹ merit includes the inferior perfections of morality, generosity, and patience, and with this are connected the taking of refuge in the jewels, the Buddha, the law, and the order. Strictly speaking, merit is a means, but intuition as cause and merit are reciprocally means to each other, and their common aim is the attainment of intuition as fruition—that is, illumination (*bodhi*), the definite cessation of the activity of thought, or release.²

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¹ See Mvy. 38; *Dharmasaṃgraha*, 44; Ç., ch. xiii, xiv for details.

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² BCAP. ix. 1. The possibility of a sterile act is recognized in KV. xii. 2.

2. The Equipment of Knowledge

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The essential cause of transmigration and bondage is the act accomplished with belief in the self; this delusion is the source of false views, of passion; it leads men to believe in the eternity or the destruction of the self, to love it or hate it. It is, then, essential to extirpate the delusion, to clear the mind of all the desires in which the self finds pleasure, and to realize the nothingness of all phenomena. But the task is a difficult one, for to achieve it directly involves an antinomy. The Vedāntin may desire release directly without injury, and may declare his identity with the absolute, because he is a believer in reality. But the Buddhist who seeks to be rid of the illusion of the self, or asserts boldly that he is void, is falling into the fatal error of holding as real, if not the self, at least the illusion of the self, and his action is in effect egoistic. The desire for non-existence (*vibhava-tṛṣṇā*) leads directly into the fatal heresy of belief in existence.³ The Jinas have declared the vacuity as the remedy for all false views, but those who falsely attach themselves to vacuity they have declared beyond redemption. What does not exist cannot be the subject of a negation; to deny unreal appearances is really to affirm them. Employed untimely, the idea of vacuity is no better than poison; it is to practise negation, which is in essence affirmation and involves the heresy of the doctrine of destruction, an idea utterly repugnant to the schools, which agree that, if the illusion of the self really existed, it would be eternal.

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³ Udāna, iii. 10; *Itivuttaka*, 49; AN. i. 83, ii. 11; MKV., p. 531; xxv. 10; BCAP. ix. 33; *Subhāṣitasaṃgraha*, JA. 1903, ii. 398; VP. i. 10; SN. v. 421; MN. i. 65; DN. ii. 308, iii. 216; DS., § 1314; SBB. ii. 340, n. 1; Beckh, *Buddhismus*, ii. 123. The sense is really clear.

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The destruction of the idea of the self is, therefore, hardly to be achieved by direct means; it must in some degree come about by itself, as the result of far back causes, and as the outcome of following the methods laid down by ancient teachers. Meditation on the void is necessary, despite the danger of the method, for mere insistence on the void is even more evil than insistence on reality. Properly managed, like a magic rite duly accomplished, it attains its end, for, after causing the idea of existence to disappear, it ends with producing the disappearance of the idea of non-existence also. Just so a man who suffers from ophthalmia, if he learns that there are no real hairs floating before his eyes, first conceives the idea of the non-existence of the hairs, but, acting as if he saw none, finally comes to ignore even the illusion. Similarly, meditation on non-existence leads on to further advance culminating in the realization of the voidness of the void (śūnyatā-śūnyatā), and the mind freed from the ideas of existence and non-existence will rest for ever in the absence of any content or categories. The essential aim is to repudiate either affirmation or negation, or the combination of both or the denial of both; this is as ever the true middle way of the Buddhist.¹

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¹ BCA. ix. 32, 35; BCAP. ix. 2; Mvy. 37; Dharmasaṃgraha, 41; MKV., p. 1; cf. BCA. ix 78.

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Nonetheless, it must be recognized that even the attainment of this way is not the absolute truth, for that is silence, unconsciousness, neither to be described in words nor to be comprehended by thought, which is burned in seeking to penetrate it.² The absolute is beyond speech, beyond knowledge, even that of the completely equipped Buddha, but it reveals itself to the Ārya, a conception closely parallel to the doctrine of the revelation of the absolute in the Vedānta.³

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² MKV., p. 57; BCA. ix. 2.

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³ BCAP. ix. 2; MKV., p. 373 (with n. 2).

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It is, however, fully realized in the Mahāyāna that, despite all elaboration of meditation, the attainment of the end is far more difficult than is suggested in the Hinayāna, where realization of the truth is presented as something comparatively simple, often to be achieved even in the present life. To attain a state of trance is possible, but there is constant need for effort, since consciousness is active, and even in unconscious ecstasy (asaṃjñi-samāpatti) it is apt to come into activity despite the utmost efforts of concentration on vacuity.¹ Even if one as a god attains the heaven of unconsciousness, there comes a time of awakening, just as, though infinitely more rapidly, the monk who attains trance must pass out of it. In face of this fact it is necessary to remember the other side of the picture of life. Our actions, until final enlightenment is reached, are ever active, compelling us to new births; if, then, it is so hard to attain full enlightenment, and if no action of our intelligence can directly effect it, as we have seen, it is all the more incumbent on us to practise morality, to aim at the production of the perfection of virtue, thus assuring ourselves of progressive happiness in the course of our lives, and rendering more and more favourable the change of release, if indeed we actually demand release, for the Mahāyāna is conscious that the demand of the average man is not for a mysterious and ineffable condition, but for the delights of happier lives to come. The pursuit of virtue thus enters into a new career of usefulness.

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¹ BCA. ix. 49. For this state cf. Mvy. 68, 104; Dharmasaṃgraha, 82; MKV., p. 48. The Andhakas assert consciousness even of gods in it, KV. iii. 11 f.

3. The Equipment of Merit

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Merit lies in the abstention from evil, and the performance of good. True, both good and evil are ultimately unreal, like release and transmigration themselves,² but this consideration has no validity for practice, since practice itself is unreal in the same sense; granted evil be unreal, still the doer fetters himself in unreal chains and prolongs the misery of conscious existence unreal as it is. Good action is also unreal, but to practise it ends in aiding enlightenment. Experience shows, then, that to deal with illusion we must accept illusion and combat it by itself, not by the mere occasional introduction of recognition of its illusory nature.

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² See BCA. ix. 8 ff. : thought is an illusion, but one difficult to be rid of; it has produced the false Vijñānavāda belief (ix. 15 ff.); ix. 78.

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What is good, and what evil? The Mahāyāna, as little as the Hīnayāna, develops any theory of the nature of good or evil; good results, it is true, in a pleasant future existence, evil in misery, but there is no attempt to work out the goodness or badness of acts on the basis of their results; on the contrary, it is no doubt rather¹ the truth that an action brings pleasure because it is good, not is good because it brings pleasure, and we have the formal doctrine that an act performed for the sake of pleasure in this life is unmeritorious. But in general the view of Buddhism is that of popular morality; a standard of morals is assumed as recognized, and the Buddhist would be a fool indeed if he could not recognize what even a Cāṇḍāla understands.² But in detail the subject is difficult; we have seen the conflict of schools on the question of the position of volition in sin, and it is necessary that merit should be relative to the end which is release. But, fortunately, the Mahāyāna need not rely on reason to decide what is necessary, for the Buddha is an authority whose words will give the necessary guidance to practice, or at any rate suggest the requisite principles.³

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¹ Poussin, JA. 1903, ii. 405; AKV. (Paris MS.), f. 236 b.

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² BC. vii. 19; cf. Çlokavārttika, p. 209.

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³ Cf. ch. ii, § 1.

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It is necessary, then, to avoid the sins forbidden by the Buddha, to escape from desire, hatred, dullness, and to attain calm (çamatha); to be patient in suffering, recognizing the brevity of such human suffering, and valuing the opportunity afforded to show strength of character and recognition of the non-existence of the self. It is well to reflect on the misery of existence, the horrors of decomposition, the terrors of hell. True, these things are at best only relative reality, or even perhaps wholly imaginary—the product of a mere nightmare,⁴ but such reflections will stay the wicked from evil and anguish, and strengthen even the adept whose final success is hindered by imaginary terrors. They are means, ineffective in absolute reality, but for all practical ends fully accomplishing their purpose.

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⁴ MKV., p. 50.

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But these means are essentially negative, and the Mahāyāna has room for positive action. It is clear that neither intuition of vacuity nor charity or compassion (*karuṇā*) alone is sufficient to lead to the abandonment of existence (*sattva-tyāga*); without compassion vacuity is hard to comprehend; without intuition compassion may be carried too far by the force of passion. We have as emphatic an assertion as in the Hinayāna that intuition alone is not enough.¹ It is obvious that there is difficulty in demanding action from those aware of the vacuity of existence; the insensibility, the wooden immobility,² of the monk of the Hinayāna seems especially appropriate to the adept of the Mahāyāna, but this logical conclusion is not drawn. Instead, the resources of reason are used to establish the propriety of compassion and its efficacy; doubtless it was not by reasoning that the importance of compassion was arrived at; that was demanded by the needs of the heart, and the service rendered by reason was the adaptation of the conception to the system as a whole. Buddhist philosophy, like philosophy generally, exists not to create fundamental beliefs but to defend and explain them in systematic development. Nor pyschologically is it difficult to understand the combination of beliefs in the minds of Mahāyānists; to believe in the self is certainly a hindrance to love of one’s neighbour; to recognize the illusory character of all phenomena is no bad motive for compassion for all creatures

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¹ Ç., pp. 165, 270; *Pañcakrama*, vi. 7; the doctrine is specially Tantric; JA. 1903, ii. 412, n. 1; *Subhāṣitasamgraha*, *Muséon*, v (1904), 250.

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² Hardy, *Eastern Monachism*, p. 312; BCA. v. 50 ff.

4. The Virtue of Generosity or Compassion

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While insight by intense application of effort aims to eradicate the idea of being and the conception of the self, whose manifestations are directly attacked by the practice of calm of spirit (*çamatha*), generosity as a perfection (*pāramitā*) suppresses, by the abandonment of self-interest which it assumes, the manifestation of action and will; action thus serves effectively to destroy action.

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The giver must not give for any personal advantage; he must practise what he is to realize in theory, the absence of difference between himself and others: what distinction is there between my pain and another’s? If one should be relieved, so should that of another. He who loves himself must not love himself; to guard himself he must refrain from guarding himself. He must treat his neighbour precisely as himself.¹ We may support the idea by analogies; the pain which affects a limb is not that of the hand, yet the hand moves to relieve the injured member.² But a religious motive may have underlain the conception, and it is expressed frankly in Çāntideva;³ every sin committed by us is committed against the saints who suffer from it, and our only method to recompense these blessed benefactors is to show kindness to others.

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¹ BCA. viii. 90 ff.; Ç., p. 357.

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² BCA. viii. 91.

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³ BCA. vi. 119, 122, 124; cf. ii. 51, 54, 64 ff.

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But, whatever the origin of the sentiment, it can be recognized only if accommodated to the system, and, if this forbids egoism, it equally forbids altruism, and sees no merit in the simple pity of the human heart for distress.⁴ Altruism implies existence and is therefore fatal; there is no perfection, compassion, morality, patience (kṣānti), energy, concentration (sāmādhi), unless it be permeated by the essential intuition of nothingness; otherwise these virtues are blind and unavailing.⁵ The gift, therefore, to be useful must be accompanied by the threefold purity—recognition of the non-existence of the gift itself, of the giver, and of the recipient; it must be born of compassion, indeed, but also of vacuity.⁶ There is obvious difficulty in such a prescription; if there is no object to receive the gift, how can there be any giving? The answer⁷ is that the recipient is imagined (parikalpita) by an error which is admitted in view of an end to be obtained (kārya-moha). The true end, of course, is Buddhahood, exempt from all form of imagination, all obscuration; but this is impossible without abstention from all phenomena on the part of the mind. This can be realized only by a long course of perfection of intuition, and the origin of the course lies in compassion, which at first accepts the relative reality of the existence of a suffering being, then dwells on the suffering alone, without accepting the existence of a sufferer, and finally has no object whatever. There are, we must admit, the two realms of truth, absolute and relative; the Buddha as intuition is well aware that there is no reality in the world, but, when moved by compassion, his love for the world is that of a father for his sick child. In the Buddha there is no idea of existence, but his pity is overflowing for beings troubled by the misery of life. There is an object for compassion, in the shape of the empirical individual composed of the aggregates (skandhas), even if that individual has no absolute reality.

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⁴ BCA. iii. 22; v. 87.

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⁵ PP. in BCAP. ix. 2.

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⁶ BCAP. ix. 4; Ç., p. 271. So of love (maitrī), Ç., p. 212.

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⁷ BCA. ix. 76 with comm. Voidness means much more than freedom from lust, hate, and delusion (Ç. trs., p. 247, n. 2).

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But what is the end to be obtained which justifies the imagination of an individual? If there is no reality, how can any end be pursued? Is it not wrong to seek an illusion, since ignorance is essentially what must be laid aside to attain release? The answer is that there are two kinds of illusion: that which leads to implication in transmigration is evil, but that which holds out as our end the pursuit of the supreme truth with a view to save mankind is a noble belief to be commended and cherished. This element of seeking to assuage the sufferings of others robs the pursuit of enlightenment of its apparent egoism; the supreme end is to realize the vacuity of all things; but to attain this end it is necessary to accept the illusion of the end: the absolute truth must be approached through the realm of relativity.

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The practical effect of the doctrine is to encourage the ideal of compassion for all beings; the taking of the vow not to attain Buddhahood¹ until all creatures have been delivered is the logical outcome of the spirit of this reasoning; the true Bodhisattva cannot be delivered until all creatures are delivered, and egoism is thus entirely annihilated. Such general compassion demands great energy in giving, for which even study should be sacrificed.² But generosity has its own reward; the Çrāvaka claims that his meditation is the more rapid way of gaining release, but in truth the Mahāyānist attains enlightenment (bodhi) and Buddhahood more rapidly by his practice of generosity;³ when he takes the resolve to become a Buddha for the good of others, all his thoughts are dominated by the thought of enlightenment (bodhi-citta), all in him becomes meritorious, and the car of the Mahāyāna bears him inevitably to the enlightenment which he does not desire for himself but seeks to attain solely for others. From physical suffering he is exempt, since he sins not; from moral suffering because he has knowledge; while others strive vainly for unsatisfying ends, he has pure delight in his own action of compassion.¹

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¹ For its terms cf. cit. in Ç., pp. 14, 228; Sukhāvatīvyūha, §§ 8 ff.

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² BCA. v 101.

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³ BCA. vii. 29.

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¹ BCAP. ix. 76; BCA. i. 18 f.; vii. 27 f.; 63. On Bodhicitta, see JRAS. 1908, p. 891, correcting Suzuki, MB., pp. 52, 299 ff.; possessed of it, a man is Buddhagarbha, an embryo Buddha; Ç., p. 103.

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Compassion is a perfection of peculiar merit; while the rule is that the perfections should be practised in order of merit, an inferior being postponed to a superior, there is an exception for compassion, which is always permissible.² But what is more important, compassion excuses sin; it may be that its power is sufficient to turn desire, which else had secured torment in hell, into virtue rewarded by rebirth in the heaven of Brahmā; but even if it has not this power, yet a Bodhisattva will for the sake of compassion face the tortures of hell with alacrity.³ The way is thus opened for the rehabilitation in some measure of desire; there is admitted a noble pride, which consists in combating pride and claiming the performance of distressing duties; the Bodhisattva may enjoy the pleasures of life, but by his power of intuition still secure rebirth in Brahmā’s heaven; the virtue of charity covers a multitude of sins, while hatred is utterly condemned; there are means to counteract the errors of desire, which are hardly avoidable in the action of compassion.⁴

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² BCA. v. 83; Ç., p. 11.

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³ BCA. vi. 120; Ç., p. 167; cf. BCA. v. 42, 84.

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⁴ Ç., p. 165; on good māna see BCA. vii. 49, 54; cf. Mahāvastu, ii. 279; NP., p. 87. On hate see Ç., p. 165.

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Compassion, however, must not lead to folly in generosity; Çāntideva has no illusions as to the folly of the man who hands over his body to the wild beast for food when he could confer on others the precious gift of knowledge of the true faith. Excessive giving is reprobated; there must be borne in mind the good of beings in general; neither egoism nor indiscriminate action is wise. Charity is one thing in the novice, another in him who has entered effectively into the path of salvation. The Mahāyāna may exaggerate the virtues of generosity, as is natural in a community which lived on the exercise of that virtue by their patrons, but the relative sobriety of the doctrine is noteworthy.¹

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¹ Ç., pp. 19 ff.; cf. p. 281; BCA. viii. 105.

5. Devotion and the Transfer of Merit

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So far the doctrine of the Mahāyāna does not essentially depart from views which the Hīnayāna allows, however different the emphasis. But the principle, that illusion may be encouraged if it serves to dispel illusion, opens up the way to the development of new ideas, or rather the acceptance by Buddhist philosophy of ideas too popular to be banished by a sane creed, which seeks to save mankind. Popular religion believed that devotion to a god, be it Kṛṣṇa, Viṣṇu, or Çiva, would aid in securing heaven or even liberation; it believed in the divine grace which the Kaṭha Upaniṣad and the Vedānta recognize as means of salvation. The Hīnayāna could find no room for either conception; the Buddha is a dead man, not a living and gracious god; each man must accept the result of his own actions, must work out his own salvation. The Mahāyāna departs from the rigour of either dogma; it is useful and therefore legitimate for man to believe in Bodhisattvas and Buddhas² who are eager to save and who can transfer merit; it is useful for Bodhisattvas in their career to have the belief that their intention to save others is actually capable of fulfilment. The doctrines therefore are legitimate, but the question remains whether or not they are valid merely on the basis of imaginary (parikalpita) reality, or whether they can be deemed relatively real—that is, as real as the doctrines of momentariness and causation. As a religion the Mahāyāna accepted without hesitation the reality of devotion and transfer of merit; the philosophy of the school, as might be expected, follows in its footsteps with hesitation, and realization of the real incompatibility of the new faith with the old doctrines. True, it is possible to revise these doctrines, for we have now the maxim that whatever is well said is a saying of the Buddha, but it is difficult to pour new wine into old bottles, and we must bear in mind the strength of the tradition, which the Mahāyāna texts repeat: ‘the Tathāgata alone is the witness; the Tathāgata alone knows; I know not.’¹

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² ‘Those who worship the Bodhisattvas and read the Mahāyāna Sūtras are called the Mahāyānists’; I-Tsing (trans. Takakusu), p. 14.

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¹ Ç., p. 55.

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Hence we find a curious medley of aspects presented in the Mahāyāna. The doctrine of the act is asserted in full force, and refined: the injuries suffered by a Bodhisattva are no longer penalties of past crime; they are opportunities earned for him by his merits to display his perfections of virtue² and goodness. But the matter may be carried farther; we owe it to the law itself that we are able to attain salvation, for even if it is our own past action which has won for us our voyage in the ship of humanity across the ocean of misery, under the rule of the law, still without the law this fate could not be ours. To the law, therefore, to the Buddha who taught the law, and to the order in which it is visibly embodied, we owe respect and devotion, and in paying homage to the three jewels and to the relics and shrines of the Buddha we strengthen our intention of following in the footsteps of the master, just as we strengthen our meditations by every exercise of our powers.³

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² BCA. vi. 106. Cf. KV. xvi. 3: no one can give happiness or misery to another.

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³ BCA. vi. 112 ff. ; vii. 14 ; ix. 37 ; BCAP. ii. 49.

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This is in accord with even the Hinayāna, but the Mahāyāna recognizes in the Bodhisattvas, who are alive, the qualities which permit of true devotion. It is, indeed, asserted that these holy beings can do us no good that we have not merited, though they are styled as ‘loving without cause’ and ‘givers of fruits not asked’; but the essential fact is that we can profit ourselves by acts towards them which are openly and avowedly acts of pious worship and devotion. We owe them homage and adoration; we confess to them our sins: the misery we have caused to men is misery to the Bodhisattvas, the compassionate ones, and we admit our wrongdoing that the saints whom we have injured may pardon it.⁴ We rejoice in the merits acquired by the Bodhisattvas; we supplicate the Buddhas to light the lamp of the law, and beg them to delay their entry into Nirvāṇa in order that they may continue to save creatures. We apply also our merit for the benefit of others; we cannot in any other way serve the Bodhisattvas, who have no need of our devotion for themselves, but rejoice in the work of salvation. The culminating act of this devotional service or Bhadracaryā¹ is an action, the surrender of oneself to the Bodhisattvas and Buddhas (ātmabhāvaniryātanā),² a rite interesting because it is mentioned by the orthodox Buddhaghosa. The formula in Sanskrit is decisive of the spirit of the action: ‘I hand myself over to the Jinas, and to their sons, all in all. Accept me, ye sublime beings. With devotion (bhakti) I become your slave.’ We have in this the fullest acceptance of theism; the Bodhisattvas and their spiritual fathers, the Buddhas or Jinas, conquerors, are regarded as powerful to save, endowed with the power of forgiving sins. But we must not be deceived into believing that we are on the ground of relative truth; there is nothing to prove that we are in anything more than the region of imagination.

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⁴ BCA. vi. 119, 122, 124. Cf. Ç., pp. 160 ff.

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¹ See the Bhadracarīpraṇidhānagāthā (Leipzig, 1912); Ç., p. 290, emphasizes the features as confession of sin (pāpadecanā); delight in merit (puṇyānumodanā); and solicitation of the Buddhas (buddhādhyeṣaṇā); BCA. ii. 24 ff. ; iii. 1 ff. ; v. 98 f. ; x; Dharmasaṃgraha, 14 ; Adikarmapradīpa (in Poussin, pp. 106, 226 ff.) ; Srayambhū Purāṇa, pp. 117 f. ; MKV., p. 292, n. 4 (triṣkandhaka).

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² BCA. ii. 8 ; Sumaṅ. i. 231 ff.

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It is less certain if the transfer of merit (puṇya-pariṇāmanā) is to be deemed purely imaginary, or if it belongs to the realm of relative truth. For the transfer may be regarded as nothing more than the carrying to the logical extremity of the perfection of generosity; it is certainly no true gift that is given for one’s own advantage, and it is a logical result to conclude that the giver should will that the fruit of his giving, which accrues as the result of his unselfish gift, should pass to the recipient of the gift also.³ But a strongly religious aspect is introduced by the doctrine that by the transfer of merit one can best please the merciful Bodhisattvas and Buddhas; the sincerity of this belief in Śāntideva is unmistakable, and it is clear that the borderland between imaginary and apparent truth is reached in his view. The importance of the idea is capital; it is carried even to the grotesque;

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³ Cf. the Vedānta doctrine of indifference to the fruit of deeds (ihāmutraphalabhogavirāga). For the Hīnayāna denial of the Hetuvādin precursor of Pariṇāmanā see KV. xvi 3; on the term cf. Mahāyānaśraddh., p. 146; JRAS. 1908, p. 887. Cf. Ç., pp. 28 f., 170, 213, 296.

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nothing whatever—save enlightenment itself which reconciles altruism and egoism—should be sought for the self; even food which the layman enjoys, which the adept of the Hinayāna takes as nourishment, should be consumed merely to gratify the eighty-four thousand animalculae which live in the human organism. True, it is Buddhas alone who can be certain that they can transfer merit with success, but that does not prevent us from seeking to transfer ours, even if we err in our aim. The excellence of the cause excuses failures in performance.¹

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¹ BCAP. vi. 50. As to eating cf. Mil., pp. 367, 378; BCA. v. 85; Ç., p. 127.

6. The Doctrine of the Act and the Causal Series

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How far is it possible to reconcile the new doctrine with the metaphysical views of the Mahāyāna schools? The question is difficult, and not the less so because it is one which these schools themselves do not clearly pose or perhaps realize; in this, as always, Buddhist philosophy is content with partial enunciations and makes no effort to systematize its conceptions and reduce them to a coherent whole, even within the limits possible.

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From the point of view of the Vijñānavāda there seems no chance of permitting either divine intervention or the transfer of merit; it denies the external world; it admits only the existence of thought series, self-determining, and the whole apparatus of salvation cannot be accorded any real basis. The case is not so simple with the Madhyamaka, which accepts the double form of the chain of causation, internal and external, though it denies either any absolute reality. It is true that, though the intervention of external objects thus becomes possible and in a sense real, as real as the intellectual elements, strictly speaking the material universe ought to provide its material forms for the carrying into effect of the fruition of earlier actions; the eye should give vision for enjoyment or misery to a being who has merited such recompense, just as the embryo is formed in the womb to receive such and such a consciousness.² Such a scheme, it is plain, excludes rigidly the freedom of the will, or any solidarity between men or super-men; there exist, we admit, numerous series, some alive, some without life, each causally determined, but without true interaction of any sort or kind.

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² Poussin, JA. 1903, ii. 442 ff. His view that the Pali Abhidhamma recognizes this doctrine is clearly invalid in view of KV. xvii. 3, for xvi. 3 is limited in application, dealing only with a form of transfer doctrine, not

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But it does not seem that the Mahāyāna was content to rest in this position, though there is no formal abandonment of it.¹ We find, however, the chain of causation styled incomprehensible (acintya); compassion produces the knowledge of the true reality, despite the utter disparity of cause and effect; consciousness perceives an external object simultaneously.² Moreover, the problem of release is insoluble also; it appears that the thought of enlightenment contends with the sins of man,³ and that ultimately an innate tendency of the mind, without any effort being required, causes the balance to incline to the desired result. Is it not, then, possible that the mind whose resolves can mould nature should be able to affect other minds by the power of its will or desire? The formal application of one’s merit in the formula of truth (satya-vacana) avails to reanimate the dead; can it not equally create a good thought in the mind of another? Avalokita, we know, has consecrated his name for the comfort of all who invoke it,⁴ and, as Çāntideva tells us, ‘the Omniscient alone knoweth the incomprehensible path of action, in that he doth lead to release men even when they have abandoned thought of enlightenment.’⁵ There is room here for solidarity as well as liberty, but the Mahāyāna is too immeshed in its own negations to lead us to any effective development.

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¹ Poussin, JA. 1903, ii. 394, n. 2, 447 ff.

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² BCA. ix. 4; BCA. ix. 100. In the Nyāya Īçvara is incomprehensible, BCA. ix. 127, and so is the Buddha’s law and the happiness of his life; Ç., pp. 260, 213.

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³ BCA. iv. 11; cit. in Bhāmatī, p. 25; JBRAS. xviii. 343.

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⁴ BCA. viii. 118.

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⁵ BCA. iv. 27.

7. The Career of the Bodhisattva

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On the basis of these confused reasonings and practices is built the imposing edifice of the career of the Bodhisattva, whose being generally with action as uncaused by anything extraneous to itself, so that it does not affect the denial of action from action in xvii. 3. Truth to tell, the problem is not clearly envisaged. Cf. p. 173.

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is enlightenment because he aims at that end in the form of Buddhahood. The Bodhisattva is indeed the characteristic feature of the Mahāyāna, the ideal which distinguishes it from the Hinayāna with its conception of the Arhant intent on his own salvation in the attainment of Nirvāṇa. The path of the Bodhisattva appears, indeed, sometimes as the only true way of salvation; the ideal of the Hinayāna is essentially merely a stage on the route which is mistaken by the Çrāvakas for the reality, even as travellers are cheered on their way by the sight of a magic city created by the clever leader of the caravan; we are all sons of the Buddha, and Buddhas to be, but we may long fail to realize the high glory to which we are called, and think even the reward of Nirvāṇa far too great for our humble merits. The supreme meditation of the Hinayāna is deemed but a preliminary exercise (bālopacārika) by the Vijñānavāda of the Laṅkāvatāra. The Hinayāna indeed commits the fundamental error of not realizing the difficulty of realizing the truth, for he does not understand the truth; he accepts the non-existence of the self, he strives to eliminate desire. But he believes in the aggregates as real, he accepts misery as real, and he does not know that in thought there is the food which nourishes desire for ever. To destroy thought is essential, and that is far from easy even for those who know that all is void; it is impossible for the Çrāvaka; all his efforts in earth can procure him merely a few minutes of unconsciousness, or if he die in trance—no easy matter—rebirth in the world of the unconscious gods, which again is a mere transitory state, one into which the Buddha has never deigned to enter. There is absurdity also in the idea that the desire of Nirvāṇa is anything else save egoistic; the Çrāvaka goes a very little way in his conception of the true dangers of egoism which his own career too closely illustrates.¹

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¹ BCA. viii. 145.

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The true ideal is a very different one, that of the search for enlightenment undertaken for the sake of others without any touch of egoism, and prolonged for three incalculable (asaṃkhyeya)² periods, during which the Bodhisattva develops the perfections of virtue, above all generosity and charity, for the benefit of others. The idea is not wholly strange to the Hīnayāna; we have the Buddha’s own authority for the advent of Maitreya, but it is in the latest phase alone, the Jātakas and the Abhidharmakoça, that, the idea becomes distinct. The legend of Pūrṇa,¹ in outline canonical, however, reveals the spirit of the new faith; suddenly converted, the monk demands a summary of the doctrine that he may straightway teach others the doctrine of salvation, and his chosen field of work is the barbarous people of Ṣroṇāparantaka, where he is assured of suffering. The later version of the legend accords to him some of the distinctive marks of the Buddha himself, proof of his extraordinary merit. With this legend accord the birth-tales of the Buddha, destined to exhibit the superhuman generosity and compassion which mark him out, a trace perhaps of a real characteristic of a master of whom, despite the Canon, we know personally so little that seems real. But in the Hīnayāna these elements are indeed of secondary importance, and do not alter the essential fact that the ideal set before us is the Arhant and Nirvāṇa.

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² See Poussin, Bouddhisme, p. 294, n. 1.

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¹ SN. iv. 60; MN. iii. 267; Divyāvadāna, pp. 24 ff, For the same ideas in Mahāyāna cf. BCA. viii. 125-9, 134-6, 173, 174; Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, x. 25.

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The Bodhisattva, on the other hand, has chosen a very different lot; of himself, or rather at the suggestion of the Buddhas, for such a resolve is too sublime for human conception unaided, he has taken the vow, which Ṣākyamuni and all the Buddhas have taken before him, to become a Buddha—for the Buddhas alone can save beings—and to accumulate for salvation the vast store of merits of the career of a Buddha to be. This involves the utter renunciation of the temptation to enter Nirvāṇa, and the resolution to remain in transmigration for incalculable ages, and to sacrifice himself entirely to others. This is the undertaking of the thought of enlightenment, and the solemn vow is preceded by calm deliberation on the deeds to be done and the sufferings to be endured, followed by the paying of homage to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.² The formula in one version³ runs: ‘I, N.N., in the presence of my master, N. N., and of all the Buddhas, produce the thought of enlightenment. I apply to the acquisition of the quality of the perfect Buddha the merit of my confession, of my taking refuge in the three jewels, Buddha, the law and the order, and of my production of the thought of enlightenment. May I in this universe of creatures, at a time when no Buddha appears, be the refuge, the shelter, the safety, the island of creatures; may I make them cross the ocean of existences. I adopt as mother, father, brothers, sons, sisters, all creatures. Henceforth for the happiness of creatures I will practise with all my power generosity, morality, patience, energy, meditation, knowledge, skill in the means of salvation. I am a Buddha to be. May my master accept me as a Buddha to be.' A formal acceptance by the master completes the rite.

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² BCA. ii. 7; iii. 6-21.

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³ Bodhisattvaprātimokṣa in Poussin, op. cit., p. 303. Cf. Bodhicitta of Vasubandhu, in Suzuki, MB., pp. 307 ff.

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The monk then enters on the first part of his long journey to Buddhahood, during which he is only a beginner (ādikarmika), capable of sin and of suffering in hell, for great as is his undertaking the more heinous his departures from virtue. But his progress is sure; his prayers render it certain. He studies misery, destroying pride and begetting charity and love for the compassionate Buddhas. He practises patience; injuries done to us are either penalties for ancient evil or opportunities for our exercise of virtue. He eradicates the belief in self by meditation and study, largely also by charity, humility, and self-sacrifice. He learns the hard lesson of treating one’s neighbour as oneself,¹ of regarding all beings as if they were Buddhas. It is his aim to serve every creature on earth so long as any of them is not delivered from the round of existence.

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¹ BCA. viii.

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After a long period of preliminary effort² the Bodhisattva attains a stage at which with utter sincerity and full appreciation he can repeat definitely the vow with which he started on his course, and thus he enters on the first of the ten stages into which an elaborate and unsatisfactory scholasticism³ divides the progress of the Bodhisattva, inventing distinctions without substantial difference. There is now no possibility of failure, no chance of an inferior birth, his passions are consumed in the fire of his charity, he enjoys a series of glorious births, universal monarch, the god Brahmā, king of the highest heavens, where he propagates the reign of justice. From the seventh stage his knowledge and his meditative power accord with his merits; thereafter he figures as a prince in the heaven of some Buddha, descending in magic incarnations to earth to accomplish his work of conversion. In the tenth stage, the cloud of the law (dharma-meghā) he attains the position of Lord of the Law, he becomes a Buddha, and creates a body endowed with all the magic signs to play the part on earth of Çakyamuni and countless other Buddhas.

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² Divided into two stages, gotra-bhūmi, in which the aspirant forms himself, or is formed by birth, to take the vow; adhimukticaryā-bhūmi, the preliminary preparation for entering on the stages.

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³ The classical authority is the Daçabhūmaka; see also the Mahāvastu, i. 63-193; Dharmasaṃgraha, 64. A Daçabhūmikleçacchedikā is alleged to have been trans. in A. D. 70; Poussin, Bouddhisme, p. 309, n.

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Intuition of vacuity and compassion are the two great concerns of the Bodhisattva; two whole incalculable ages must pass ere he attains in the eighth stage the knowledge of the wholly empty character of all phenomena. Aware as he his from the outset of the vacuity of things, he acts as if they were real and as if their misery were real; his occupation is active ¹ and energetic exhibition of compassion to all suffering creatures, and, as we have seen, this compassion leads assuredly if indirectly to the attainment of that complete insight which ensures Buddhahood.

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¹ BCA. vii. 65.

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It would be easy, but fruitless, to insist on the incoherence and confusion of the doctrine of the stages of progress, but there are some fundamental features of the stages which are worth mention; the process as it appears to Asaṅga ² is one in which the adept rises from the mere self to appreciate that absolute in which the ideas of self and other are wholly lost, with the loss of the distinction of self and object. The appreciation is in experience very different from the mere knowledge of the fact of vacuity, which is attained in the first or Joyous (muditā) stage; he realizes the emptiness of self, and of other things (dharma) also; he appreciates their common nature as merely ideal (dharmatā). In the second or Pure (vimalā) stage there is freedom from sin; thought freed from the infections or defilement engages in meditation (dhyāna)

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² See Lévi, ii.* 21 f, and cf. Suzuki, MB. ch. xii from a variety of texts.

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and mystic union (*samādhi*). The third stage of Illumination (*prabhākari*) permits the aspirant to enter the world of desire without running risk of corruption, and to engage in his work of preparing creatures for salvation. He aims at winning intuition (*prajñā*), and in the fourth stage, that of Brightness (*arciṣmatī*), he practises the thirty-seven wings of enlightenment (*bodhipakṣa*)¹ and through them he is able to conquer the defilements and ignorance, and to transfer the benefit of his already enormous merits for the benefit of creatures. The fifth stage, Hard to win (*durjayā*), is one in which wisdom attains higher development; all is appreciated as reducing itself to the four noble truths. The next stage, Right in front (*abhimukhī*), advances to the appreciation of the chain of causality (*pratītyasamutpāda*) alone; it is right in face of Nirvāṇa as of transmigration. All is pure; there is neither good nor evil; all personal feeling is utterly eliminated. The seventh stage, Going far (*dūraṃgamā*), completes the work of the other six; there is now gained the fruit of previous study, while further study is unnecessary, but the passivity of thought is affected by the impressions of earlier mental activity.

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¹ Dharmasaṃgraha, 43; Kern, Ind. Buddh., p. 67; DN. ii. 120; SBB. iii. 128 f.

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The eighth stage, the Immovable (*acalā*), marks a definite advance; the aspirant now knows where and when he will become a Buddha, and the usual formal prophecy (*vyākaraṇa*) of his advent in that capacity is now made by a Buddha on his behalf. His powers of aiding mortals now perfect themselves; his means are never lacking nor ineffective. He attains complete impassivity, and need not apply himself to develop the thought of enlightenment, which itself develops without his collaboration as the result of the past. The idea of production utterly disappears for him; the ideal world sinks into final rest. In the ninth stage of Good Thought (*sādhumatī*), possessed of complete wisdom, he brings to pass the preparation of creatures for Nirvāṇa. In the tenth stage, Cloud of the Law (*dharmameghā*), he receives from all the Buddhas consecration for Buddhahood; his body of the law is now complete, and he can exhibit those magic transformations which mark the end of the career of a Bodhisattva.

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This is not very intelligible, and there are some fundamental issues worthy of attention. Has the monk any real choice? Is the only way to salvation the road of the Bodhisattva, so that the desire to acquire enlightenment and the vow undertaken are inevitably connected? If this query were to be answered in the affirmative,¹ the merit of the Bodhisattva would sensibly be reduced, and there is, as we have seen, Mahāyāna evidence in favour of this view. But the more orthodox doctrine of the school seems otherwise; Hiuen-Tsang evidently did not accept the view that all men were destined to be Buddhas, and we hear of Arhants in the heaven of Amitābha, so that the choice of Bodhisattvahood seems a genuine act of free will. But is the career of the Bodhisattva so full of real self-sacrifice as the terms used of it suggest?

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¹ *Saddharmapuṇḍarīka*, iv. But see MA., p. 280; Watters, i. 164.

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The query is hard to answer. Bodhisattvas indeed are encouraged to endure sufferings for the sake of the salvation of mortals, but are their sufferings real? In some cases certainly not;² when great deities like Vajrapāṇi, Mañjughoṣa, Padmapāṇi, descend to hell, they turn the fierce flames and biting cold of the lower regions into abodes of paradise, or bring away with them, purified from sin, the hosts of the damned. On the other hand, there is developed the conception³ of the Bodhisattva who seeks to take upon himself all the sins of the world, content to bear the punishment for them because he has undertaken the vow to save all the creatures of the world. What is the import of the doctrine, whose Christian savour has attracted misconception? It is clear that it is largely due to the need for some mode of terminating the eternal punishment of sin; sin not merely produces a fruit of suffering, but begets a sinful disposition,⁴ in which no merit can arise to win the possibility of release from punishment; the merits of others, therefore, are necessary for their redemption, while the sins cannot fail of fruition and so must be imputed to the saint. The doctrine is indeed an extreme development of the belief in the power of thought to affect other lives, as well as creating a powerful impression for good in one's own, and the Indian belief in the magic power of speech may have rendered it more easy of acceptance. But the whole is utterly ideal; there is no real acceptance by the Bodhisattva of punishment for the sins of others, no real taking upon himself of their sin as morally evil, and a crushing burden on the soul. Even for his own earlier sins the Bodhisattva pays merely a nominal penalty,¹ and, having once entered upon the stages, his virtue is supreme and neither physical nor moral evil can assail him.

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² BCA. x. 11 ff.; cf. viii. 107; Ç., p. 360.

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³ *Vajradhvaja Sūtra*, Ç., p. 280; BCA. x. 36; vii. 49 f. See Kumārila's retort on the absurdity of a Kṣatriya's teaching Brahmins, *Tantravārttika*, p. 116.

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⁴ *Vipāka*- and *Niṣyanda-phala*. KV. xiii. 2 condemns this as an Uttarā-pathaka heresy.

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¹ MA., p. 39.

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It is true, however, that in practice there was some tendency to impose on the Bodhisattva the endurance of physical suffering, extending even to cremation among Chinese monks, as in the case of a Buddha of the *Saddharmapuṇḍarīka*, and we hear even in *Çāntideva* of the possibility of the gift of one's flesh, an idea familiar from the Jātakas; it is possible, since by losing any belief in self the painful sensation is not felt by the Bodhisattva as his. But I-Tsing denies that such rites are for novices, and most Buddhists are content at most with the minor sacrifice known in Tibet and Cambodia, which leaves the corpses of the devout for animals to devour.² But these ideas are normally suppressed by the good sense of Buddhism; *Çāntideva* insists on the care which the Buddha takes of his own body, of his keeping his robe, of his judgement in deciding when self-sacrifice of any sort is just and in the interest of creatures as a whole; to do him justice, but for tradition his exposition would probably have been free from exaggeration and folly.³

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² J. J. M. de Groot, *Code du Mahāyāna en Chine*, p. 230; BCA. vi. 25 f. ; MA., p. 29; Takakusu, ch. xxxviii, xxxix'; Ç., p. 158. Contrast MV. vi. 23.

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