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Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24.s7: 7. The Career of the Bodhisattva

Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24.s7

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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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³ BCA. v. 86 f. ; BSB. I. ix ; Ç., pp. 34 ff.

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The true gift of the Bodhisattva is not his flesh, but the gift of the law, and the Mahāyāna⁴ recognizes the missionary activity of such beings while history records their influence on Chinese, Scythians, Turks, Tibetans, and many other races. Other works of the Bodhisattvas are study of the law, the composition of treatises upon it, the copying of manuscripts, a busy intellectual activity which is not suggestive of renunciation or unhappiness. For the layman who is a Bodhisattva there is always the duty of aiding the monks, of providing for their needs and building them monasteries. The Mahāyāna in fact provides for monks and laity alike a vista of helpful and cheerful activity, imbued with the desire to aid others as the only possible means indirectly of aiding oneself.

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⁴ As also the Hīnayāna ; MV. i. 5. 12.

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