Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24.s7.24

c24.s7.24

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.