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Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24.s9: 9. The Buddhas

Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24.s9

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9. The Buddhas

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In the Mahāyāna the humanity of the Buddha, enfeebled already in the Hīnayāna, definitely disappears. The Buddha of the *Saddharmapuṇḍarīka* and generally of the texts has attained enlightenment at a period unknown to us, presumably at the beginning of the cosmic age, but he claims to have taught the law for numberless periods of tens of millions of cosmic periods. He possesses the true body of enjoyment of a Buddha, revealed to the Bodhisattvas who in countless numbers hearken to his teaching, and the *Saddharmapuṇḍarīka* exhausts its fertility, as well as the patience of its readers, in its account of the marvels² which accompany his teaching. To mortal men, on the other hand, there is normally visible only a transformation body, such as that of the historical Çākyamuni, created for the purpose of edification of the multitude. In point of fact the Buddha’s true body dwells in a heaven of supreme bliss, waiting until the true Nirvāṇa, when it will, in accordance with his vow, enter into a Stūpa, a celestial parallel to the relic chambers made by men on earth. There he will enjoy the pleasure of repose after his toil of enlightenment, to rise from time to time at the request of a colleague.³

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² The miraculous tongue of the Buddha is compared by Kern (p. xxxi) with *Bhagavadgītā*, xi. 30.

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³ Kern, p. 227.

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The idea of colleagues is a sufficient sign of divergence between the Hīnayāna and the new view. That school contended that two Buddhas could not coexist in the same universe, perhaps not even in different systems;⁴ only six earlier Buddhas appear in the Nikāyas; even at the close of the Pali Canon no more than twenty-four prior Buddhas had been enumerated.⁵ But speculations on cosmic ages are already known to the Canon; the plurality of worlds was accepted, and it was no difficult step to draw the conclusion that Buddhas might coexist, as well as to carry back to infinity the line of Buddhas. Hence we attain the result achieved already in the *Mahāvastu* and the *Lalitavistara*, which regards Buddhas as coexisting in countless numbers in time and space.¹ The advantages of such a view are obvious; space is given for the development of a complete pantheon and for the gratification of varied tastes in divinity.

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⁴ AN. i. 27; KV. xxi. 6, against the Mahāsaṅghikas.

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⁵ The Bharhut sculptures know only six. For cosmic speculations see DN. ii. 2 ff.

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¹ BCA. vii. 18.

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The process is somewhat unkind to Çākyamuni. Some at least regard him with less than complete favour; his paradise is only just above the regions of the sensual gods, of men, animals, and hell beings; his universe is composed of evil as well as good. There is, however, a deity who reigns over a paradise of bliss, Sukhāvatī, peopled with the elect and the saints, who, miraculously conceived, grow in the hearts of lotuses, nourished by the echo of the divine teaching, and emerge grown to manhood, when the rays of the Buddha have brought the flowers to opening. The lord of this realm is Amitābha or Amitāyus, sovereign of the land of the setting sun, himself a relic of sun worship; to meditate on the sun is the mode of attaining the revelation of the realm of Amitābha. It is interesting once more to find the sun motive entering into Buddhist mythology. But Amitābha has attained his position by special endeavours; long ages ago as the monk Dharmākara he took the vow in the presence of the then reigning Buddha, Lokeçvararāja, to become one day a Buddha, and to rule a realm peopled by saints and without suffering. The results of this vow, matured by ages of charity and meditation, were the appearance of Dharmākara as Amitābha, of his paradise, and of the potency which brings there the elect to birth. The spiritual merit of Amitābha is sufficient, transferred to others, to secure that even the most evil, by merely uttering the name of Amitābha, perhaps but in blasphemy, are reborn in paradise; the gravest punishment inflicted, even on those whose crimes would normally be rewarded by immediate precipitation into hell, is but delay in the opening of the lotus wombs, in which they grow until they have been duly reformed by the sound of the divine instruction. But such extravagance of view, familiar in Brahmanic religion, does not go unreproved; others hold that those who commit great sins are excluded, or demand piety and good works, or at least the appropriation by faith of the original vow of the god.¹

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¹ See texts in SBE. xlix; ERE. i. 98 ff.; Grünwedel, *Buddh. Kunst*, pp. 169 ff.; Foucher, *Iconographie bouddhique*; Keith, *Indian Mythology*, ch. vii.

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Unlike a Brahmanical god, Amitābha claims no speciality of origin; there are other Buddhas and future Buddhas who by their merits and their devotion are able to save the faithful; Maitreya is recognized already as a Bodhisattva in the Hinayāna, but ranks in importance far below Avalokiteçvara,² the lord of compassion *par excellence*, whose name is variously interpreted to mean ‘he who gazes down upon the world’, or ‘he on whom men gaze’, or ‘the lord of the dead’. His vow is not to become a Buddha until he has introduced all men into Nirvāṇa. Prominent also are the Buddha Padmottara, and the Bodhisattva Mañjuçrī, while Buddhism, which denies that a Bodhisattva can be a woman,³ recognizes the feminine element in the deities styled helpers, Tārās, whose name suggests a stellar origin.⁴ Moreover, each Buddha has normally two Bodhisattvas of the first rank as his coadjutors, who visit the earth and hell, solace the dying, conduct souls to paradise, and assume such forms as will most effectively promote the conversion of sinners.

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² ERE. ii. 256 ff.; *Saddharmapuṇḍarīka*, xxiv.

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³ *Saddharmapuṇḍarīka*, xi. 51. Contrast the Chinese Kuanyin, a feminine Avalokiteçvara. Cf. Mañjuçrī in Nepal; Haraprasād, *Nepalese MSS.*, p. lxvii.

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⁴ De Blonay, *La déesse bouddhique Tārā*, Paris, 1895; Waddell, JRAS. 1894, pp. 63 ff.; Hirananda, MASI. xi.

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In this way Buddhism has secured for itself the prestige of a true religion, which can offer its devotees all that can be desired by the heart. Yet for the philosophy of Buddhism it remains true that these Buddhas and their heavens have no absolute reality, and the doctrine of the handing over of merit is not absolutely real. But all that is not absolute reality is recognized by the Vijñānavāda to be an intellectual projection, and nothing hinders the extension of such a projection to the creation even of Amitābha’s paradise.

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It was inevitable, in view of the strong theological influences operating on Buddhism, that the effort should not be made to create a primordial Buddha, to be the source whence other Buddhas could emanate. In the *Kāraṇḍavyūha* metrical version is found the person of Ādi Buddha, the first lord, self-created, from whose meditation the world comes into being, precisely as in the Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads the world proceeds from Brahmā. Avalokiteçvara, the hero of the text, shares in the process; he comes forth from the spirit of the Ādi Buddha, and from his eyes he creates the sun and moon, from his forehead Maheçvara, from his shoulders Brahmā, from his heart Nārāyaṇa, and from his teeth Sarasvatī, goddess of speech. The conception was already prevalent in the fourth century A.D., for it is condemned by Asaṅga,¹ who points out that it needs accumulation both of knowledge and work to bring a Buddha into being, as well as the existence of another Buddha to inaugurate his career. There is no absolute beginning possible for even a Buddha. It has been conjectured² that this doctrine of a primaeval Buddha was held by the Lokottaravādins, since in the *Mahāvastu* the Buddha of remote antiquity, near whom the historical Çākyamuni took the vow to become a Tathāgata, is called also Çākyamuni; but it would be dangerous to lay any stress on this argument. What is certain is that the doctrine, rejected by Asaṅga, and certainly incompatible with the principles of the schools, is an accepted tenet of the Aiçvarika sect of Nepal, doubtless theists, who have adopted a smattering of Buddhism.³

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¹ ix. 77.

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² Kern, *Ind. Buddh.*, p. 66, n. 2.

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³ Cf. the *Svayambhū Purāṇa* (ed. BI. 1894–1900; by Poussin, Gand, 1893); NBL., pp. 249 ff.; Hodgson, *Essays*, pp. 115 ff.; Lévi, *Le Népal*, i. 208 ff.; Poussin, *ERE.* i. 95 ff.; Waddell, *Lamaism*, pp. 126 ff.; Eliot, *Hinduism and Buddhism*, ii. 117 ff.

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Another allusion in Asaṅga⁴ reveals the existence in Buddhism of Tantric rites, in which the union of the Buddha or Bodhisattva with the personification of wisdom, Prajñāpāramitā, is reproduced on earth as one simple and effective mode of realizing the true identity of the individual with the Buddha; for the doctrine of the absolute lends itself to the Vedāntic identification of the self and the supreme reality, and permits and even encourages the violation of all morality by denying any real distinction between right and wrong; where all is illusion, woman is the most attractive form of that illusion. It would, however, be unjust to ascribe such doctrines as essential parts of the Mahāyāna, though tradition ascribes to Nāgārjuna the Tantric Pañcakrama, to Āryadeva the Cittaviśuddhiprakaraṇa, and makes Asaṅga an authority; we need see no more here than the eternal desire to father on ancients new doctrines badly needing some person of repute to vouch for them.¹

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⁴ MSA. ix. 46.

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¹ Poussin, *Bouddhisme* (1898), ch. v; *Bouddhisme* (1909), pp. 343 ff.; *Tathāgataguhyaka*, NBL., pp. 261 ff.

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