Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c6.s1.2

c6.s1.2

This portrait of an early rationalist, introducing the blessings of common sense into a world which knew nothing better than the mysticism of the Upaniṣads, or something still more crude, is unquestionably fascinating. ‘Surely a notable milestone in the history of human ideas,’ an enthusiast¹ has said, ‘that a man reckoned for ages by thousands as the Light not of Asia only but of the World,² and the saviour from sin and misery, should call this little formula [the doctrine of the chain of causation] his Norm or Gospel, or at least one aspect of that Gospel.’ The exponents of this view are far too well informed to ignore the difficulties in their theory, above all the perplexing fact that a rationalist should have assumed as self-evident the reality of a process of transmigration not less real because it is not the transmigration of an ordinary soul; but their faith can remove mountains, and there are diverse ways of escape. The Buddha could not disregard the ordinary terminology of his time³; his teaching had to be expressed in the terms of his day, and accommodated for practical purposes to ordinary intelligences; the new wine had to be poured into old bottles. Or again, when the crudities of the Buddha’s views become painful to modern rationalism, recourse may be had to the subtle irony⁴ which distinguishes Buddhist utterances and presents a key which, skilfully turned, is fitted to open any locked door of Buddhist doctrine. Or, more frankly, we may accept the view that the Buddha himself was a true rationalist, and absolutely declined to accept the dogma of transmigration, conscious that to do so would be to stultify, as in fact it does, his teaching and reduce his followers to painful intellectual straits. Further, we must admit, however reluctantly, that the masses of Asia, who have seen in the Buddha the Light of the World, have not done so because of his rationalist doctrines, his chain of causation, which they have understood as little as do we, or even his wise advice to still passion. They have adored him, because they have regarded him as the God of Gods, and believed that by devotion to him they shall attain eternal salvation, consisting of perpetual bliss. It is necessary, then, for believers in a primitive rationalism to admit that in some manner the simple humanity of the wise teacher has been overlaid by a divinity not his own, one moreover which on his own theory he would have treated as wholly absurd. This is a remarkable fate for a rationalist, and it is idle to claim it as plausible by quoting the case of Kṛṣṇa. There is not the slightest ground beyond conjecture for the belief that the character of Kṛṣṇa developed from a devout teacher mentioned once in the Upaniṣads to the interesting and popular divinity familiar to India. Supporters of this view rely on the parallel of the Buddha, and in both cases the contention is one which must be established, if at all, on its own merits without the insecure support of the other. In Kṛṣṇa’s case every consideration of probability points to the view that he was a tribal god who gradually attained the rank of a universal deity¹; but the modes of attaining divinity are diverse, and the case of the Buddha should be discussed in the light of the evidence of the relevant texts and not on the basis of dubious and uncertain analogies.