Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.99

c10.99

Of the very profane interruptions to which sacred silence was liable, especially at the greater centres of monastic life, at places where hundreds, probably sometimes, indeed, thousands of monks flocked together from all parts of India, the texts do not speak very much with relish. An old verse† says with special reference to the spiritual brothers: “Like Brahma men live alone; like gods they live in twos; like a village they live in threes; where there are more there is bustle and turmoil.” Particularly in the last clause of this saying will he fully concur who has seen and especially who has heard the commotion of a crowd of people, or better still of a crowd of wrangling and scolding faqirs in India. Thus many among Buddha’s disciples withdrew from the bustle of the masses, from the great âramas in the neighbourhood of the towns into the solitude of the forest.‡ There they lived in the huts they built for themselves, in small communities, in twos or threes, or even quite alone and only just near enough to others to be in reach of one another for holding the meetings of the chapter prescribed for confessional and other purposes. Perhaps nowhere have the sayings of Buddha, the earnest thoughts of the suffering of everything earthly, and the great, pure expectations of the happy cessation of impermanence, so fully satisfied human hearts, as among these anchorites in their small and quiet forest bands. “When shall I,” says one of the spiritual poets,* “dwell alone in mountain grotto without companions, viewing instability in every form of being? When will such be my lot? When shall I, as a sage clad in garments made of rags, in yellow garb, calling nothing my own and without occupation, desisting from love and hate, ceasing from infatuation, dwell cheerfully in the forest? When shall I, seeing the instability of my body, which is a nest of murder and disease, oppressed by old age and death, dwell free from fear, alone in the forest? When will such be my lot?” “The broad, heart-cheering expanses, crowned by *kareri* forests, those lovely regions, where elephants raise their voices, the rocks make me glad. Where the rain rushes, those lovely abodes, the mountains, where sages walk, where the peacock’s cry resounds, the rocks make me glad. There is it good for me to be, the friend of abstraction, who is struggling for salvation. There is it good for me to be, the monk, who pursues the true good, who is struggling for salvation.”† Not in many places on earth will the charms of contemplative solitude have been enjoyed so fully as there, in the forests on the Ganges and at the foot of the Himalaya, among the yellow-robed monks of Buddha’s Order.