Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.t1: The Cultus

Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.t1

Language: English

The Cultus

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Twice in the month, at full moon and at new moon, the monks of each district, wherever they may happen to be sojourning, come together to celebrate the fast-day.*

The observance of the fast-day is the most prominent and almost the only observance of the ancient Buddhist cultus, if the word " cultus " can be at all applied to these most simple and plain external forms of mutual religious life. For a faith, which looks upon man's own heart as the sole place in which decisions between happiness and ruin can be carried into effect, what the lip utters and what the hand does, can have a value only in so far as it is a concomitant of, a symbol corresponding to, that internal process. And above all in the first age of the young Buddhist community must that very opposition to the old faith with its ceremoniousness, with its animal sacrifices and soma-offerings, with its hosts of singing and mumbling priests, have been especially keenly felt and led to the result, that so much the more earnest heed was taken to preserve the internal character of the individual faith free from every non-essential. We must keep before us the fact, that anything in the way of a mysterium, such as that from which the early Christian cultus drew its vitality, was foreign to Buddhism; the conception that the divine Head of the Church is not absent from his people, but that he dwells powerfully in their midst as their lord and king, so that all cultus is nothing else but the expression of this continuing living fellowship. Buddha, however, has entered into Nirvâna; if his believers desired to invoke him, he could not hear them. Therefore Buddhism is a religion without prayer. The preaching of Buddha’s doctrine, the practice of spiritual abstractions, in which they thought they possessed so powerful an aid to religious effort, permeated the whole life of the brethren, but they found no expression in the forms of a regularly organized cultus; for this last there was little room left in that universal sway, conceivable only in a monastic Order, of religious thought over every word which the believer utters, and over every step he takes.

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∗ The designation of this day as a fast-day rests on the ancient usages of the Vedic cultus. With an actual fast the Buddhist Order had nothing to do.

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Among the operations of this quasi-cultus stands, as already mentioned, in precedence of everything else, the confessional celebration observed on the “fast-day,” the check, so to speak, employed to determine whether the duties of spiritual life have been truly and fully performed by all the brethren. These confessional meetings give above all a lively expression to the cohesion of the members of the Order.

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The eldest among the monks in every district calls the meeting, and at evening on the fast-day all the brethren, who are sojourning within the limits of the diocese, come together in the vihâra chosen for the purpose or whatever other place is selected by the Order, be it a building or a cave in the mountain. No one is permitted to absent himself. Only in the case of insanity can a dispensation be granted, and sick brethren can be allowed to remain away, if they can cause an assurance of their purity from the transgressions mentioned in the confessional formula to reach the assembled brethren through a comrade. If there be no one to convey this assurance, the invalid must be brought on his chair or on his bed to the assembly, or if this cannot be done without danger to him, the Order must go in a body to his bedside for the celebration. But under no circumstances is it permitted to go through the sacred office in an assembly short of the full number.

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By the light of a torch the monks take their places in the place of assembly on the low seats prepared for them. No layman, no novice, no nun may be present, for the law of the Order, which is now to be recited in the form of a confessional formula, is regarded as a reserved possession of the monks alone.* This confessional formula, the liturgy Pâtimokkha ("unburdening"), the oldest of the brethren, or he who otherwise able and qualified, now recites with a loud voice:—

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"Reverend sirs," he says, "let the Order hear me. To-day is fast-day, the fifteenth of the half month. If the Order is ready, let the Order keep fast-day and have the formula of confession recited. What must the Order do first? Report the declaration of purity, reverend sirs.† I shall recite the formula of confession."

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∗ "The monk, who makes an unordained person a partaker verbatim of the Dhamma, is liable to punishment" ("Pâcittiya," 4). I believe, not altogether in harmony with the ancient commentator in this passage, that by the term Dhamma the maxims of the confessional formula of the Pâtimokkha are to be understood. It can hardly be assumed that a monk, who, like Mahinda, for example, before the Ceylonese king, retailed the sayings or preachings of Buddha, thereby incurred the penalty of an offence. There were, moreover, among the laity themselves "preachers of the Dhamma" (dhammakathika), as the first of whom Citta is mentioned by name in one of the sacred texts ("Anguttara Nikâya," vol. i, near the beginning); and similarly the case is mentioned in the "Vinaya," where a layman summons the monks to deliver to them a discourse of Buddha's, with which he is acquainted, and of which the knowledge is in danger of being lost ("Mahâvagga," iii, 5, 9). As regards the character of the Pâtimokkha as a secret lore, cf. "Milinda Pañha," p. 190, seq. From this it also follows, when tradition represents a person like the young Moggaliputta, who is put forward as the model of a quickly progressing scholar, as still learning during the four years of his noviciate only the collections of the Suttas and the Abhidhamma, that the Vinaya was an Arcanum, which became accessible to him after his ordination, and not till then.—Vinaya Piṭaka, vol. iii, p. 299.

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† I.e., the declaration in the name of the brethren absent on account of

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The Order present replies: "We all, who are here present, hear and consider it well."

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"Whoever has committed a transgression," the leader goes on, "let him confess it. Where there is no transgression, let him be silent. From your silence I shall infer that you are clear, reverend sirs. As an individual man, to whom a question is put, is supposed to answer, so is it in the case of an assembly like the present, when the question has been put three times. A monk, who on the question being put three times does not confess a fault, which he has committed and which he remembers, is guilty of an intentional lie. But intentional lying, reverend sirs, brings destruction ;* thus has the Exalted One said. Therefore a monk, who has committed a fault, remembers it, and seeks to be pure therefrom, is to confess his fault. For what he confesses, will lie lightly on him."

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Now the enumeration of the transgressions which are to be confessed begins. The most serious stand first, those four sins, of which every newly entering brother is already warned at ordination, that whoever commits them, can no longer belong to the Order (p. 351). "If a monk," the leader begins, "who has chosen the exercises and the fellowship of the monks, has carnal intercourse with any creature whatever, down even to a beast, without renouncing these exercises† and without admitting his weakness, then this involves a defeat (by evil) and expulsion from the Order." Similar terms deal with the three other gravest sins, theft, murder, and the false assumption of spiritual perfections. At the close of this

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† I.e., leaving the Order.

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sickness, that they have committed no transgression enumerated in the confessional formula.

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∗ I.e., it prevents the attainment of sanctification.

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enumeration of transgressions, which bring with them “defeat and expulsion from the Order,” the leader turns himself to the brethren present with the thrice repeated question: “Here now I ask the venerable: Are you free from these transgressions? And for the second time I ask: Are you free? For the third time I ask: Are you free?” And if all are silent*— “Free are the venerable from these, therefore they are silent; so I take it.”

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The enumeration is now directed to the less serious transgressions, to those, which the Order visits with a temporary degradation, and to those, which are atoned for without any action of the Order by the mere admission of the guilty party. For example, it is said:—

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“The monk who lowers himself to touch a woman’s person with corrupt thoughts, while he clasps her hand or clasps her hair or touches one part or another of her body, the Order inflicts on him degradation.”

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∗ The wording of the formula shows beyond doubt, that according to the original intention anyone who felt himself guilty of a transgression, had at this point to confess it before the Order. The later texts (“Khandhaka”) give directions which are at variance with this construction. No one could carry unatoned guilt with him into the confessional meeting. He had previously to confess and, where any penance is attached, perform it. Also when he calls to mind an offence first only during the celebration, he has not to answer the question of the leader, but he has to absolve himself, by anticipation as it were, for the period of the celebration, by saying to his neighbour: “Friend, I have committed this and that offence; when I shall have risen from this place, I shall purify myself therefrom.” Whoever was cognizant of the transgression of another, had to hold the guilty party to penance before the celebration of the confession, or “to forbid the confession” in his case by veto, until he had complied with his duty. We see in this maxim: “No man, on whom a transgression lies, is allowed to keep the ceremony of the fast-day” (“Mahâvagga,” ii, 27; cf. “Cullavagga,” ix, 2) clearly the more scrupulous conception of a late period, as compared with the old institution, which had created the observance of the fast-day quite particularly for those who were burdened by a sense of guilt.

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“The monk who in any house belonging to the Order knowingly so arranges his quarters that he thereby incommodes a monk who has come before him, and says within himself: ‘Who finds it too narrow, may go out,’ having just this and nothing else in view; he is guilty of sin.”

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“The monk who in anger or enmity extrudes a monk from a house belonging to the Order, or causes him to be extruded, he is guilty of sin.”

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In this manner, in more than two hundred paragraphs thrown together somewhat unsystematically, are specified those injunctions, which govern the daily life of the monks, their residence, eating and drinking, clothing, and their intercourse with each other and with nuns and laity. Even the most external and the most trivial matter finds a place; to the painful fondness for rule, which is here traceable in every word, nothing is unessential. In the fact that the Buddhist Order has not been able to invest its most prominent liturgical creation with any other form than that of a paragraphic collection of monastic rules we may perhaps detect an element of illiberality; but insipidity and paltriness he alone will call it, to whom serious and scrupulous obedience to rule even in the most trivial matters appears insipid and paltry.

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Next to the half-monthly confessional days the yearly recurring simple and beautiful celebration must be borne in mind, which bears the name of invitation (Pavâraṇâ). When the three months of the rainy season have gone by, before the wandering begins, the brethren in each diocese, who have passed this time in common retirement—they are for the most part friends closely attached to each other—unite in a solemn conference, in which every one, from the oldest to the youngest, sitting in a reverential attitude on the ground, raising his clasped hands, asks his spiritual comrades, if he has been guilty of any sin during this period, to name it to him. "Reverend sirs," it is then said, "I invite the Order, if ye have seen anything on my part, or have heard anything, or have any suspicion about me, have pity on me, reverend sirs, and speak. If I see it, I shall atone for it."*

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In these few ceremonious observances has been described the narrow range of that, which, with the disciples of Buddha, takes the place of regular acts of public worship. It will be seen that this cultus, if we wish to call it so, goes only into the outer court of the religious life; it has only to do with maintaining among the monks external correctness in decent behaviour and dealing. Whatever goes beyond this, the keeping up of instructive meditation and religious concentration, is left wholly to the unfettered action of the individual brother, of the individual group of brethren.

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It may be here observed that at least the first rudiments of a cultus of another stamp, separated in broad distinction from that which we have discussed, go back into the times with which our sketch has to deal: the rudiments of the veneration attaching to holy places and to Buddha’s relics. Four places, it is said,† are deserving that believing, noble youths should see them and that their hearts should be moved by them : the place where the holy Buddha was born ; the place where he has obtained the highest illumination ;* the place where he has " set in motion the Wheel of the Law," the place where he, delivered from everything earthly, has entered into the perfect Nirvâna. To these places monks and nuns, lay-brothers and lay-sisters have a desire to travel. "For he, O Ânanda, who dies in the faith on the pilgrimage to such holy places, will, when his body dissolves, beyond death, walk the good road and be born again in the heavenly world."

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∗ According to the original custom every one then, as a matter of course, said what he had to say in reply to this appeal, and when doubts existed, these were explained before the Order. The "Khandhaka Texts" here adopted apparently, exactly as we have already (note p. 373) seen they did in the confessional celebration, the standpoint of a later age. No one, it is said in this connection, who is under the burden of guilt, can take part in the solemnization of the "Invitation;" what every one has to cast up to the other, must be previously brought to an issue.—Mah. iv, 6; 16,

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† "Mahâparinibbâna Sutta," p. 51.

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The care of Buddha's relics and the institution of festivals in their honour are committed exclusively to the piety of believing laity. "What are we to do," Ânanda asks of the Master, when his end is drawing near,† "with the body of the Perfect One?" "Let not the honours due to the body of the Perfect One trouble you, O Ânanda. Seek ye rather holiness, O Ânanda; be intent on holiness : live in holiness without blemish, in holy haste, seeking after perfection. There are, Ânanda, wise men among the nobles, the Brahmans, and the citizens, who believe in the Perfect One; they will do the honours to the body of the Perfect One.” So then after Buddha’s death his relics are divided out to a number of princes and nobles, each of whom “builds a stûpa (monument for relics) and institutes a festival”—festivals at which offerings of flowers, ablutions and illuminations on a grand scale usually play the chief part. The Order of monks as such has nothing to do with this pompous show of veneration; the old rules of the Order have not a word to say about it.

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∗ Already one of the texts belonging to the sacred canon points to festivals, which are kept at the "Tree of Knowledge." "At the great Tree of Knowledge of the Buddha Padumuttara there was a festival celebrated. Then I took vessels of many kinds and offered sweet-smelling water. When the Tree of Knowledge was to be bathed, a great rainfall began," and so on. "At the supremely holy foot of the Knowledge-tree of the Buddha Padumuttara, I planted cheerfully, with cheerful heart a banner."—Apadâna, fol. ghi', ghî, of the Phayre MS.

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† "Mahâp." p. 51, seq. Cf. "Milinda Pañha," p. 177, seq. It is noteworthy, that, as at this place the care for Buddha's remains is not represented as belonging to the disciples, so the Vinaya texts are nearly altogether silent as to the last honours of deceased monks. To arrange for their cremation was perhaps committed to the laity.—Vide e.g. Hardy, Manual, second edn. p. 226; cf. however, Bhikkhunîvibhanga Pâcittya, 52.

Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.t1: The Cultus

The Cultus

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