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CHAPTER III.

THE RELIGIOUS SYSTEM OF SAKYAMUNI.

THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW.-THE DOGMA OF THE FOUR TRUTHS, AND THE PATHS LEADING TO SALVATION.

SAKYAMUNI, although the founder of Buddhism, is, at the present day, no longer considered to have been the first Buddha. Many most perfect Buddhas preceded him (so it is now believed), and many more shall appear hereafter; but they all teach the same law.1

The original religious system, as taught by Sakyamuni himself, is plain in its principles, but characterized by bold, philosophical speculation; its fundamental dogma is the following:-2

All existence is an evil; for birth originates sorrow,

This theory seems to have been introduced into Buddhist mythology already by the Sautrāntika school. See Wassiljew, "Der Buddhismus," p. 314. To this dogma also the name of Tathāgata refers (see p. 4); for the philosophical explanation of this term with "thus gone," quoted by Hodgson from original works, see Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 75.

2 See the valuable exposition of Köppen, "Die Religion des Buddha," pp. 213-26. Notices on the earliest dogma of Buddhism occur in numerous passages of Burnouf's "Introduction dans le Buddhisme Indien," and "Lotus de la Bonne Loi;" in Hardy's "Eastern Monachism," and "Manual of Buddhism."

pain, decay, and death. The present life is not the first innumerable births have preceded it in previous ages. The reproduction of a new existence is the consequence of the desire for existing objects, and of the works which have been aggregated in an unbroken succession from the commencement of existence. Proneness to the pleasures of life produces the new being; the works of the former existences fix the condition in which this new being is to be born. If these works have been good the being will come to existence in a state of happiness and distinction; if, on the contrary, they have been bad, the being will be born into a state of misery and degradation. The absolute annihilation of the conditions and pains of existence— Nirvana-is attained by the most perfect dominion over passion, evil desire, and natural sensation.

Sakyamuni has explained this fundamental doctrine in the theory of the four excellent truths: THE PAIN, THE PRODUCTION, THE CESSATION, THE PATH; they are called in Sanskrit Aryani Satyani, and in Tibetan Phagpai denpa zhi. Their meaning may be defined as follows:

1. Pain cannot be separated from existence.

2. Existence is produced by passions and evil desires. 3. Existence is brought to an end by the cessation of evil desires.

4. Revelation of the path to this cessation.

In detailing the moral precepts of the fourtth truth he has indicated eight good paths:

1. The right opinion or orthodoxy.

2. The right judgment, which dissipates every doubt

and incertitude.

To face p. 16.

THE FUNDAMENTAL DOGMA OF THE
BUDDHIST FAITH.

1. In Sanskrit, written with Tibetan characters.

ཡེ་དྷརྨཱ་ཧེ་ཏུ་སྟྭ་བྷ་ཐྰ། ཧེ་ཏུནྟེཊྛཱནྟེཐཱ་ག་ཏོ་ཧྱ་བ་དཏ།
ཏེཥྭ྅,་ཡོནི་རོདྷ། ཨེ་ཝཾཀྵ་རཱི་མཧཱ་ཐཱ་མ་ཎཿ །
སརྦ་གྲཱ་པསྱཱ་ཀ་ར་ཎི། ཀུ་ཤ་ལ་སྱོ་བ་ཐ་གྷ་དེེ །
སྭ་ཙི་ཏྟཾ་ཁ་རི་ད་མ་ནུ། མོ་ཏདྡྷར་དྷཱ་ནུ་ཤྲཱ་ས་ནཾ༎

2. A Tibetan translation of the same.

ཆོས་རྣམས་ཐམས་ཅད་ རྒྱུ་ལས་བྱུང།
དེ་རྒྱུ་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པས་གསུངས།
རྒྱུ་ལ་འགོག་པ་གང་ཡིན་པ།
འདི་སྐད་གསུང་བ་དགེ་སྦྱོང་ཆི །

སྡིག་ཌ་ཅི་ཡང་མི་བྱ་སྟེ།

དགེ་བ་ཕུན་སུམ་ཆོ་གས་ཁར་སྤྱད།

ངང་གི་སེམས་ནི་ཡོངས་སུ་གདུལ།

སངས་རྒྱས་བསྟན་པ་འདི་ཡིན་ནོ།།

Plate I.

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3. The right words, or perfect meditation.

4. The right mode of acting, or of keeping in view
in every action a pure and honest aim.
5. The right way of supporting life, or of gaining a

subsistence by an honest profession unstained by sins. 6. The rightly directed intelligence, which leads to

final salvation ("to the other side of the river"). 7. The right memory, which enables man to impress strongly in his mind what should not be forgotten. 8. The right meditation, or tranquil mind, by which alone steadiness in meditation can be attained, undisturbed by any event whatever.

It has been doubted with much reason, whether Sakyamuni taught the four truths in this form; but as he must have spoken about the means of arriving at final liberation, or salvation, I have added here these eight classes of the path, which are suggested to him already in very early Sūtras.1

The theory of the four truths has been formulated in a short sentence, which has been discovered on many ancient Buddhist images, and which is besides actually recited as a kind of confession of faith, and added to religious treatises. It runs thus: "Of all things proceeding from cause, the cause of their procession hath the Tathāgata explained. The great Sramana has likewise declared the cause of the extinction of all things."2 Tathagatha and

1 Concerning the four truths see: Csoma "Notices," in As. Res., Vol. XX., pp. 294, 303; Burnouf's "Introduction," pp. 290, 629, and "Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi," App. V. Another series of eight classes, which is decidedly the produce of the later schools, will be noticed in the next chapter.

2 This sentence is also the conclusion in the address to the Buddhas of

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