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vol. title: vol. period: 1876-1878 pages in vol.: 247 |
< A Second Pilgrimage Around the World: the Southern Route (continued from page 4-171) >
translation of the Buddhists' "Sacred Dhammapada," I find these passages:
"The bhikkhu, full of delight, who is calm in the doctrine of Buddha, will reach the quiet place (Nirvana) (cessation of natural desires) and happiness."
"As soon as one has considered the origin and destruction of the elements of the body, he finds the happiness and joy which belong to those who know the immortal (Nirvana)."
"Cut down the whole forest of lust, not the tree. From lust springs fear. When you have cut down every tree and every shrub, then, Bhikshus, you will be free in Nirvana."
"There is no fire like passion; there is no pain like this body; there is no happiness superior to Nirvana."
"The sages who injure nobody, and who always control their bodies; they will go to the unchangeable place, (Nirvana) where, if they have gone, they will suffer no more."
In that great lecture delivered by Max Müller upon Buddhism at Kiel, before the Society of German Philologists, he says:
"Nirvana occurs also in the Brahmanic writings, as synonymous with Moksha, Nivritti, and other words, all designating the highest stage of spiritual liberty and bliss, but not annihilation. Nirvana may mean the extinction of many things—of selfishness, desire, and sin, without going so far as the extinction of subjective consciousness. Further, if we consider that Buddha himself, after he had already seen Nirvana, still remains on earth until his body falls a prey to death ; that Buddha appears, in the legends, to his disciples even after his death, it seems to me that all these circumstances are hardly reconcilable with the orthodox metaphysical doctrine of Nirvana. . . . ."
"According to the doctrine of Buddhism, the soul cannot dissolve itself in a higher being, or be absorbed in the absolute substance, as was taught by the Brahmans and other mystics of ancient and modern times. . . . ."
"The ablest Buddhist divines, taking their conceptions from Buddha and his disciples, represented Nirvana as entrance of the soul into rest, a subduing of all wishes and desires, indifference to joy and pain, to good and evil, an absorption of the soul in itself, and a freedom from the circle of existences from birth to death, and from death to a new birth. This is still the meaning which educated people attach to it, whilst, to the minds of the larger masses, Nirvana suggests rather the idea of a Mohammedan paradise or of blissful Elysian fields."
Peary Chand Mittra, a Hindu linguist, author, and writer for different European magazines, residing in Calcutta, states that "Buddhism is based upon the Sánkhya philosophy. Hence those who have attributed Atheism to Buddhism have made a great mistake." . . . By reformers before the time of Sakya, Gautama Buddha, the "people had been prepared for the denunciation of castes, the defiance of the Vedas, of the sacerdotal authorities, the abstinence of animal food, and the practice of purity and holiness, leading to Nirvana, or Spirituality, not annihilation!"
Though denying the old gods of India—Indra, Agni, Yama and others—Gautama Buddha was no atheist. He believed in the Infinite God, the Universal Spirit, the Unknowable. Denying and utterly repudiating the Hindu system of caste, Buddha taught the divine brotherhood of humanity, the equality of all men!
Ignoring the Brahmanical dogma of the soul's final absorption into Deity, Buddha taught the extinction of the passions, of the outward sensations, and of all earthliness connected with the soul, and then its entrance into Nirvana, a state of untroubled rest and spiritual repose.
Rejecting the efficacy of sacrifices and of salvation by any sin-atoning blood as held by the Jews and some of the Hindu sects, he taught the certainty of punishment, and salvation through self-denial and through works of merit achieved by re-incarnation, expiation and the pursuance of the four-fold path.
Denying the eternity of hell torments, Buddhism teaches that there are very many hells, or states of the wicked; but through re-incarnations, penances, repentance and works of merit, the sinful pass out of the hells into more heavenly conditions, and ultimately reach the realm of inexpressible perfection and glory.
Questioning the wisdom, or rather discouraging a free intercourse with the spirit world, owing to the wickedness of the Asuras, Sarpas, Nagas, and other evil spirits, Buddha taught the reality of spirit intercourse and laid down a formula for casting out demons. Though a prince by birth, he threw aside all worldly honors and became a self-denying celibate, owning nothing but his robe, his bowl for eating and his gourd for drinking. He taught men to humble their pride, subdue their passions, practice peace and exercise charity toward all mankind. Teaching the sacredness of even insect-life, he enjoined kindness to animals and the tenderest sympathy and purest love toward universal humanity. Can I do better than to close in these telling words of Max Müller:
"Gentlemen, this is a specimen of the true Buddhism; this is the language, intelligible to the poor and the suffering, which has endeared Buddhism to the hearts of millions—not the silly, metaphysical phantasmagorias of worlds of gods and worlds of Brahma, or final dissolution of the soul in Nirvana—no, the beautiful, the tender, the humanly true, which, like pure gold, lies buried in all religions, even in the sand of the Buddhist Canon."
Ceylon, August, 1877.
Echoes from England
We are in the last few days of 1877, a year that has not been a signal success in whichever direction it is contemplated. The year was ushered in with a fearful storm of wind and rain, and, later on, that elemental disturbance was followed by political convulsions that at last culminated in the Russo-Turkish conflict. No less than three dreadful colliery explosions have left their sinister records, while disasters on our coast lines have not been less frequent than usual. Criminally, we have had a harvest—for the lawyers—that leaves them no reason to complain. Religiously, not much of note has transpired. That little that has, concerned points of doctrine and usage that sensible folks, as a rule, consider too contemptible to wrangle over. The Wesleyan Conference distinguished itself by affirming a belief in the doctrines of eternal torment and a literal hell, as being vital to salvation; and one of the ministers of the above body wrote a letter to a Christian (?) paper, wherein he remarked, "He had always preached the doctrine of a literal hell, and by the grace of God he intended to continue so to do!" The italics are mine. Comment is superfluous.
It is rumored that Madame Blavatsky intends visiting London during the coming year. If it is at all possible, I trust to be able to shake her by the hand, and renew a pleasant acquaintance made in Bro. Davis's bookstore in New York, and continued in Philadelphia. The Madame is in sober truth a woman among women. She will be the lion of the hour on her arrival........
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«Oh Strolling Player!!»
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Leadership in Spiritualism
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Editor's notes