Buddhism

BUDDHISM. - The word is broadly comprehensive, and designates not only the philosophical-religious doctrine preached by Gotama Buddha, but also the various forms it took through the centuries. Only two of these will be discussed here: the ancient one, or Hīnayāna, and the reformed one, or Mahāyāna. The two terms, the first of which is found used for the first time by Fa-hian (ca. 414 A.D.), are ordinarily interpreted as "the small vehicle" and "the great vehicle." Conceived of the doctrine as a vehicle that transports its followers toward holiness and liberation from rebirth, ancient Buddhism is called small, that is, inadequate to the purpose, because it liberates few followers, only those who observe the rigid monastic discipline, while the reformed religion liberates all the faithful, monks and laypeople.

I. HĪNAYĀNA

The Buddha repudiated faith in the creator God and lord of the universe, in revelation and in the efficacy of the sacrificial rite, but preserved the Brahmanic belief in rebirth, according to which life does not end with death, but continues (saṃsāratī) in another existence so that each person receives the reward or punishment of his actions, good or bad. Liberation from the painful alternation of births and deaths is obtained by following the path of nirvāṇa (extinction), discovered by the Buddha. The substance of the original doctrine is in the sermon at Benares, which is summarized here.

Buddhism begins by defining as ignoble and useless both devotion to pleasures and the mortification of the flesh, two ways of living of which he had had experience; the middle way between these two extremes is the one that leads to nirvāṇa. He then sets forth the four holy truths: 1) To live is to suffer, and the suffering that manifests itself in the principal forms of birth, old age, sickness and death is inherent in the constituent elements of empirical existence. 2) Suffering is born not only from attachment to life and its pleasures, but also from the desire to survive death or from the conviction that with death everything ends even without following the path of nirvāṇa. 3) Suffering is destroyed by extinguishing the thirst to live. 4) The path that leads to liberation from suffering is traveled by observing eight forms of rectitude: right faith, right decision, right speech, right action, right life, right effort, right thought, right concentration. The first requirement is right faith, orthodoxy in beliefs in order to avoid falling into heresies, especially regarding the characteristics of every being (animal, man or God), which are subjection to suffering, transitoriness and non-existence of the soul as substance. To the substantial and permanent soul, Buddhism substituted the uninterrupted series of states of consciousness; therefore saṃsāra must not be understood as transmigration because the substance capable of transmigrating is lacking, but as rebirth when the last state of consciousness of the dying person, dragged by karman, the effect of actions, toward another birth, perpetuates itself in a new psycho-physical organism, the life that pushes forward. To rectitude of ideas must be associated that of custom. The observance of the ten prohibitions provides for this, the first five of which also bind lay Buddhists. 1) Do not kill (ahiṃsā). 2) Do not take what has not been given. 3) Do not commit adultery. 4) Do not lie. 5) Do not make use of spirituous beverages. Monks, bound to observe chastity, are also forbidden marriage. The ascent toward enlightenment culminates in mental concentration (samādhi), which through four degrees of mystical contemplation (dhyāna), reaches a state of ineffable peace, which is the overcoming of suffering and joy. The practice of dhyāna, however arduous, is also accessible to laypeople, but it is not enough to reach nirvāṇa, which only the monk is able to attain when, having expiated sins and extinguished passions, he reaches, with the guidance of the four holy truths, nirvāṇa in life or "visible," equivalent to holiness. This precedes and prepares the perfect nirvāṇa or parinirvāṇa, which the saint reaches in death with the destruction of the body. The essence of parinirvāṇa is wrapped in mystery; it is indeed liberation from rebirth, but it is not possible to know whether the cessation of the suffering inherent in existence implies a state of actual beatitude. The sermon contains the affirmation that the thirst to live is the cause of suffering, but does not explain its origin nor how it leads to rebirth. We find the explanation in the formula, called that of "conditioned production" (pratīva-samūṭāda), which is the subject of an entire group of sutta, the 12th, of the Saṃyuttanikāya.

This is the substance of the ancient doctrine; the practical life of the monastic community (saṅgha) was regulated by a complex of norms, which the pāli canon has handed down to us in the Vinayapiṭaka, the disciplinary section. The oldest part is the Pāṭimokha, a "list of sins" that members of the Order must avoid; it is divided into two parts, one concerning monks and one concerning nuns. The Khandakā or "sections" prescribe the norms of daily monastic life, but since the rules are preceded by stories that explain where and on what occasion they were dictated by the Buddha, the Khandakā are also a mine of information, not all of it fantastic.

II. MAHĀYĀNA

The new form that Buddhism took in north-western India at the beginning of the common era had in Nāgārjuna (end of the 2nd century) its most fervent apostle, but not its founder. We do not know the history of the movement that gave rise to the new doctrine, but the councils are sufficient proof of the dissensions, later become schisms, by which the community was troubled after the death of the Buddha. The Mahāsāṅghika or "members of the great community" were among the first schismatics, and those among them who considered the buddha "supernatural beings" (lokottāra), must be regarded as the forerunners of the Mahāyāna. To them is attributed the Mahāvastu which reflects a period of transition from Hīnayāna to Mahāyāna because it sets forth the theory of the ten bhūmi or "degrees" of perfection, through which the follower of the Mahāyāna reaches the dignity of buddha. According to the new doctrine, every man is a bodhisattva, that is, "a being (destined) for enlightenment," a buddha in potency, who by supernatural inspiration or out of love for neighbor, decides to practice the perfect virtues (paramitā) and makes a vow to become buddha. The first enemy to be conquered is egoism, therefore he exercises charity by sharing with others not only his material goods, but also the merit deriving from his good actions. Says Śāntideva (7th century A.D.) in the Bodhicaryāvatāra, III, 10: "My life in all my rebirths, the merit acquired by me, present and future, with indifference I sacrifice them for the salvation of all creatures." But where will a wretched sinner find the strength to accomplish the sublime sacrifice? In the help of the great bodhisattva who preceded him on the path toward enlightenment, compassionate saints, who could have entered nirvāṇa, like the historical Buddha, but have renounced it in order to be able to succor, remaining in the world, the spiritual and temporal needs of suffering humanity. From the heavenly worlds where they reside, they hear and grant the prayers of the devout. The most invoked is Avalokiteśvara (v.) "the Lord of compassion" who according to the Buddhology of the Mahā-

yāna he is the spiritual son of the buddha Amitābha, "of limitless splendor," begotten by him through emanation so that he might spread the Good Law throughout the world. After Avalokiteśvara, Manjuśrī stands out for importance, celebrated by the Gaṇḍavyūha (ca. 4th century AD) as the only one capable of promoting full enlightenment. Other bodhisattvas are Vajrapāṇi, "he who holds a thunderbolt in his hand," and Maitreya, "the benevolent," the future human Buddha; other buddhas: Vairośana, "the radiant," and Amoghasiddhi, "of sure success." To give a progenitor to the numerous family of buddhas and bodhisattvas, created by popular imagination, there arose in Nepal, after the 7th century, the doctrine of the Ādibuddha or primordial Buddha, who would have begotten, through the power of his meditation, five spiritual buddhas, among them Amitābha, king of Sukhavati "the blessed (region)." From these buddhas five bodhisattvas would likewise be emanated, among them Avalokiteśvara, and the bodhisattvas would have brought forth, by force of magic, the human buddhas: Gautama, son of Avalokiteśvara, and other mythical buddhas. The obscure origin of this doctrine has suggested a possible derivation from Persian Gnosticism.

A valuable aid in the struggle against egoism was offered to the Mahāyānist by the theory of emptiness (sūnya), which belongs to the Mādhyamika philosophy, founded by Nāgārjuna. The Buddha had denied the existence of a metaphysical I, which he had replaced with the metabolic personality, formed of psycho-physical elements in perpetual transformation. Nāgārjuna went further, denying the existence of the elements as well, which, being in a relation of cause and effect with one another, do not exist in themselves and are devoid of substantial reality. The conviction that the I does not exist, the source of altruism, is as necessary to the bodhisattva as the exercise of charity. The reform carried out by the Mahāyāna is summed up in the following innovations: practice of the perfect virtues and therefore an active life in society and in the family; transferability of merit, in antithesis to the doctrine of personal and irreversible karman; intuitive knowledge of the doctrine of emptiness; worship of the great bodhisattvas, bestowers of graces, and remission of sins, as a consequence of the doctrine of grace. This religion of love was patronized and adopted by the Kuṣāṇa kings, the Scythians who conquered Kaśmīr and the Panjab, at whose court lived Aśvaghoṣa and Nāgārjuna (ca. 2nd century AD), apostles of the new doctrine. For the second time Buddhism was a state religion, and the image of the Buddha appeared on the coins of Kanṣa. Toward the ancient doctrine the Mahāyāna showed itself conciliatory, admitting that it was authentic but provisional. Gautama revealed it in the form suited to the mental dullness of his contemporaries, in preparation for the Mahāyāna. The followers of the Hinayāna nevertheless remained firm in refusing to recognize the authenticity of the Mahāyāna sūtras, which do not constitute a true and proper canon, but rather nine works of diverse origin and period, to which the common title of "Sūtra of vast extent" (Vaipulyasūtra) lends an apparent unity. The most important is the "Lotus of the Good Law" (saddharmapuṇḍarīka, ca. 200 AD), which celebrates the historical Buddha, called the ascetic of the sākya, god above the other gods, who apparently entered nirvāṇa, but lives an eternal life. Chapter 24 is dedicated to the great bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, dispenser of the most varied temporal graces.

The last, degenerate form of the Mahāyāna was Tantrism, born from the mysticism of the Yogācāra school (4th century AD), associated with the magical practices of Śivaite Yoga. The supreme gnosis is still that of emptiness, but the means of attaining it are not only asceticism and meditation, but also magical formulas and rites, and an artificial excitation of the senses. This form of Buddhism took root in Tibet (7th century AD) because of a certain affinity it had with the ancient religion of the Bon.

III. CHINESE BUDDHISM

Buddhism passed into China from India at the beginning of the 1st century. The report according to which the emperor Ming (58-66) sent to seek Buddhist books in central India, induced to do so by a dream, is a pure legend. But pilgrimages to India for the purpose of study, and the collecting of sacred texts, were later undertaken by Fa-hsien (399-414), Hsüan-tsang (629-45) and I-tsing (671-95), of whom accounts of their journeys survive. The new religion prospered under the dynasty of the Eastern Han (25-221), and in the 2nd century it was already in full development. The Mahāyāna prevails, although monasticism was modelled on the Hīnayāna discipline of the Pāli canon. The ten commandments were observed, the rules of the Pātimokkha and especially the norms of life prescribed for the disciples of the Buddha by the Brahmajālāsutta (Pan-tsang-hing). Religious life was conventual, the mendicant monks having by then almost disappeared. Only to a few monasteries was the privilege granted by the emperor of conferring monastic ordination, which through the degrees of śrāmaṇera and arhat allowed one to attain the dignity of bodhisattva. The preaching of the Sūtras and of the Vinaya was an important part of the activity of the monks, who were also translators and copyists. The sacred texts were attributed with the power of warding off misfortunes, and yet in the golden age of Chinese Buddhism the sūtras reached the enormous number of 2,213, according to a catalogue of 518 A.D. The cult of the buddhas Śākya (Gautama) and Amitābha and of the bodhisattvas Maitreya and Avalokiteśvara or Kwan-yin prevailed, and these enjoyed special veneration. An Indian mystic, Bodhidharma (in Chinese: Ta-mo), having landed at Canton around 520, introduced into the monasteries the practice of mystical contemplation (tch'an, from Sanskrit dhyāna) and founded one of the most important schools of Chinese Buddhism, known under the name of Tch'an.

During the Sung dynasty (960-1279) the rebirth of Confucianism brought about a fierce persecution against the Buddhists, and 260,000 religious, monks and nuns, were forced to resume secular life. Buddhism took refuge in lay secret societies, inspired by a syncretism that led them to adopt principles of Taoism and of Confucianism itself. Once religious tolerance had been restored by Khubilai, founder of the Mongol dynasty (1274), two monastic communities were formed in China: that of the Foists or Buddhists (Fo is the Chinese translation of Buddha) and that of the [b]Lamas in the provinces bordering on Tibet and Mongolia. The Foists have no hierarchy; each monastery stands by itself. The [b]Lamas, on the other hand, belong to an organization ordered hierarchically.

IV. JAPANESE BUDDHISM

Japan came to know Buddhism in the form of Mahāyāna, in 552 A.D. In that year there arrived at the Japanese imperial court, by way of Korea, sūtras and images of the Buddha, together with the news that all the countries between India and Korea had accepted the new religion. At court, opinions regarding the adoption of Buddhism remained for a long time divided; only in 593 did Prince Umayado, regent for the Empress Suikō, promulgate the first constitution, in which faith in the "three gems (the Buddha, the Doctrine, the Community)" was proclaimed the foundation of the virtuous life. He had Buddhist temples and seminaries, hospitals and shelters built, and already by 624 Buddhism had in Japan 46 temples, 816 monks or bonzes, and 569 nuns. The rivalry with Shintoism, the national religion, which predated Buddhism, was eliminated through the work of the bonze Gyōki (d. 822) with the recognition that the ancestral goddess Amaterasu was a manifestation of the buddha Vairośana, the universe personified, who had a bronze statue, more than fifteen meters tall, in the temple of Nara. From then until the end of the Tokugawa regime (1868), the importance of Japanese Mahāyāna steadily grew. In 1925 the temples and monasteries of the various Buddhist sects numbered 71,114, the religious 185,000 and the faithful 47 million, according to the data of the "Buddhist Congress of East Asia." The schisms in the Community, begun in the 8th century by reforming bonzes, increased in the following centuries, until they reached the number of fifty-eight. One of the most important is the Zen sect (from Sanskrit dhyāna, meditation) which, disregarding dogmatic and ritual questions, teaches the attainment of enlightenment by means of mental concentration. This sect (13th century), today predominantly monastic, had the greatest number of followers in the military class.

The imperial restoration of 1868 restored Shintoism to honor as the State religion, separating it from Buddhism, with which it had been associated by Gyōki. Buddhism suffered persecutions; the temples were devastated, the images destroyed and the bonzes advised to secularize themselves. Only in 1872 were they placed on the same footing as the priests of Shintō and officially recognized as kyōdōshoku, teachers of morality.

On Hīnayāna: H. C. Warren, Buddhism in translations, Cambridge Mass. 1909; T. W. Rhys Davids, L'India buddhistica, Italian trans., Florence 1925; F. Belloni-Filippi, La dottrina di Gotama Buddha, Lanciano 1927; L. Suali, Gotama Buddha, Bologna 1934; T. W. Rhys Davids, Buddhisme, its History and Literature, New York-London 1896; M. Winternitz, Geschichte der indischen Literatur, II, Leipzig 1920; A. Ballini, Le religioni dell'India, in P. Tacchi Venturi, Storia delle Religioni, I, 3rd ed., Turin 1944, pp. 473-510.

On Mahāyāna: D. T. Suzuki, Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism, London 1907; L. de la Vallée Poussin, Bouddhisme, opinions sur l'histoire de la Dogmatique, Paris 1909; id., Mahāyāna, in Enc. of rel. and Rth., VIII (1915), pp. 330-36; T. W. Rhys Davids, Sects Buddhist, ibid., XI (1920), pp. 307-309; Sāntideva, In cammino verso la luce (Italian trans. G. Tucc), Turin 1925.

Diffusion of Buddhism: J. J. M. de Groot, Le code du Mahayana en Chine, Amsterdam 1893; B. L. Lambresse, Le Bouddhisme en Chine et au Thibet, Paris 1893; H. Hackmann, Der Buddhismus in China, Korea u. Japan, Tübingen 1905; L. Wieger, Bouddhisme Chinois, 2 vols., Hokienfou 1910-13; R. Fujishima, Le Bouddhisme japonais, Paris 1889; A. Lloyd, The Creed of half Japan, historical sketches of Japanese Buddhism, London 1911; M. Anesaki, History of Japanese Religion, ibid. 1930; D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, 2 vols., ibid. 1927-33.

Ferdinando Belloni Filippi

V. BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY

Regarding the relations between B. and Christianity, the latter having, according to some, derived from the former part of its doctrine and its practices, and almost even the figure and history of Jesus Christ, it will suffice to recall the following points of irreducible contrast between the one and the other:

1) As to the concept and the existence of a personal God: primitive B. admits neither divinities, nor worship, nor man's dependence, as a creature, on a supreme Being, as creator. And even when the further development of Buddhist doctrine admitted and multiplied the gods, these were nothing but human persons who had become such. Christianity, on the other hand, places at the foundation of human life and actions unshaken faith in one God, eternal, personal, creator of the world, provident and fatherly toward all his creatures; it does not see the world as a chain of intertwinings subject to a fatal law, but as a work, wisely architected, moving toward the end set by the Creator; 2) as to the human person: according to B. the "I" is not a constant reality, consisting of a body united to a spiritual, immortal and independent soul; but is only a connection of elements which death disjoins and which, through the inclination to reunite, concur in forming other living beings, rational or irrational, according to the law of karman, until one day everything dissolves in nireāna. In Christianity, on the other hand, man, elevated by grace to the supernatural order and become a son of God, knows "that his transient elements are hinged in a permanent spiritual substance, in relation, even on this earth, with the heavenly kingdom; he knows too that his actions have a decisive importance for his future state, where one day he will reap what he has sown and where his contingent knowledge, a wretched and uncertain glimmer, will blossom into the beatific and eternal vision" (G. Messina, p. 355); 3) as to the value of life and its fundamental problem, suffering: for B. everything centers on the common experimental fact, which is suffering ("everything is suffering, birth, illness, death, etc."); it explains its origin by the thirst that drives the constituent elements of the "I" to pass from one rebirth to another without ever finding in any of them full joy; whence the necessity of destroying this thirst, through the total annihilation of every desire. Christianity, on the contrary, acknowledges, yes, the existence of suffering; but it indicates its origin not only in the fact that the world is limited and transient, but also and above all in the fact of an original fault that also caused physical suffering and deprived man of the goods that had been bestowed upon him. However, to remove suffering it does not advise shattering life and annihilating it in its most intimate roots, but strengthening the will, transforming sufferings into so many flights of wings to ascend to perfection and to the closest imitation of the example of its Founder. All the more so since in this man can count on the intervention of grace and divine help, which increase the efficacy of his effort; 4) that in B. and in Christianity there is monastic life does not imply derivation of the latter from the former. In all times and among all peoples there were isolated persons or groups who wished to obey the inspiration of greater perfection, detaching themselves from everything and everyone. Moreover, historically we know the origins of Christian monasticism so well that we can say that it does not derive at all from Buddhist monasticism; 5) some facts of the life of Jesus offer analogies with facts of the life of the Buddha. But here it is necessary first of all to demonstrate that these are true analogies between the different facts, founded not only on the pure consideration of the fact in itself but also on all the circumstances that accompanied them. Then one will see the fundamental difference (e.g. in the virginal conception of Jesus and in that of the Buddha, in their birth, in the episode of the temptations, etc.). Furthermore, it must be noted that, while the presence of Buddhist traditions in Palestine at the time of Jesus is not at all established, it appears instead that Christianity penetrated early into anterior India (v. INDIA), where the Christian influence may have provoked a reworking of ancient Buddhist tales; 6) there remains the point of greatest resemblance, love, benevolence toward others, animals and plants included. But whoever observes how love in B. does not reach the point of loving the enemy, but is content not to hate him, and how even the sentiment of friendly and merciful goodness remains mortified by the idea that every attachment of the heart distances one from liberation from suffering, understands how this love, at the very moment it gives itself, withdraws; it has no impetus nor ardor, it folds back upon itself; whereas the deep motive of love in Christianity, besides reaching even to the enemy, rests on the higher concept of the sonship of all with respect to God, in the example of the immeasurable love of Jesus Christ.

Celestino Testore