I. Religions and disciplines of salvation. II. Old Āryan beliefs, the dead, gods, sacrifice. III. Brahman speculation, theology, ritualism, 're-death,' ātman. General definitions are always somewhat misleading and give rise to discussion. But some definition of the title of these lectures is necessary. 'Buddhism as a discipline of salvation' is to be contrasted with 'Buddhism as a religion.' There are and there have been in India, since the beginning, a number of religions, religions properly so called. They present an endless variety; they often differ essentially one from another; they belong to distinct types of civilisation. But, although some are polytheistic, some monotheistic, and a larger number tinged with pantheism; although some are pagan, dishonest, superstitious and magical, and some lofty and pure in every respect, some logical and cold, and some mystical and passionate,—all of them Prayer or worship is never an essential part of the path. But it happens that an ascetic—for instance the Buddhist of the Mahāyāna school—believes that gods or divinised saints may help him towards the path, or even in climbing along the first slopes of the path: prayer and worship are, in such a case, useful or even necessary, but they have to be given up once the ascetic has somewhat advanced. As concerns morality, no discipline admits that an immoral man can reach the path: a purgative process is deemed necessary 1. But all disciplines are fond of stating that a saint is beyond merit and demerit, good deed and sin: no merit can accrue to him; no sin can soil him. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, active morality, gifts, self-sacrifice for the welfare of one's neighbour, are an essential part of the path. A saint is by definition
By this Path, through this Ford (tīrtha), the ascetic will cross the ocean of transmigration, as well as the worlds of the gods or paradises. The ascetic believes in such worlds—for he is not a sceptic, he willingly admits the whole of the traditional or popular mythology—but he despises them; he despises, as a philosopher would say, every contingent' existence; he aims at something that is beyond the worlds, that is 'hypercosmical' (to translate the Buddhist idiom, lokottara), a mysterious somewhere, a somewhere that is eternal and 'free from sorrow,' and which is called sometimes 'deliverance' (mokṣa, mukti, apavarga), sometimes happiness' (nirvṛti, naiḥśreyasa), sometimes Nirvāṇa, that is 'refreshment' or 'peace.' Such are the common features of these thoroughly Hindu institutions. In many respects, they are widely different one from another. Some are monist, pantheist or mystical (Upaniṣads, Vedānta, Yoga); some purposely atheist and rationalist (Jainism, Buddhism, Sāṃkhya). But
The time of Śākyamuni was an epoch of spiritual effervescence. Brahmans taught new doctrines. There were discussions and ideological tournaments. Scores of ascetics claimed to be discoverers of the Path, literally 'ford-makers,' who had found a ford across transmigration, or they claimed to be buddhas, that is 'awakened,' 'enlightened.' There was a large following for the leaders: people complained that, by their lessons and their example, "they caused the fathers to beget no sons, the wives to become widows and the families to die out." So large was the number of the candidates for deliverance: noblemen, merchants and treasurers, the jeunesse dorée, priests and men of priestly parentage, women, girls and wives and widows of good family, members of low caste or outcasts, Cāpā,
The disciplines of salvation arose from about the eighth to the sixth century B.C., in the middle and upper valley of the Ganges. At this time and in this place, there had been already a long and intimate intercourse between the two elements of the Hindu population. On the one hand, were the aborigines, concerning whom we lack any direct information. It has been usual to assume that all the elements of the later Hindu civilisation which are not Āryan, or do not look Āryan, are due to their influence. The abode of the Fathers is an immortal, unending world: "There make me immortal," says the Vedic poet, "where exist delight, joy, rejoicing, and joyance, where wishes are obtained." It is not a spiritual paradise. Whatever poetical descriptions we may find, 'supreme luminous regions, middle sky, third heaven, lap of the red dawns,' the pleasures of the Fathers are essentially mundane ones: rivers of mead, milk and waters, pools of butter with banks of honey, also Apsarases or celestial damsels. The dead were happy; their life was worthy
While the ascetic—the learned ascetic—does not expect anything from the gods or fear anything from the demons, with the old Āryas happiness in this life depends on the goodwill of the gods and the deprecation of malignant spirits. A. Barth said eloquently 1: "The connexion between man and the gods is conceived as a very close one. Always and everywhere he feels that he is in their hands and that all his movements are under their eye. They are masters close at hand, who exact tasks of him and to whom he owes constant homage. He must be humble, for he is weak and they are strong; he must be sincere towards them, for they cannot be deceived. Nay, he knows that they in turn do not deceive, and that they have a right to require his confidence as a friend, a brother, a father. . . . Sacrifice is often an act of affection and gratitude towards the gods, through which man acknowledges their sovereignty, renders thanks to
The Vedic gods, except in a few instances, are not regarded as 'transcendent'; to a certain extent, they depend on man. As the dead are fed by funeral oblations, so the gods need sacrificial oblations. A. Barth continues: "In the grossest sense, sacrifice is a mere bargain. Man needs things which the god possesses, such as rain, light, warmth and health, while the god is hungry and seeks offerings from man; there is giving and receiving on both sides: 'As at a stipulated price, let us exchange force and vigour, O Indra! Give me and I shall give thee; bring me, and I shall bring thee.'" Malignant spirits, if not in the Rigveda itself, at least in the Vedic religion, are no less important than the gods. All the movements of daily life as well as all the ceremonies of religion are to be made safe from their attacks. Illnesses and mishaps of every description are their work. Therefore they must be propitiated, and it is an old formula that "every supernatural being (yakṣa) has a right to his own offering." Such were the fundamental ideas of the Āryan religion and life. The Ārya, without being δεισιδαιμονέστερος, did love and respect his gods; he used meat and even cow's flesh; he sacrificed to obtain male offspring and a life of a hundred autumns; he hoped after death to join the Fathers and to enjoy, with them, the offerings of his sons. Life is serene, joyful, active, not in any way spiritual or intellectual. One sees how radical a change was necessary for asceticism and the disciplines of salvation to be possible. The inborn feelings of the Āryas had to be destroyed to make room for an altogether different conception of life and human destiny. What were the causes of this change? They certainly were many and manifold. To begin with, we must not forget that the Sanskrit-speaking people, the priestly and feudal aristocracy who created the disciplines of salvation, were no longer of unmixed Āryan race, as the old poets of the Veda, but a mixture of Āryas and of the aborigines. Oldenberg has laid much stress on this fact: we should not venture, in our present state of knowledge, to base too much upon it. But it is certain that the 'intellectual On the other hand, this aristocracy was likely to borrow from the aborigines, and from the mass of the Āryan people in daily contact with the aborigines, many superstitions or beliefs—confused notions connected with penance, ecstasy, reincarnations—as well as the principle of ahiṃsā, 'respect for life'; a sort of cult of the cow; new gods, obscene and cruel; phallic worship; idolatry, and so on. Such notions, it is certain they borrowed: this can be proved in many cases. But however profound and large the influence of new ethnic and climatic surroundings, the Sanskrit-speaking people, especially the Brahmans, were the heirs and the faithful preservers of the Āryan tradition and mind. The notions they borrowed were at once elaborated into rationalistic and fairly coherent doctrines. That The old rites of the family, offerings to the domestic fire, had, in the beginning and for a long time, no professional priest. The father and the mother were the priests at their fire 1. But a certain ritual, which is as old as the period when the ancestors of the Iranians and of the Vedic Indians lived together, the ritual of
Is this Being a god or a force? Is the universe born from a principle possessed of name and form (sat), or from a liquid and undifferentiated mass (asat)? Did the gods come first and the universe afterwards? The poet professes to Brahman is a new god, but an old word: it meant prayer or sacred formula. How did the word acquire a new meaning of this kind? Because the sacred formula came to be regarded as the great creative power. 2. While speculation on the gods and on cosmogony leads to the substitution, for the divine heroes of yore, of abstract and obscure forces, the speculation on sacrifice leads to a like result. Victor Henry is inclined to believe that the Indo-Iranian sacrifice of Soma-Haoma, from which the Vedic sacrifice of Soma is derived, was originally a magical rite for rain. This view is only a conjecture. But two points seem to be ascertained. (1) While magical notions are always lurking in old rituals, the oldest theologians of the Veda—the authors of the Hymns— Indians—sorcerers, priests, philosophers or poets—are not a little ambitious: ils voient grand. The Vedic priests ventured to think that their hymns, formulae and rites were, not only the invigorating power that helps the gods in the struggle for light and waters, but "the condition even of the normal course of things." Sacrifice prevents the world from lapsing into chaos. Further, if sacrifice is the actual cosmical agency, it must probably at the beginning have been the cosmogonical factor. It was by sacrifice that the gods delivered the world from chaos; it was by sacrifice that the gods became immortal, and why should not Man also become immortal by sacrifice?
4. The speculation, which has in this way dispelled or abandoned the hope of immortality, cannot stop at this conclusion. It is everywhere Such an admission: "I am that Being," "I am Brahman," was a bold and a decisive move. In short, that was the great discovery which has remained for at least twenty-five centuries the capital and the most cherished truth of the Indian people. It is much more than an academical theory. There is only one Self, for the self of man is not a creation, an emanation or a part of the That is perfect bliss,—which we sometimes experience in dreamless sleep, when the Self is withdrawn from not Self,—and unconsciousness: for, "where there is a duality, one can see the other, one can smell the other, one can address the other, one can hear the other, one can think of the other, one can grasp the other. But where for each everything has turned into his
That the doctrines of transmigration, of the Self, of the merging of the individual self in the great self, were antagonistic to the traditional beliefs in the gods, the sacrifice, the paradises, and aimed directly at the destruction of the whole fabric of social life, is self-evident. The times were ripe for asceticism and the disciplines of deliverance to arise.
6:1 "As a clean cloth free from stain duly takes the dye, so in Yasa, the noble youth, arose a pure, unstained insight into the doctrine." 7:1 An exposé of this intricate doctrine may be found in Hastings, E.R.E., see 'Bodhisattva,' 'Mahāyāna,' 'Nihilism.' 8:1 On the notion of deliverance, see Mrs Rhys Davids’ article 'Mokṣa,' in Hastings, E.R.E. viii, pp. 770-774. 9:1 See Rhys Davids’ article on 'Moggallāna,' Hastings, E.R.E. viii, p. 769. 13:1 Oldenberg (tr. V. Henry), Religion du Véda, pp. 453, 457. 14:1 Religions of India, p. 35 foll. 18:1 P. Oltramare, Le rōle du Yajamāna dans le sacrifice. 23:1 Barth, Religions, loc. cit. 24:1 See A. M. Boyer, 'Étude sur l’origine de la doctrine du Saṃsāra,' J. As. 1901, 1, p. 451. 28:1 A. Barth, Religions of India, p. 78. See below, p. 161. 29:1 Bṛhadāsaṇyaka, II, 4, 13; compare iv, 3, 23.INDIAN DISCIPLINES OF SALVATION
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