XLVII. KOREA[895]
The Buddhism of Korea cannot be sharply distinguished from the Buddhism of China and Japan. Its secluded mountain monasteries have some local colour, and contain halls dedicated to the seven stars and the mountain gods of the land. And travellers are impressed by the columns of rock projecting from the soil and carved into images (miriok), by the painted walls of the temples and by the huge rolled-up pictures which are painted and displayed on festival days. But there is little real originality in art: in literature and doctrine none at all. Buddhism started in Korea with the same advantages as in China and Japan but it lost in moral influence because the monks continually engaged in politics and it did not win temporal power because they were continually on the wrong side. Yet Korea is not without importance in the annals of far-eastern Buddhism for, during the wanderings and vicissitudes of the faith, it served as a rest-house and depot. It was from Korea that Buddhism first entered Japan: when, during the wars of the five dynasties the T'ien-t'ai school was nearly annihilated in China, it was revived by a Korean priest and the earliest extant edition of the Chinese Tripitaka is known only by a single copy preserved in Korea and taken thence to Japan.
For our purposes Korean history may be divided into four periods:
I. The three States (B.C. 57-A.D. 668). II. The Kingdom of Silla (668-918). III. The Kingdom of Korye (918-1392). IV. The Kingdom of Chosen (1392-1910).
The three states were Koguryu in the north, Pakche in the south-west and Silla in the south-east[896]. Buddhism, together with Chinese writing, entered Koguryu from the north in 372 and Pakche from the south a few years later. Silla being more distant and at war with the other states did not receive it till about 424. In 552 both Japan and Pakche were at war with Silla and the king of Pakche, wishing to make an alliance with the Emperor of Japan sent him presents which included Buddhist books and images. Thus Korea was the intermediary for introducing Buddhism, writing, and Chinese culture into Japan, and Korean monks played an important part there both in art and religion. But the influence of Korea must not be exaggerated. The Japanese submitted to it believing that they were acquiring the culture of China and as soon as circumstances permitted they went straight to the fountain head. The principal early sects were all imported direct from China.
The kingdom of Silla, which became predominant in the seventh century, had adopted Buddhism in 528, and maintained friendly intercourse with the T'ang dynasty. As in Japan Chinese civilization was imitated wholesale. This tendency strengthened Buddhism at the time, but its formidable rival Confucianism was also introduced early in the eighth century, although it did not become predominant until the thirteenth[897].
In the seventh century the capital of Silla was a centre of Buddhist culture and also of trade. Merchants from India, Tibet and Persia are said to have frequented its markets and several Korean pilgrims visited India.
In 918 the Wang dynasty, originating in a northern family of humble extraction, overthrew the kingdom of Silla and with it the old Korean aristocracy. This was replaced by an official nobility modelled on that of China: the Chinese system of examinations was adopted and a class of scholars grew up. But with this attempt to reconstruct society many abuses appeared. The number of slaves greatly increased[898], and there were many hereditary low castes, the members of which were little better than slaves. Only the higher castes could compete in examinations or hold office and there were continual struggles and quarrels between the military and civil classes. Buddhism flourished much as it flourished in the Hei-an period of Japan, but its comparative sterility reflected the inferior social conditions of Korea. Festivals were celebrated by the Court with great splendour: magnificent monasteries were founded: the bonzes kept troops and entered the capital armed: the tutor of the heir apparent and the chancellor of the kingdom were often ecclesiastics, and a law is said to have been enacted to the effect that if a man had three sons one of them must become a monk. But about 1250 the influence of the Sung Confucianists began to be felt. The bonzes were held responsible for the evils of the time, for the continual feuds, exactions and massacres, and the civil nobility tended to become Confucianist and to side against the church and the military. The inevitable outburst was delayed but also rendered more disastrous when it came by the action of the Mongols who, as in China, were patrons of Buddhism. The Yüan dynasty invaded Korea, placed regents in the principal towns and forced the Korean princes to marry Mongol wives. It was from Korea that Khubilai despatched his expeditions against Japan, and in revenge the Japanese harried the Korean coast throughout the fourteenth century. But so long as the Yüan dynasty lasted the Korean Court which had become Mongol remained faithful to it and to Buddhism; when it was ousted by the Ming, a similar movement soon followed in Korea. The Mongolized dynasty of Korye was deposed and another, which professed to trace its lineage back to Silla, mounted the throne and gave the country the name of Chosen.
This revolution was mainly the work of the Confucianist party in the nobility and it was not unnatural that patriots and reformers should see in Buddhism nothing but the religion of the corrupt old regime of the Mongols. During the next century and a half a series of restrictive measures, sometimes amounting to persecution, were applied to it. Two kings who dared to build monasteries and favour bonzes were deposed. Statues were melted down, Buddhist learning was forbidden: marriages and burials were performed according to the rules of Chu-hsi. About the beginning of the sixteenth century (the date is variously given as 1472 and 1512 and perhaps there was more than one edict) the monasteries in the capital and all cities were closed and this is why Korean monasteries are all in the country and often in almost inaccessible mountains. It is only since the Japanese occupation that temples have been built in towns.
At first the results of the revolution were beneficial. The great families were compelled to discharge their body-guards whose collisions had been a frequent cause of bloodshed. The public finances and military forces were put into order. Printing with moveable type and a phonetic alphabet were brought into use and vernacular literature began to flourish. But in time the Confucian literati formed a sort of corporation and became as troublesome as the bonzes had been. The aristocracy split into two hostile camps and Korean politics became again a confused struggle between families and districts in which progress and even public order became impossible. For a moment, however, there was a national cause. This was when Hideyoshi invaded Korea in 1592 as part of his attack on China. The people rose against the Japanese troops and, thanks to the death of Hideyoshi rather than to their own valour, got rid of them. It is said that in this struggle the bonzes took part as soldiers fighting under their abbots and that the treaty of peace was negotiated by a Korean and a Japanese monk[899].
Nevertheless it does not appear that Buddhism enjoyed much consideration in the next three centuries. The Hermit Kingdom, as it has been called, became completely isolated and stagnant nor was there any literary or intellectual life except the mechanical study of the Chinese classics. Since the annexation by Japan (1910) conditions have changed and Buddhism is encouraged. Much good work has been done in collecting and reprinting old books, preserving monuments and copying inscriptions. The monasteries were formerly under the control of thirty head establishments or sees, with somewhat conflicting interests. But about 1912 these thirty sees formed a union under a president who resides in Seoul and holds office for a year. A theological seminary also has been founded and a Buddhist magazine is published.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 895: See various articles in the _Trans. of the Korean Branch of the R.A.S._, and F. Starr, Korean Buddhism. Also M. Courant, Bibliographie coréenne, especially vol. III. chap. 2.]
[Footnote 896: The orthography of these three names varies considerably. The Japanese equivalents are Koma, Kudara and Shiragi. There are also slight variations in the dates given for the introduction of Buddhism into various states. It seems probable that Mârânanda and Mukocha, the first missionaries to Pakche and Silla were Hindus or natives of Central Asia who came from China and some of the early art of Silla is distinctly Indian in style. See Starr, l.c. plates VIII and IX.]
[Footnote 897: These dates are interesting, as reflecting the changes of thought in China. In the sixth century Chinese influence meant Buddhism. It is not until the latter part of the Southern Sung, when the philosophy of Chu-hsi had received official approval, that Chinese influence meant Confucianism.]
[Footnote 898: The reasons were many, but the upper classes were evidently ready to oppress the lower. Poor men became the slaves of the rich to obtain a livelihood. All children of slave women were declared hereditary slaves and so were the families of criminals.]
[Footnote 899: These statements are taken from Maurice Courant's Epitome of Korean History in Madrolle's Guide to North China, p. 428. I have not been successful in verifying them in Chinese or Japanese texts. See, however, Starr, Korean Buddhism, pp. 29-30.]
XLVIII. ANNAM
The modern territory called Annam includes the ancient Champa, and it falls within the French political sphere which includes Camboja. Of Champa I have treated elsewhere in connection with Camboja, but Annam cannot be regarded as the heir of this ancient culture. It represents a southward extension of Chinese influence, though it is possible that Buddhism may have entered it in the early centuries of our era either by sea or from Burma.
At the present day that part of the French possessions which occupies the eastern coast of Asia is divided into Tonkin, Annam and Cochin China. The Annamites are predominant in all three provinces and the language and religion of all are the same, except that Cochin China has felt the influence of Europe more strongly than the others. But before the sixteenth century the name Annam meant rather Tonkin and the northern portion of modern Annam, the southern portion being the now vanished kingdom of Champa.
Until the tenth century A.D.[900] Annam in this sense was a part of the Chinese Empire, although it was occasionally successful in asserting its temporary independence. In the troubled period which followed the downfall of the T'ang dynasty this independence became more permanent. An Annamite prince founded a kingdom called Dai-cô-viêt[901] and after a turbulent interval there arose the Li dynasty which reigned for more than two centuries (1009-1226 A.D.). It was under this dynasty that the country was first styled An-nam: previously the official designation of the land or its inhabitants was Giao-Chi[902]. The Annamites were at this period a considerable military power, though their internal administration appears to have been chaotic. They were occasionally at war with China, but as a rule were ready to send complimentary embassies to the Emperor. With Champa, which was still a formidable antagonist, there was a continual struggle. Under the Tran dynasty (1225-1400) the foreign policy of Annam followed much the same lines. A serious crisis was created by the expedition of Khubilai Khan in 1285, but though the Annamites suffered severely at the beginning of the invasion, they did not lose their independence and their recognition of Chinese suzerainty remained nominal. In the south the Chams continued hostilities and, after the loss of some territory, invoked the aid of China with the result that the Chinese occupied Annam. They held it, however, only for five years (1414-1418).
In 1428 the Li dynasty came to the throne and ruled Annam at least in name until the end of the eighteenth century. At first they proved vigorous and capable; they organized the kingdom in provinces and crushed the power of Champa. But after the fifteenth century the kings became merely titular sovereigns and Annamite history is occupied entirely with the rivalry of the two great families, Trinh and Nguyen, who founded practically independent kingdoms in Tonkin and Cochin-China respectively. In 1802 a member of the Nguyen family made himself Emperor of all Annam but both he and his successors were careful to profess themselves vassals of China.
Thus it will be seen that Annam was at no time really detached from China. In spite of political independence it always looked towards the Chinese Court and though complimentary missions and nominal vassalage seem unimportant, yet they are significant as indicating admiration for Chinese institutions. Between Champa and Annam on the other hand there was perpetual war: in the later phases of the contest the Annamites appear as invaders and destroyers. They seem to have disliked the Chams and were not disposed to imitate them. Hence it is natural that Champa, so long as it existed as an independent kingdom, should mark the limit of direct Indian influence on the mainland of Eastern Asia, though afterwards Camboja became the limit. By direct, I do not mean to exclude the possibility of transmission through Java or elsewhere, but by whatever route Indian civilization came to Champa, it brought its own art, alphabet and language, such institutions as caste and forms of Hinduism and Buddhism which had borrowed practically nothing from non-Indian sources. In Annam, on the other hand, Chinese writing and, for literary purposes, a form of the Chinese language were in use: the arts, customs and institutions were mainly Chinese: whatever Buddhism can be found was imported from China and is imperfectly distinguished from Taoism: of Hinduism there are hardly any traces[903].
The Buddhism of Annam is often described as corrupt and decadent. Certainly it would be vain to claim for it that its doctrine and worship are even moderately pure or primitive, but it cannot be said to be moribund. The temples are better kept and more numerously attended than in China and there are also some considerable monasteries. As in China very few except the monks are exclusive Buddhists and even the monks have no notion that the doctrines of Lao-tzŭ and Confucius are different from Buddhism. The religion of the ordinary layman is a selection made according to taste from a mass of beliefs and observances traceable to several distinct sources, though no Annamite is conscious that there is anything incongruous in this heterogeneous combination. This fusion of religions, which is more complete even than in China, is illustrated by the temples of Annam which are of various kinds[904]. First we have the Chua or Buddhist temples, always served by bonzes or nuns. They consist of several buildings of which the principal contains an altar bearing a series of images arranged on five or six steps, which rise like the tiers of a theatre. In the front row there is usually an image of the infant Śâkyamuni and near him stand figures of At-nan (Ănanda) and Muc-Lien (Maudgalyâyana). On the next stage are Taoist deities (the Jade Emperor, the Polar Star, and the Southern Star) and on the higher stages are images representing (a) three Buddhas[905] with attendants, (b) the Buddhist Triratna and (c) the three religions, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. But the arrangement of the images is subject to much variation and the laity hardly know who are the personages represented. At side altars there are generally statues of Quan-Am, guardian deities, eminent bonzes and other worthies. Representations of hell are also common. Part of the temple is generally set apart for women who frequent it in the hope of obtaining children by praying to Quan-Am and other goddesses. Buddhist literature is sometimes printed in these Chua and such works as the Amitâyurdhyânasûtra and collections of Dhâraṇîs are commonly placed on the altars.
Quan-Am (Kuan-Yin) is a popular deity and the name seems to be given to several goddesses. They would probably be described as incarnations of Avalokita, if any Annamite were to define his beliefs (which is not usual), but they are really legendary heroines who have left a reputation for superhuman virtue. One was a daughter of the Emperor Chuang of the Chou dynasty. Another (Quan-Am-Thi-Kinh), represented as sitting on a rock and carrying a child in her arms, was a much persecuted lady who passed part of her life disguised as a bonze. A third form, Quan-Am-Toa-Son, she who dwells on the mountains, has an altar in nearly every temple and is specially worshipped by women who wish for sons. At Hanoi there is a small temple, rising on one column out of the water near the shore of a lake, like a lotus in a tank, and containing a brass image of Quan-Am with eight arms, which is evidently of Indian origin. Sometimes popular heroines such as Cao Tien, a princess who was drowned, are worshipped without (it would seem) being identified with Quan-Am.
But besides the Chua there are at least three other kinds of religious edifices: (i) Dinh. These are municipal temples dedicated to beings commonly called genii by Europeans, that is to say, superhuman personages, often, but not always, departed local worthies, who for one reason or another are supposed to protect and supervise a particular town or village. The Dinh contains a council room as well as a shrine and is served by laymen. The genius is often represented by an empty chair and his name must not be pronounced within the temple. (ii) Taoist deities are sometimes worshipped in special temples, but the Annamites do not seem to think that such worship is antagonistic to Buddhism or even distinct from it. (iii) Temples dedicated to Confucius (Van mien) are to be found in the towns, but are generally open only on certain feast days, when they are visited by officials. Sometimes altars dedicated to the sage may be found in natural grottoes or other picturesque situations. Besides these numerous elements, Annamite religion also includes the veneration of ancestors and ceremonies such as the worship of Heaven and Earth performed in imitation of the Court of Peking. To this must be added many local superstitions in which the worship of animals, especially the tiger, is prominent. But a further analysis of this composite religion does not fall within my province.
There is little to be said about the history of Buddhism in Annam, but native tradition places its introduction as late as the tenth century[906]. Buddhist temples usually contain a statue of Phat To[907] who is reported to have been the first adherent of the faith and to have built the first pagoda. He was the tutor of the Emperor Li-Thai-To who came to the throne in 1009. Phat-To may therefore have been active in the middle of the tenth century and this agrees with the statement that the Emperor Dinh Tien-Hoang Dê (968-979) was a fervent Buddhist who built temples and did his best to make converts[908]. One Emperor, Li Hué-Ton, abdicated and retired to a monastery.
The Annals of Annam[909] record a discussion which took place before the Emperor Thai-Tôn (1433-1442) between a Buddhist and a sorcerer. Both held singularly mixed beliefs but recognized the Buddha as a deity. The king said that he could not decide between the two sects, but gave precedence to the Buddhists.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 900: The dates given are 111 B.C.-939 A.D.]
[Footnote 901: French scholars use a great number of accents and even new forms of letters to transcribe Annamite, but since this language has nothing to do with the history of Buddhism or Hinduism and the accurate orthography is very difficult to read, I have contented myself with a rough transcription.]
[Footnote 902: This is the common orthography, but Chiao Chih would be the spelling according to the system of transliterating Chinese adopted in this book.]
[Footnote 903: It is said that the story of the Râmâyana is found in Annamite legends (B.E.F.E.O. 1905, p. 77), and in one or two places the Annamites reverence statues of Indian deities.]
[Footnote 904: The most trustworthy account of Annamite religion is perhaps Dumoutier, Les Cultes Annamites, Hanoi, 1907. It was published after the author's death and consists of a series of notes rather than a general description. See also Diguet, Les Annamites, 1906, especially chap. VI.]
[Footnote 905: Maitreya is called Ri-lac = Chinese Mi-le. The equivalence of the syllables ri and mi seems strange, but certain. Cf. A-ri-da = Amida or O-mi-to.]
[Footnote 906: Pelliot (Meou-Tseu, traduit et annoté, in T'oung Pao, vol. XIX. p. 1920) gives reasons for thinking that Buddhism was prevalent in Tonkin in the early centuries of our era, but, if so, it appears to have decayed and been reintroduced. Also at this time Chiao-Chih may have meant Kuang-tung.]
[Footnote 907: Diguet, Les Annamites, p. 303.]
[Footnote 908: Maybon et Russier, L'Histoire d'Annam, p. 45.]
[Footnote 909: Dumoutier, Les Cultes Annamites, p. 58.]
XLIX. TIBET
INTRODUCTORY
The religion of Tibet and Mongolia, often called Lamaism, is probably the most singular form of Buddhism in existence and has long attracted attention in Europe on account of its connection with politics and its curious resemblance to the Roman Church in ritual as well as in statecraft. The pontiffs and curia of Lhasa emulated the authority of the medieval papacy, so that the Mings and Manchus in China as well as the British in India had to recognize them as a considerable power.
Tibet had early relations with Kashmir, Central Asia and China which may all have contributed something to its peculiar civilization, but its religion is in the main tantric Buddhism imported from Bengal and invigorated from time to time by both native and Indian reformers. But though almost every feature of Lamaism finds a parallel somewhere in India, yet too great insistence on its source and historical development hardly does justice to the originality of the Tibetans. They borrowed a foreign faith wholesale, but still the relative emphasis which they laid on its different aspects was something new. They had only a moderate aptitude for asceticism, meditation and metaphysics, although they manfully translated huge tomes of Sanskrit philosophy, but they had a genius for hierarchy, discipline and ecclesiastical polity unknown to the Hindus. Thus taking the common Asiatic idea that great and holy men are somehow divine, they made it the principle of civil and sacerdotal government by declaring the prelates of the church to be deities incarnate. Yet in strange contrast to these practical talents, a certain innate devilry made them exaggerate all the magical, terrifying and demoniac elements to be found in Indian Tantrism.
The extraordinary figures of raging fiends which fill Tibetan shrines suggest at first that the artists simply borrowed and made more horrible the least civilized fancies of Indian sculpture, yet the majesty of Tibetan architecture (for, judging by the photographs of Lhasa and Tashilhumpo, it deserves no less a name) gives another impression. The simplicity of its lines and the solid, spacious walls unadorned by carving recall Egypt rather than India and harmonize not with the many-limbed demons but with the calm and dignified features of the deified priests who are also portrayed in these halls.
An atmosphere of mystery and sorcery has long hung about the mountainous regions which lie to the north of India. Hindus and Chinese alike saw in them the home of spirits and wizards, and the grand but uncanny scenery of these high plateaux has influenced the art and ideas of the natives. The climate made it natural that priests should congregate in roomy strongholds, able to defy the cold and contain the stores necessary for a long winter, and the massive walls seem to imitate the outline of the rocks out of which they grow. But the strange shapes assumed by mists and clouds, often dyed many colours by the rising or setting sun, suggest to the least imaginative mind an aerial world peopled by monstrous and magical figures. At other times, when there is no fog, distant objects seem in the still, clear atmosphere to be very near, until the discovery that they are really far away produces a strange feeling that they are unreal and unattainable.
In discussing this interesting faith, I shall first treat of its history and then of the sacred books on which it professes to be based. In the light of this information it will be easier to understand the doctrines of Lamaism and I shall finally say something about its different sects, particularly as there is reason to think that the strength of the Established Church, of which the Grand Lama is head, has been exaggerated.
L. TIBET (continued)
HISTORY
It is generally stated that Buddhism was first preached in Tibet at the instance of King Srong-tsan-gam-po[910] who came to the throne in 629 A.D. Some legendary notices of its earlier appearance[911] will bear the natural interpretation that the Tibetans (like the Chinese) had heard something about it from either India or Khotan before they invited instructors to visit them[912].
At this time Tibet played some part in the politics of China and northern India. The Emperor Harsha and the T'ang Emperor T'ai Tsung exchanged embassies but a second embassy sent from China arrived after Harsha's death and a usurper who had seized the throne refused to receive it. The Chinese with the assistance of the kings of Tibet and Nepal dethroned him and carried him off captive. There is therefore nothing improbable in the story that Srong-tsan-gam-po had two wives, who were princesses of Nepal and China respectively. He was an active ruler, warlike but progressive, and was persuaded by these two ladies that Buddhism was a necessary part of civilization. According to tradition he sent to India a messenger called Thonmi Sanbhota, who studied there for several years, adapted a form of Indian writing to the use of his native language and translated the Karaṇḍa Vyûha. Recent investigators however have advanced the theory that the Tibetan letters are derived from the alphabet of Indian origin used in Khotan and that Sanbhota made its acquaintance in Kashmir[913]. Though the king and his two wives are now regarded as the first patrons of Lamaism and worshipped as incarnations of Avalokita and Târâ, it does not appear that his direct religious activity was great or that he built monasteries. But his reign established the foundations of civilization without which Buddhism could hardly have flourished, he to some extent unified Central Tibet, he chose the site of Lhasa as the capital and introduced the rudiments of literature and art. But after his death in 650 we hear little more of Buddhism for some decades.
About 705 King Khri-gtsug-lde-btsan is said to have built monasteries, caused translations to be made, and summoned monks from Khotan. His efforts bore little fruit, for no Tibetans were willing to take the vows, but the edict of 783 preserved in Lhasa mentions his zeal for religion, and he prepared the way for Khri-sroṇ-lde-btsan in whose reign Padma-Sambhava, the real founder of Lamaism, arrived in Tibet[914].
This event is said to have occurred in 747 and the epoch is noticeable for two reasons. Firstly Tibet, which had become an important military power, was now brought into contact both in peace and war with China and Central Asia. It was predominant in the Tarim Basin and ruled over parts of Ssŭ-chuan and Yunnan. China was obliged to pay tribute and when it was subsequently refused the Tibetans sacked the capital, Chang-an. In 783 China made a treaty of peace with Tibet. The king was the son of a Chinese princess and thus blood as well as wide experience disposed him to open Tibet to foreign ideas. But in 747 relations with China were bad, so he turned towards India and invited to his Court a celebrated Pandit named Śântarakshita, who advised him to send for Padma-Sambhava.
Secondly this was the epoch when Amogha flourished in China and introduced the Mantrayâna system or Chên Yen. This was the same form of corrupt Buddhism which was brought to Tibet and was obviously the dominant sect in India in the eighth century. It was pliant and amalgamated easily with local observances, in China with funeral rites, in Tibet with demonolatry.
At this time Padma-Sambhava was one of the most celebrated exponents of Tantric Buddhism, and in Tibet is often called simply the Teacher (Guru or Mahâcârya). His portraits represent him as a man of strongly marked and rather angry features, totally unlike a conventional monk. A popular account of his life[915] is still widely read and may contain some grains of history, though the narrative as a whole is fantastic. It describes him as born miraculously in Udyâna but as having studied at Bodhgaya and travelled in many regions with the intention of converting all the world. According to his plan, the conversion of his native land was to be his last labour, and when he had finished his work in Tibet he vanished thither miraculously. Thus Udyâna is not represented as the source and home of Tantric Buddhism but as being like Tibet a land of magic and mystery but, like Tibet, needing conversion: both are disposed to welcome Tantric ideas but those ideas are elaborated by Padma-Sambhava not in Udyâna but in Bengal which from other sources we know to have been a centre of Tantrism.
Some other points of interest in these legends may be noticed. Padma-Sambhava is not celibate but is accompanied by female companions. He visits many countries which worship various deities and for each he has a new teaching suited to its needs. Thus in Tibet, where the older religion consisted of defensive warfare against the attacks of evil spirits[916], he assumes the congenial character of a victorious exorcist, and in his triumphant progress subdues local demons as methodically as if he were suppressing the guerilla warfare of native tribes. He has new revelations called Terma which he hides in caves to be discovered by his successors. These revelations are said to have been in an unknown language[917]. Those at present existing are in Tibetan but differ from the canonical scriptures in certain orthographical peculiarities. The legend thus admits that Padma-Sambhava preached a non-celibate and magical form of Buddhism, ready to amalgamate with local superstitions and needing new revelations for its justification.
He built the monastery of Samye[918] about thirty miles from Lhasa on the model of Odantapuri in Bengal. Śântarakshita became abbot and from this period dates the foundation of the order of Lamas[919]. Mara (Thse Ma-ra) was worshipped as well as the Buddhas, but however corrupt the cultus may have been, Samye was a literary centre where many translations were made. Among the best known translators was a monk from Kashmir named Vairocana[920]. It would appear however that there was considerable opposition to the new school not only from the priests of the old native religion but from Chinese Buddhists[921].
Numerous Tibetan documents discovered in the Tarim basin[922] date from this period. The absence in them of Buddhist personal names and the rarity of direct references to Buddhism indicate that though known in Tibet it was not yet predominant. Buddhist priests (ban-de) are occasionally mentioned but the title Lama has not been found. The usages of the Bonpo religion seem familiar to the writers and there are allusions to religious struggles.
When Padma-Sambhava vanished from Tibet, the legend says that he left behind him twenty-five disciples, all of them magicians, who propagated his teaching. At any rate it flourished in the reign of Ralpachan (the grandson of Khri-sroṇ-lde-btsan). Monasteries multiplied and received land and the right to collect tithes. To each monk was assigned a small revenue derived from five tenants and the hierarchy was reorganized[923]. Many translators were at work in this period and a considerable part of the present canon was then rendered into Tibetan. The king's devotion to Buddhism was however unpopular and he was murdered[924] apparently at the instigation of his brother and successor Lang-dar-ma[925], who endeavoured to extirpate Lamaism. Monasteries were destroyed, books burnt, Indian monks were driven out of the country and many Lamas were compelled to become hunters or butchers. But the persecution only lasted three years[926], for the wicked king was assassinated by a Lama who has since been canonized by the Church and the incident of his murder or punishment is still acted in the mystery plays performed at Himis and other monasteries.
After the death of Lang-dar-ma Tibet ceased to exist as a united kingdom and was divided among clans and chieftains. This was doubtless connected with the collapse of Tibetan power in the Tarim basin, but whether as effect or cause it is hard to say. The persecution may have had a political motive: Lang-dar-ma may have thought that the rise of monastic corporations, and their right to own land and levy taxes were a menace to unity and military efficiency. But the political confusion which followed on his death was not due to the triumphant restoration of Lamaism. Its recovery was slow. The interval during which Buddhism almost disappeared is estimated by native authorities as from 73 to 108 years, and its subsequent revival is treated as a separate period called phyi-dar or later diffusion in contrast to the sṇa-dar or earlier diffusion. The silence of ecclesiastical history during the tenth century confirms the gravity of the catastrophe[927]. On the other hand the numerous translations made in the ninth century were not lost and this indicates that there were monasteries to preserve them, for instance Samye.
At the beginning of the eleventh century we hear of foreign monks arriving from various countries. The chronicles[928] say that the chief workers in the new diffusion were La-chen, Lo-chen, the royal Lama Yeśes Ḥod and Atîśa. The first appears to have been a Tibetan but the pupil of a teacher who had studied in Nepal. Lo-chen was a Kashmiri and several other Kashmiri Lamas are mentioned as working in Tibet. Yeśes Ḥod was a king or chieftain of mṄ̇̇̇̇̇̇̇̇̇a-ris in western Tibet who is said to have been disgusted with the debased Tantrism which passed as Buddhism. He therefore sent young Lamas to study in India and also invited thence learned monks. The eminent Dharmapâla, a monk of Magadha who was on a pilgrimage in Nepal, became his tutor. Yeśes Ḥod came to an unfortunate end. He was taken captive by the Raja of Garlog, an enemy of Buddhism, and died in prison. It is possible that this Raja was the ruler of Garhwal and a Mohammedan. The political history of the period is far from clear, but evidently there were numerous Buddhist schools in Bengal, Kashmir and Nepal and numerous learned monks ready to take up their residence in Tibet. This readiness has been explained as due to fear of the rising tide of Islam, but was more probably the result of the revival of Buddhism in Bengal during the eleventh century. The most illustrious of these pandits was Atîśa[929] (980-1053), a native of Bengal, who was ordained at Odontapuri and studied in Burma[930]. Subsequently he was appointed head of the monastery of Vikramaśîla and was induced to visit Tibet in 1038[931]. He remained there until his death fifteen years later; introduced a new calendar and inaugurated the second period of Tibetan Buddhism which is marked by the rise of successive sects described as reforms. It may seem a jest to call the teaching of Atîśa a reform, for he professed the Kâlacakra, the latest and most corrupt form of Indian Buddhism, but it was doubtless superior in discipline and coherency to the native superstitions mixed with debased tantrism, which it replaced.
As in Japan during the eleventh and twelfth centuries many monasteries were founded and grew in importance, and what might have happened in Japan but for the somewhat unscrupulous prescience of Japanese statesmen actually did happen in Tibet. Among the numerous contending chiefs none was pre-eminent: the people were pugnacious but superstitious. They were ready to build and respect when built the substantial structures required to house monastic communities during the rigorous winter. Hence the monasteries became the largest and safest buildings in the land, possessing the double strength of walls and inviolability. The most important was the Sakya monastery. Its abbots were of royal blood and not celibate, and this dynasty of ecclesiastical statesmen practically ruled Tibet at a critical period in the history of eastern Asia and indeed of the world, namely, the conquests of Chinggiz[932] and the rise of the Mongol Empire.
There is no evidence that Chinggiz was specially favourable to Buddhism. His principle was one King and one God[933] and like other princes of his race he thought of religions not as incompatible systems but as different methods of worship of no more importance than the different languages used in prayer. The destruction wrought by the Mongol conquerors has often been noticed, but they had also an ample, unifying temper which deserves recognition. China, Russia and Persia all achieved a unity after the Mongol conquest which they did not possess before, and though this unification may be described as a protest and reaction, yet but for the Mongols and their treatment of large areas as units it would not have been possible. The Mings could not have united China before the Yüan dynasty as they did after it.
In spite of some statements to the contrary there is no proof that the early Mongols invaded or conquered central Tibet, but Khubilai subdued the eastern provinces and through the Lamaist hierarchy established a special connection between Tibet and his dynasty. This connection began even in the time of his predecessor, for the head Lama of the Sakya monastery commonly known as Sakya Pandita (or Sa-skya-pan-cen) was summoned to the Mongol Court in 1246-8, and cured the Emperor of an illness[934]. This Lama was a man of great learning and influence. He had received a double education both secular and religious, and was acquainted with foreign languages. The favourable impression which he created no doubt facilitated the brilliant achievements of his nephew and successor, who is commonly known as Bashpa or Pagspa[935].
Khubilai Khan was not content with the vague theism of Central Asia and wished to give his rude Mongols a definite religion with some accessories of literature and manners. Confucianism was clearly too scholastic for a fighting race and we may surmise that he rejected Christianity as distant and unimportant, Mohammedanism as inconveniently mixed with politics. But why did he prefer Lamaism to Chinese Buddhism? The latter can hardly have been too austerely pure to suit his ends, and Tibetan was as strange as Chinese to the Mongols. But the Mongol Court had already been favourably impressed by Tibetan Lamas and the Emperor probably had a just feeling that the intellectual calibre of the Mongols and Tibetans was similar and also that it was politic to conciliate the uncanny spiritual potentates who ruled in a land which it was difficult to invade. At any rate he summoned the abbot of Sakya to China in 1261 and was initiated by him into the mysteries of Lamaism[936].
It is said that before Pagspa's birth the God Ganeśa showed his father all the land of Tibet and told him that it would be the kingdom of his son. In later life when he had difficulties at the Chinese Court Mahâkâla appeared and helped him, and the mystery which he imparted to Khubilai is called the Hevajravaśîtâ[937]. These legends indicate that there was a large proportion of Sivaism in the religion first taught to the Mongols, larger perhaps than in the present Lamaism of Lhasa.
The Mongol historian Sanang Setsen relates[938] that Pagspa took a higher seat than the Emperor when instructing him and on other occasions sat on the same level. This sounds improbable, but it is clear that he enjoyed great power and dignity. In China he received the title of Kuo-Shih or instructor of the nation and was made the head of all Buddhists, Lamaists and other. In Tibet he was recognized as head of the Church and tributary sovereign, though it would appear that the Emperor named a lay council to assist him in the government and also had a commissioner in each of the three provinces. This was a good political bargain and laid the foundations of Chinese influence in a country which he could hardly have subdued by force.
Pagspa was charged by the Emperor to provide the Mongols with an alphabet as well as a religion. For this purpose he used a square form of the Tibetan letters[939], written not in horizontal but in vertical lines. But the experiment was not successful. The characters were neither easy to write nor graceful, and after Pagspa's death his invention fell into disuse and was replaced by an enlarged and modified form of the Uigur alphabet. This had already been employed for writing Mongol by Sakya Pandita and its definitive form for that purpose was elaborated by the Lama Chos-kyi-ḥod-zer in the reign of Khubilai's successor. This alphabet is of Aramaic origin, and had already been utilized by Buddhists for writing religious works, so its application to Mongol was merely an extension of its general currency in Asia[940].
Pagspa also superintended the preparation of a new edition of the Tripitaka, not in Mongol but in Chinese. Among the learned editors were persons acquainted with Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan and Uigur. An interesting but natural feature of this edition is that it notes whether the various Chinese texts are found in the Tibetan Canon or not.
Khubilai further instituted a bureau of fine arts, the head of which was a Lama called Aniko, skilled in both sculpture and painting. He and his Chinese pupil Liu Yüan introduced into Peking various branches of Tibetan art such as Buddhist images of a special type, ornamental ironwork and gold tapestry. The Chinese at this period appear to have regarded Tibetan art as a direct importation from India[941]. And no doubt Tibetan art was founded on that of Nepal which in its turn came from Bengal. Miniature painting is a characteristic of both. But in later times the individuality of Tibet, shown alike in its monstrous deities and its life-like portraits of Lamas, imposed itself on Nepal. Indian and Tibetan temples are not alike. In the former there is little painting but the walls and pillars are covered with a superabundance of figures carved in relief: in Tibet pictures and painted banners are the first thing to strike the eye, but carvings in relief are rare.
It is hard to say to what extent the Mongols beyond such parts of northern China as felt the direct influence of the imperial court were converted to Lamaism. At any rate their conversion was only temporary for, as will be related below, a reconversion was necessary in the sixteenth century. It looks as if the first growth of Mongolian Buddhism was part of a political system and collapsed together with it. But so long as the Yüan dynasty reigned, Lamaist influence was strong and the downfall of the Yüan was partly caused by their subservience to the clergy and extravagant expenditure on religious buildings and ceremonies. After the departure of Pagspa, other Lamas held a high position at the Court of Peking such as Chos-kyi-hod-zer and gYuṇ-ston rDo-rje-dpal. The latter was a distinguished exponent of the Kâlacakra system and the teacher of the historian Bu-ston who is said to have arranged the Tibetan Canon.
Although the Yüan dynasty heaped favours upon priests and monasteries, it does not appear that religion flourished in Tibet during the fourteenth century for at the end of that period the grave abuses prevalent provoked the reforming zeal of Tsong-kha-pa. Prom 1270 to 1340 the abbots of Sakya were rulers of both Church and State, and we hear that in 1320 they burned the rival monastery of Dikung. The language of Sanang Setsen implies that each abbot was appointed or invested by the Emperor[942] and their power declined with the Yüan dynasty. Other monasteries increased in importance and a chief known as Phagmodu[943] succeeded, after many years of fighting, in founding a lay dynasty which ruled parts of Tibet until the seventeenth century.
In 1368 the Ming superseded the Yüan. They were not professed Buddhists to the same extent and they had no preference for Lamaism but they were anxious to maintain good relations with Tibet and to treat it as a friendly but vassal state. They accorded imperial recognition (with an implication of suzerainty) to the dynasty of Phagmodu and also to the abbots of eight monasteries. Though they were doubtless glad to see Tibet a divided and contentious house, it does not appear that they interfered actively in its affairs or did more than recognize the status quo. In the time of Khubilai the primacy of Sakya was a reality: seventy years later Sakya was only one among several great monasteries.
The advent of the Ming dynasty coincided with the birth of Tsong-kha-pa[944], the last reformer of Lamaism and organizer of the Church as it at present exists. The name means the man of the onion-bank, a valley near the monastery of Kumbum in the district of Amdo, which lies on the western frontiers of the Chinese province of Kansu. He became a monk at the age of seven and from the hair cut off when he received the tonsure is said to have sprung the celebrated tree of Kumbum which bears on its leaves wondrous markings[945]. According to the legend, his birth and infancy were attended by miracles. He absorbed instruction from many teachers and it has been conjectured that among them were Roman Catholic missionaries[946]. In early manhood he proceeded to Tibet and studied at Sakya, Dikung and finally at Lhasa. His reading convinced him that Lamaism as he found it was not in harmony with the scriptures, so with the patronage of the secular rulers and the support of the more earnest clergy he successfully executed a thorough and permanent work of reform. This took visible shape in the Gelugpa, the sect presided over by the Grand Lama, which acquired such paramount importance in both ecclesiastical and secular matters that it is justly termed the Established Church of Tibet. It may also be conveniently termed the Yellow Church, yellow being its special colour particularly for hats and girdles, in opposition to the red or unreformed sects which use red for the same purpose. Tsong-kha-pa's reforms took two principal lines. Firstly he made monastic discipline stricter, insisting on celibacy and frequent services of prayer: secondly he greatly reduced, although he did not annihilate, the tantric and magical element in Lamaism. These principles were perpetuated by an effective organization. He himself founded the great monastery of Gandan near Lhasa and became its first abbot. During his lifetime or shortly afterwards were founded three others, Sera and Depung both near Lhasa and Tashilhunpo[947]. He himself seems to have ruled simply in virtue of his personal authority as founder, but his nephew and successor Geden-dub[948] claimed the same right as an incarnation of the divine head of the Church, and this claim was supported by a hierarchy which became overwhelmingly powerful.
Tsong-kha-pa died in 1417 and is said to have been transfigured and carried up into heaven while predicting to a great crowd the future glories of his church. His mortal remains, however, preserved in a magnificent mausoleum within the Gandan monastery, still receive great veneration.
Among his more eminent disciples were Byams-chen-chos-rje and mKhas-grub-rje who in Tibetan art are often represented as accompanying him. The first played a considerable part in China. The Emperor Yung-Lo sent an embassy to invite Tsong-kha-pa to his capital. Tsong-kha-pa felt unable to go himself but sent his pupil to represent him. Byams-chen-chos-rje was received with great honour[949]. The main object of the Ming Emperors was to obtain political influence in Tibet through the Lamas but in return the Lamas gained considerable prestige. The Kanjur was printed in China (1410) and Byams-chen-chos-rje and his disciples were recognized as prelates of the whole Buddhist Church within the Empire. He returned to Tibet laden with presents and titles and founded the monastery of Serra in 1417. Afterwards he went back to China and died there at the age of eighty-four.
mKhas-grub-rje founded the monastery of Tashilhunpo and became its abbot, being accepted as an incarnation of the Buddha Amitâbha. He was eighth in the series of incarnations, which henceforth were localized at Tashilhunpo, but the first is said to have been Subhûti, a disciple of Gotama, and the second Mañjuśrîkirti, king of the country of Śambhala[950].
The abbot of Tashilhunpo became the second personage in the ecclesiastical and political hierarchy. The head of it was the prelate commonly known as the Grand Lama and resident at Lhasa. Geden-dub[951], the nephew of Tsong-kha-pa, is reckoned by common consent as the first Grand Lama (though he seems not to have borne the title) and the first incarnation of Avalokita as head of the Tibetan Church[952]. The Emperor Ch'êng Hua (1365-1488) who had occasion to fight on the borders of Tibet confirmed the position of these two sees as superior to the eight previously recognized and gave the occupants a patent and seal. From this time they bore the title of rGyal-po or king.
It was about this time that the theory of successive incarnations[953] which is characteristic of Lamaism was developed and defined. At least two ideas are combined in it. The first is that divine persons appear in human form. This is common in Asia from India to Japan, especially among the peoples who have accepted some form of Hindu religion. The second is that in a school, sect or church there is real continuity of life. In the unreformed sects of Tibet this was accomplished by the simple principle of heredity so that celibacy, though undeniably correct, seemed to snap the thread. But it was reunited by the theory that a great teacher is reborn in the successive occupants of his chair. Thus the historian Târanâtha is supposed to be reborn in the hierarchs of Urga. But frequently the hereditary soul is identified with a Buddha or Bodhisattva, as in the great incarnations of Lhasa and Tashilhunpo. This dogma has obvious advantages. It imparts to a Lamaist see a dignity which the papacy cannot rival but it is to the advantage of the Curia rather than of the Pope for the incarnate deity of necessity succeeds to his high office as an infant, is in the hands of regents and not unfrequently dies when about twenty years of age. These incarnations are not confined to the great sees of Tibet. The heads of most large monasteries in Mongolia claim to be living Buddhas and even in Peking there are said to be six.
The second Grand Lama[954] enjoyed a long reign, and set the hierarchy in good order, for he distinguished strictly clerical posts, filled by incarnations, from administrative posts. He was summoned to Peking by the Emperor, but declined to go and the somewhat imperative embassy sent to invite him was roughly handled. His successor, the third Grand Lama bSod-nams[955], although less noticed by historians than the fifth, perhaps did more solid work for the holy see of Lhasa than any other of his line for he obtained, or at least received, the allegiance of the Mongols who since the time of Khubilai had woefully backslidden from the true faith.
As mentioned above, the conversion of the Mongols to Buddhism took place when their capital was at Peking and chiefly affected those resident in China. But when the Yüan dynasty had been dethroned and the Mongols, driven back into their wilds, were frequently at war with China, they soon relapsed into their original superstitions. About 1570 Altan[956] Khagan, the powerful chief of the Tümed, became more nearly acquainted with Tibet, since some Lamas captured in a border fray had been taken to his Court. After causing China much loss and trouble he made an advantageous peace and probably formed the idea (which the Manchus subsequently proved to be reasonable) that if the Mongols were stronger they might repeat the conquests of Khubilai. The Ming dynasty was clearly decadent and these mysterious priests of Tibet appeared to be on the upward grade[957]. They might help him both to become the undisputed chief of all the Mongol tribes and also to reconquer Peking. So he sent an embassy to invite the Grand Lama's presence, and when it was not successful he followed it with a second.
The Grand Lama then accepted and set out on his travels with great pomp. According to the story he appeared to the astonished Mongols in the guise of Avalokita with four arms (of which two remained folded on his breast) and the imprint of his horse's hoofs showed the six mystic syllables om mani padme hum. These wonders are so easily explicable that they may be historical.
A great congregation was held near Lake Kokonor and Sanang Setsen records an interesting speech made there by one of his ancestors respecting the relations of Church and State, which he compared with the sun and moon. The Lama bestowed on the Khagan high sounding titles and received himself the epithet Dalai or Talai, the Mongol word for sea, signifying metaphorically vast extent and profundity[958]. This is the origin of the name Dalai Lama by which the Tibetan pontiff is commonly known to Europeans. The hierarchy was divided into four classes parallel to the four ranks of Mongol nobles: the use of meat was restricted and the custom of killing men and horses at funerals forbidden. The observance of Buddhist festivals was made compulsory and native idols were destroyed, but the deities which they represented were probably identified with others in the new pantheon. The Grand Lama specially recommended to the Mongols the worship of the Blue Mahâkâla, a six armed representation of Śiva standing on a figure of Ganeśa, and he left with them a priest who was esteemed an incarnation of Mañjuśrî, and for whom a temple and monastery were built in Kuku-khoto.
His Holiness then returned to Tibet, but when Altan Khagan died in 1583 he made a second tour in Mongolia in order to make sure of the allegiance of the new chiefs. He also received an embassy from the Chinese Emperor Wan-Li, who conferred on him the same titles that Khubilai had given to Pagspa. The alliance between the Tibetans and Mongols was naturally disquieting to the Ming dynasty and they sought to minimize it by showing extreme civility to the Lamas.
This Grand Lama died at the age of forty-seven, and it is significant that the next incarnation appeared in the Mongol royal house, being a great-grandson of Altan Khagan. Until he was fourteen he lived in Mongolia and when he moved to Lhasa a Lama was appointed to be his vicar and Primate of all Mongolia with residence at Kuren or Urga[959]. The prelates of this line are considered as incarnations of the historian Târanâtha[960]. In common language they bear the name of rJe-btsun-dam-pa but are also called Maidari Khutuktu, that is incarnation of Maitreya. About this time the Emperor of China issued a decree, which has since been respected, that these hierarchs must be reborn in Tibet, or in other words that they must not reappear in a Mongol family for fear of uniting religion and patriotism too closely.
Lozang[961], the fifth Grand Lama, is by common consent the most remarkable of the pontifical line. He established the right of himself and his successors--or, as he might have said, of himself in his successive births--to the temporal and ecclesiastical sovereignty of Tibet: he built the Potala and his dealings with the Mongols and the Emperor of China are of importance for general Asiatic history.
From the seventeenth century onwards there were four factors in Tibetan politics.
1. The Gelugpa or Yellow Church, very strong but anxious to become stronger both by increasing its temporal power and by suppressing other sects. Its attitude towards Chinese and Mongols showed no prejudice and was dictated by policy.
2. The Tibetan chiefs and people, on the whole respectful to the Yellow Church but not single-hearted nor forgetful of older sects: averse to Chinese and prone to side with Mongols.
3. The Mongols, conscious of their imperfect civilization and anxious to improve themselves by contact with the Lamas. As a nation they wished to repeat their past victories over China, and individual chiefs wished to make themselves the head of the nation. People and princes alike respected all Lamas.
4. The Chinese, apprehensive of the Mongols and desirous to keep them tranquil, caring little for Lamaism in itself but patiently determined to have a decisive voice in ecclesiastical matters, since the Church of Lhasa had become a political power in their border lands.
Lo-zang was born as the son of a high Tibetan official about 1616 and was educated in the Depung monastery under the supervision of Chos-kyi-Gyal-tsan, abbot of Tashilhunpo and a man of political weight. The country was then divided into Khamdo, Wu and Tsang, or Eastern, Central and Western Tibet, and in each province there ruled a king of the Phagmodu dynasty. In Central Tibet, and specially at Lhasa, the Gelugpa was the established church and accepted by the king but in the other provinces there was much religious strife and the older sects were still predominant. About 1630 the regent of Tsang captured Lhasa and made himself sovereign of all Tibet. He was a follower of the Sakya sect and his rule was a menace to the authority and even to the existence of the Yellow Church, which for some years suffered much tribulation. When the young Grand Lama grew up, he and his preceptor determined to seek foreign aid and appealed to Gushi Khan[962]. This prince was a former pupil of Chos-kyi-Gyal-tsan and chief of the Oelöt, the ancestors of the Kalmuks and other western tribes, but then living near Kokonor. He was a staunch member of the Yellow Church and had already made it paramount in Khamdo which he invaded in 1638. He promptly responded to the appeal, invaded Tibet, took the regent prisoner, and, after making himself master of the whole country, handed over his authority to the Grand Lama, retaining only the command of his Mongol garrisons. This arrangement was advantageous to both parties. The Grand Lama not only greatly increased his ecclesiastical prestige but became a temporal sovereign of considerable importance. Gushi, who had probably no desire to reside permanently in the Snow Land, received all the favours which a grateful Pope could bestow on a king and among the superstitious Mongols these had a real value. Further the Oelöt garrisons which continued to occupy various points in Tibet gave him a decisive voice in the affairs of the country, if there was ever a question of using force.
The Grand Lamas had hitherto resided in the Depung monastery but Lo-zang now moved to the hill of Marpori, the former royal residence and began to build on it the Potala[963] palace which, judging from photographs, must be one of the most striking edifices in the world, for its stately walls continue the curves of the mountain side and seem to grow out of the living rock. His old teacher was given the title of Panchen Rinpoche, which has since been borne by the abbots of Tashilhunpo, and the doctrine that the Grand Lamas of Lhasa and Tashilhunpo are respectively incarnations of Avalokita and Amitâbha was definitely promulgated[964].
The establishment of the Grand Lama as temporal ruler of Tibet coincided with the advent of the Manchu dynasty (1644). The Emperor and the Lama had everything to gain from friendly relations and their negotiations culminated in a visit which Lo-zang paid to Peking in 1652-3. He was treated as an independent sovereign and received from the Emperor a long title containing the phrase "Self-existent Buddha, Universal Ruler of the Buddhist faith." In return he probably undertook to use his influence with the Mongols to preserve peace and prevent raids on China.
After his return to Tibet, he appears to have been a real as well as a nominal autocrat for his preceptor and Gushi Khan both died, and the new Manchu dynasty had its hands full. His chief adviser was the Desi[965] or Prime Minister, supposed to be his natural son. In 1666 the great Emperor K'ang-hsi succeeded to the throne: and shortly afterwards the restlessness of the Mongol Princes began to inspire the Chinese Court with apprehension. In 1680 Lo-zang died but his death was a state secret. It was apparently known in Tibet and an infant successor was selected but the Desi continued to rule in Lo-zang's name and even the Emperor of China had no certain knowledge of his suspected demise but probably thought that the fiction of his existence was the best means of keeping the Mongols in order. It was not until 1696 that his death and the accession of a youth named Thsang-yang Gya-thso were made public.
But the young Grand Lama, who owing to the fiction that his predecessor was still alive had probably been brought up less strictly than usual, soon began to inspire alarm at Peking for he showed himself wilful and intelligent. He wrote love songs which are still popular and his licentious behaviour was quite out of harmony with the traditions of the holy see. In 1701, under joint pressure from the Chinese and Mongols, he resigned his ecclesiastical rights and handed over the care of the Church to the abbot of Tashilhunpo, while retaining his position as temporal ruler. But the Chinese still felt uneasy and in 1705 succeeded in inducing him to undertake a journey to Peking. When he got as far as Mongolia he died of either dropsy or assassination. The commander of the Oelöt garrisons in Tibet was a friend of the Chinese, and at once produced a new Grand Lama called Yeśes, a man of about twenty-five, who claimed to be the true reincarnation of the fifth Grand Lama, the pretensions of the dissolute youth who had just died being thus set aside. It suited the Chinese to deal with an adult, who could be made to understand that he had received and held his office only through their good will, but the Tibetans would have none of this arrangement. They clung to the memory of the dissolute youth and welcomed with enthusiasm the news that he had reappeared in Li-t'ang as a new-born child, who was ultimately recognized as the seventh Grand Lama named Kalzang. The Chinese imprisoned the infant with his parents in the monastery of Kumbum in Kansu and gave all their support to Yeśes. For the better control of affairs in Lhasa two Chinese Agents were appointed to reside there with the Manchu title of Amban[966].
But the Tibetans would not accept the rule of Yeśes and in 1717 the revolutionary party conspired with the Oelöt tribes of Ili to put Kalzang on the throne by force. The troops sent to take the holy child were defeated by the Chinese but those which attacked Lhasa were completely successful. Yeśes abdicated and the city passed into the possession of the Mongols. The Chinese Government were greatly alarmed and determined to subdue Tibet. Their first expedition was a failure but in 1720 they sent a second and larger, and also decided to install the youthful Kalzang as Grand Lama, thus conciliating the religious feelings of the Tibetans. The expedition met with little difficulty and the result of it was that China became suzerain of the whole country. By imperial edict the young Grand Lama was recognized as temporal ruler, the four ministers or Kalön were given Chinese titles, and garrisons were posted to keep open the road from China. But the Tibetans were still discontented. In 1727 a rebellion, instigated it was said by the family of the Grand Lama, broke out, and the Prime Minister was killed. This rising was not permanently successful and the Chinese removed the Grand Lama to the neighbourhood of their frontier. They felt however that it was unsafe to give ground for suspicion that they were ill-treating him and in 1734 he was reinstated in the Potala. But the dislike of the Tibetans for Chinese supervision was plain. In 1747 there was another rebellion. The population of Lhasa rose and were assisted by Oelöt troops who suddenly arrived on the scene. Chinese rule was saved only by the heroism of the two Chinese Agents, who invited the chief conspirators to a meeting and engaged them in personal combat. They lost their own lives but killed the principal rebels. The Chinese then abolished the office of Prime Minister, increased their garrison and gave the Agents larger powers.
About 1758 the Grand Lama died and was succeeded by an infant called Jambal. The real authority was wielded by the Panchen Lama who acted as regent and was so influential that the Emperor Ch'ien-Lung insisted on his visiting Peking[967]. He had a good reception and probably obtained some promise that the government of Tibet would be left more in the hands of the Church but he died of smallpox in Peking and nothing came of his visit except a beautiful tomb and an epitaph written by the Emperor. After his death a new complication appeared. The prelates of the Red Church encouraged an invasion of the Gurkhas of Nepal in the hope of crushing the Yellow Church. The upshot was that the Chinese drove out the Gurkhas but determined to establish a more direct control. The powers of the Agents were greatly increased and not even the Grand Lama was allowed the right of memorializing the throne, but had to report to the Agents and ask their orders.
In 1793 Ch'ien-Lung issued a remarkable edict regulating the appearance of incarnations which, as he observed, had become simply the hereditary perquisites of certain noble Mongol families. He therefore ordered that when there was any question of an incarnation the names of the claimants to the distinction should be written on slips of paper and placed in a golden bowl: that a religious service should be held and at its close a name be drawn from the bowl in the presence of the Chinese Agents and the public. The child whose name should be drawn was to be recognized as the true incarnation but required investiture by an imperial patent.
A period of calm followed, and when the Grand Lama died in 1804 the Tibetans totally neglected this edict and selected a child born in eastern Tibet. The Chinese Court, desirous of avoiding unnecessary trouble, approved[968] the choice on the ground that the infant's precocious ability established his divine character but when he died in 1815 and an attempt was made to repeat this irregularity, a second edict was published, insisting that the names of at least three candidates must be placed in the golden urn and that he whose name should be first drawn must be Grand Lama. This procedure was followed but the child elected by the oracle of the urn died before he was twenty and another infant was chosen as his successor in 1838. As a result the Lama who was regent acquired great power and also unpopularity. His tyranny caused the Tibetans to petition the Emperor; and His Majesty sent a new Agent to investigate his conduct. Good reason was shown for holding him responsible for the death of the Grand Lama in 1838 and for other misdeeds. The Emperor then degraded and banished him and, what is more singular, forbade him to reappear in a human reincarnation.
The reigns of Grand Lamas in the nineteenth century have mostly been short. Two others were selected in 1858 and 1877 respectively. The latter who is the present occupant of the post was the son of a Tibetan peasant: he was duly chosen by the oracle of the urn and invested by the Emperor. In 1893 he assumed personal control of the administration and terminated a regency which seems to have been oppressive and unpopular. The British Government were anxious to negotiate with him about Sikhim and other matters, but finding it impossible to obtain answers to their communications sent an expedition to Lhasa in 1904. The Grand Lama then fled to Urga, in which region he remained until 1907. In the autumn of 1908 he was induced to visit Peking where he was received with great ceremony but, contrary to the precedent established when the fifth Grand Lama attended Court, he was obliged to kneel and kotow before the Empress Dowager. Neither could he obtain the right to memorialize the throne, but was ordered to report to the Agents. The Court duly recognized his religious position. On the birthday of the Empress he performed a service for her long life, at which Her Majesty was present. It was not wholly successful, for a week or two later he officiated at her funeral. At the end of 1908 he left for Lhasa. He visited India in 1910 but this created dissatisfaction at Peking. In the same year[969] a decree was issued deposing him from his spiritual as well as his temporal powers and ordering the Agents to seek out a new child by drawing lots from the golden urn. This decree was probably ultra vires and certainly illogical, for if the Chinese Government recognized the Lama as an incarnation, they could not, according to the accepted theory, replace him by another incarnation before his death. And if they regarded him as a false incarnation, they should have ordered the Agents to seek out not a child but a man born about the time that the last Grand Lama died. At any rate the Tibetans paid no attention to the decree.
The early deaths of Grand Lamas in the nineteenth century have naturally created a presumption that they were put out of the way and contemporary suspicion accused the regent in 1838. There is no evidence that the deaths of the other three were regarded as unnatural but the earlier Grand Lamas as well as the abbots of Tashilhunpo lived to a good age. On the other hand the Grand Lamas of Urga are said to die young. If the pontiffs of some lines live long and those of others die early, the inference is not that the life of a god incarnate is unhealthy but that in special cases special circumstances interfere with it, and on the whole there are good grounds for suspecting foul play. But it is interesting to note that most Europeans who have made the acquaintance of high Lamas speak in praise of their character and intelligence. So Manning (the friend of Charles Lamb) of the ninth Grand Lama (1811), Bogle of the Tashi Lama about 1778, Sven Hedin of his successor in 1907, and Waddell of the Lama Regent in 1904.
The above pages refer to the history of Lamaism in Tibet and Mongolia. It also spread to China, European Russia, Ladak, Sikhim and Bhutan. In China it is confined to the north and its presence is easily explicable by the genuine enthusiasm of Khubilai and the encouragement given on political grounds by the Ming and Manchu dynasties. Further, several Mongol towns such as Kalgan and Kuku-khoto are within the limits of the eighteen provinces.
The Kalmuks who live in European Russia are the descendants of tribes who moved westwards from Dzungaria in the seventeenth century. Many of them left Russia and returned to the east in 1771, but a considerable number remained behind, chiefly between the Volga and the Don, and the population professing Lamaism there is now reckoned at about 100,000.
Buddhist influences may have been at work in Ladak from an early period. In later times it can be regarded as a dependency of Tibet, at any rate for ecclesiastical purposes, for it formed part of Tibet until the disruption of the kingdom in the tenth century and it subsequently accepted the sovereignty of Lhasa in religious and sometimes in political matters. Concerning the history of Bhutan, I have been able to discover but little. The earliest known inhabitants are called Tephu and the Tibetans are said to have conquered them about 1670. Lamaism probably entered the country at this time, if not earlier[970]. At any rate it must have been predominant in 1774 when the Tashi Lama used his good offices to conclude peace between the Bhutiyas and the East India Company. The established church however is not the Gelugpa but the Dugpa, which is a subdivision of the Kar-gyu-pa. There are two rulers in Bhutan, the Dharmarâja or spiritual and the Debrâja or temporal. The former is regarded as an incarnation of the first class, though it is not clear of what deity[971].
The conversion of Sikhim is ascribed to a saint named Latsün Ch'embo, who visited it about 1650 with two other Lamas. They associated with themselves a native chief whom they ordained as a Lama and made king. All four then governed Sikhim. Though Latsün Ch'embo is represented as a friend of the fifth Grand Lama, the two sects at present found in Sikhim are the Nying-ma-pa, the old unreformed style of Lamaism, and the Karmapa, a branch of the Kar-gyu-pa, analogous to the Dugpa of Bhutan. The principal monasteries are at Pemiongchi (Peme-yang-tse) and Tashiding[972].
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 910: Tibetan orthography Sroṇ-btsan-sgam-po. It is hard to decide what is the best method of representing Tibetan words in Latin letters:
(a) The orthography differs from the modern pronunciation more than in any other language, except perhaps English, but it apparently represents an older pronunciation and therefore has historical value. Also, a word can be found in a Tibetan dictionary only if the native spelling is faithfully reproduced. On the other hand readers interested in oriental matters know many words in a spelling which is a rough representation of the modern pronunciation. It seems pedantic to write bKaẖ-ẖgyur and ẖBras-spuṇs when the best known authorities speak of Kanjur and Debung. On the whole, I have decided to represent the commoner words by the popular orthography as given by Rockhill, Waddell and others while giving the Tibetan spelling in a foot-note. But when a word cannot be said to be well known even among Orientalists I have reproduced the Tibetan spelling.
(b) But it is not easy to reproduce this spelling clearly and consistently. On the whole I have followed the system used by Sarat Chandra Das in his Dictionary. It is open to some objections, as, for instance, that the sign h has more than one value, but the more accurate method used by Grünwedel in his Mythologie is extremely hard to read. My transcription is as follows in the order of the Tibetan consonants.
k, kh, g, ṇ, c, oh, j, ny. t, th, d, n, p, ph, b, m. ts, ths, ds, w. zh, z, ḥ, y. r, l, ś, s, h.
Although tsh is in some respects preferable to represent an aspirated ts, yet it is liable to be pronounced as in the English words hat shop, and perhaps ths is on the whole better.]
[Footnote 911: See Waddell, Buddhism of Tibet, p. 19.]
[Footnote 912: It has been argued (e.g., J.R.A.S., 1903, p. 11) that discoveries in Central Asia indicate that Tibetan civilization and therefore Tibetan Buddhism are older than is generally supposed. But recent research shows that Central Asian MSS. of even the eighth century say little about Buddhism, whatever testimony they may bear to civilization.]
[Footnote 913: See Hoernle MS. Remains found in E. Turkestan, 1916, pp. xvii ff., and Francke, Epig. Ind. XI. 266 ff., and on the other side Laufer in J.A.O.S. 1918, pp. 34 ff. There is a considerable difference between the printed and cursive forms of the Tibetan alphabet. Is it possible that they have different origins and that the former came from Bengal, the latter from Khotan?]
[Footnote 914: There were some other streams of Buddhism, for the king had a teacher called Sântarakshita who advised him to send for Padma-Sambhava and Padma-Sambhava was opposed by Chinese bonzes.]
[Footnote 915: The Pad-ma-than-yig. It indicates some acquaintance with Islam and mentions Hulugu Khan. See T'oung Pao, 1896, pp. 526 ff. See for a further account Grünwedel, Mythologie, p. 47, Waddell, Buddhism, p. 380, and the Tibetan text edited and translated by Laufer under the title Der Roman einer tibetischen Königin, especially pp. 250 ff. Also E. Schlagintweit, "Die Lebensbeschreibung von Padma-Sambhava," Abhand. k. bayer. Akad. I. CL. xxi. Bd. ii. Abth. 419-444, and ib. I. CL. xxii. Bd. iii. Abth. 519-576.]
[Footnote 916: Much of Chinese popular religion has the same character. See De Groot, Religious System of China, vol. VI. pp. 929, 1187. "The War against Spectres."]
[Footnote 917: Both he and the much later Saskya Pandita are said to have understood the Bruzha language, for which see T'oung Pao, 1908, pp. 1-47.]
[Footnote 918: Or bSam-yas. See Waddell, Buddhism, p. 266, for an account of this monastery at the present day.]
[Footnote 919: The Tibetan word bLama means upper and is properly applicable to the higher clergy only though commonly used of all.]
[Footnote 920: He was temporarily banished owing to the intrigues of the Queen, who acted the part of Potiphar's wife, but he was triumphantly restored. A monk called Vairocana is also said to have introduced Buddhism into Khotan from Kashmir, but at a date which though uncertain must be considerably earlier than this.]
[Footnote 921: See Journal of Buddhist Text Society, 1893, p. 5. I imagine that by Hoshang Mahâyâna the followers of Bodhidharma are meant.]
[Footnote 922: J.R.A.S. 1914, pp. 37-59.]
[Footnote 923: See Rockhill, Life of the Buddha, p. 225.]
[Footnote 924: Various dates are given for his death, ranging from 838 to 902. See Rockhill (Life of the Buddha), p. 225, and Bushell in J.R.A.S. 1880, pp. 440 ff. But the treaty of 822 was made in his reign.]
[Footnote 925: g Lan-dar-ma.]
[Footnote 926: But see for other accounts Rockhill (Life of the Buddha), p. 226. According to Csoma de Körös's tables the date of the persecution was 899.]
[Footnote 927: See the chronological table in Waddell's Buddhism, p. 576. Not a single Tibetan event is mentioned between 899 and 1002.]
[Footnote 928: Pag Som Jon Zang. Ed. Sarat Chandra Das, p. 183.]
[Footnote 929: Or Dîpaṇkara Śrîjñâna. See for a life of him Journal of Buddhist Text Society, 1893, "Indian Pandits in Tibet," pp. 7 ff.]
[Footnote 930: Suvarṇadvîpa, where he studied, must be Thaton and it is curious to find that it was a centre of tantric learning.]
[Footnote 931: From 1026 onwards see the chronological tables of Sum-pa translated by Sarat Chandra Das in J.A.S.B. 1889, pp. 40-82. They contain many details, especially of ecclesiastical biography. The Tibetan system of computing time is based on cycles of sixty years beginning it would seem not in 1026 but 1027, so that in many dates there is an error of a year. See Pelliot, J.A. 1913, I. 633, and Laufer, T'oung Pao, 1913, 569.]
[Footnote 932: Or Jenghiz Khan. The form in the text seems to be the more correct.]
[Footnote 933: Tegri or Heaven. This monotheism common to the ancient Chinese, Turks and Mongols did not of course exclude the worship of spirits.]
[Footnote 934: Guyuk was Khagan at this time but the Mongol History of Sanang Setsen (Schmidt, p. 3) says that the Lama was summoned by the Khagan Godan. It seems that Godan was never Khagan, but as an influential prince he may have sent the summons.]
[Footnote 935: ḥPhagspa (corrupted in Mongol to Bashpa) is merely a title equivalent to Ayra in Sanskrit. His full style was ḥPhagspa bLo-gros-rgyal-mthsan.]
[Footnote 936: By abhiśekha or sprinkling with water.]
[Footnote 937: Vaśitâ is a magical formula which compels the obedience of spirits or natural forces. Hevajra (apparently the same as Heruka) is one of the fantastic beings conceived as manifestations of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas made for a special purpose, closely corresponding, as Grünwedel points out, to the manifestations of Śiva.]
[Footnote 938: Schmidt's edition, p. 115.]
[Footnote 939: It is given in Isaac Taylor's The Alphabet, vol. II. p. 336. See also J.R.A.S. 1910, pp. 1208-1214.]
[Footnote 940: E.g. see the Tisastvustik, a sûtra in a Turkish dialect and Uigur characters found at Turfan and published in Bibliotheca Buddhica, XII.]
[Footnote 941: See Kokka, No. 311, 1916, Tibetan Art in China.]
[Footnote 942: Sanang Setsen, p. 121. The succession of the Sakya abbots is not clear but the primacy continued in the family. See Köppen, II. p. 105.]
[Footnote 943: Strictly speaking a place-name.]
[Footnote 944: The Tibetan orthography is bTsoṇ (or Tsoṇ)-kha-pa. He was called rJe-rin-po-che bLo-bzaṇ-grags-pa in Tibetan and Arya-mahâratna Sumatikîrti in Sanskrit. The Tibetan orthography of the monastery is sKu-ḥbum or hundred thousand pictures. See, for accounts of his life, Sarat Chandra Das in J.A.S.B. 1882, pp. 53-57 and 127. Huth, Buddhismus in der Mongolei, ii. pp. 175 ff.]
[Footnote 945: There is some difference of statement as to whether these markings are images of Tsong-kha-pa or Tibetan characters. Hue, though no Buddhist, thought them miraculous. See his Travels in Tartary, vol. ii. chap. ii. See also Rockhill, Land of the Lamas, p. 67, and Filchner, Das Kloster Kumbum, chap. vi.]
[Footnote 946: But the tradition mentioned by Hue that he was instructed by a long-nosed stranger from the west, has not been found in any Tibetan biography.]
[Footnote 947: Tibetan orthography writes dGaḥ-ldan, Se-ra, hBras-spuns and bKra-śis-Lhun-po. dGaḥ-ldan, the happy, is a translation of the Sanskrit Tushita or Paradise. Tsong-kha-pa's reformed sect was originally called dGaḥ-lugs-pa or those who follow the way of dGa[.]-ldan. But this possibly suggested those who pursue pleasure and the name was changed to dGe-lugs-pa or those of the virtuous order.]
[Footnote 948: dGe-'dun grub.]
[Footnote 949: He was not the same as Ha-li-ma (see p. 277) of whom more is heard in Chinese accounts. Ha-li-ma or Karma was fifth head of the Karma-pa school and was invited on his own merits to China where he died in 1426 or 1414. See Huth, l.c. vol. I. p. 109 and vol. II. p. 171. Also Köppen, die Rel. des Buddha, II. 107. Byams-chen-chos-rje was invited as the representative of Tsong-ka-pa. See Huth, l.c. vol. I. p. 120, vol. II. p. 129.]
[Footnote 950: See for a list of the Lamas of Tashilhunpo and their lives J.A.S.B. 1882, pp. 15-52. The third incarnation was Abhayakara Gupta, a celebrated Bengali Pandit who flourished in the reign of Râmapâla. This appears to have been about 1075-1115, but there is considerable discrepancy in the dates given.]
[Footnote 951: See for his life J.A.S.B. 1882, p. 24.]
[Footnote 952: Tsong-kha-pa is not reckoned in this series of incarnations, for firstly he was regarded as an incarnation of Mañjuśrî and secondly Geden-dub was born before his death and hence could not represent the spirit which dwelt in him.]
[Footnote 953: Tibetan sPrul-pa, Mongol Khubilghan. Both are translations of the Sanskrit Nirmâna and the root idea is not incarnation but transformation in an illusive form.]
[Footnote 954: The following list of Grand Lamas is taken from Grünwedel's Mythologie, p. 206. Their names are followed by the title rGya-mThso and in many cases the first part of the name is a title.
1. dGe-ḥdun-dub, 1391-1478. 2. dGe-ḥdun, 1479-1541. 3. bSod-nams, 1543-1586. 4. Yon-tan, 1587-1614. 5. Ṅag-dbaṇ bLo-bzaṇ, 1617-1680. 6. Rin-chen Thsaṇs-dbyaṇs, 1693-1703. 7. bLo-bzaṇ sKal-dan, 1705-1758. 8. bLo-bzaṇ ḥJam-dpal, 1759-1805. 9. bLo-bzaṇ Luṇ-rtogs, 1806-1815. 10. bLo-bzaṇ Thsul-khrims, 1817-1837. 11. bLo-bzaṇ dGe-dmu, 1838-1855. 12. bLo-bzaṇ Phrin-las, 1856-1874. 13. Ṅag-dbaṇ bLo-bzaṇ Thub-ldam, 1875. ]
[Footnote 955: See for an account of his doings Sanang Setsen, chap. IX. Huth, Geschichte, II. pp. 200 ff. Köppen, II. pp. 134 ff. It would appear that about 1545 northwestern Tibet was devastated by Mohammedans from Kashgar. See Waddell, Buddhism, p. 583.]
[Footnote 956: Also known as Yenta or Anda. See, for some particulars about him, Parker in N. China Branch of R.A.S. 1913, pp. 92 ff.]
[Footnote 957: Naturally the narrative is not told without miraculous embellishment, including the singular story that Altan who suffered from the gout used to put his feet every month into the ripped up body of a man or horse and bathe them in the warm blood. Avalokita appeared to him when engaged in this inhuman cure and bade him desist and atone for his sins.]
[Footnote 958: In Tibetan rGya-mThso. Compare the Chinese expression hai liang (sea measure) meaning capacious or broad minded. The Khagan received the title of lHai thsaṇs-pa chen-po equivalent to Divyamahâbrahmâ.]
[Footnote 959: The correct Mongol names of this place seem to be Örgö and Kürä. The Lama's name was bSam-pa rGya-mThso.]
[Footnote 960: He finished his history in 1608 and lived some time longer so that bSam-pa rGya-mThso cannot have been an incarnation of him.]
[Footnote 961: This is an accepted abbreviation of his full name Ṅag-dbaṇ bLo-zaṇ rGya-mThso. Ṅag-dbaṇ is an epithet meaning eloquent.]
[Footnote 962: The name is variously written Gushi, Gushri, Gus'ri, etc., and is said to stand for Guruśrî. The name of the tribe also varies: Oirad and Oegeled are both found.]
[Footnote 963: So called from the sacred hill in India on which Avalokita lives. The origin of the name is doubtful but before the time of Hsüan Chuang it had come to be applied to a mountain in South India.]
[Footnote 964: Some European authorities consider that Lo-zang invented this system of incarnations. Native evidence seems to me to point the other way, but it must be admitted that if he was the first to claim for himself this dignity it would be natural for him to claim it for his predecessors also and cause ecclesiastical history to be written accordingly.]
[Footnote 965: sDe-srid.]
[Footnote 966: It is said that all Ambans were Manchus.]
[Footnote 967: See E. Ludwig, _The visit of the Teshoo Lama to Peking_, Tientsin Press, 1904. See also J.A.S.B. 1882, pp. 29-52.]
[Footnote 968: See the curious edict of Chia Ch'ing translated by Waddell in J.R.A.S. 1910, pp. 69 ff. The Chinese Government were disposed to discredit the sixth, seventh and eighth incarnations and to pass straight from the fifth Grand Lama to the ninth.]
[Footnote 969: See for a translation of this curious decree, North China Herald of March 4th, 1910.]
[Footnote 970: In the List of the Bhutan Hierarchs given by Waddell (Buddhism, p. 242) it is said that the first was contemporary with the third Grand Lama, 1543-1580.]
[Footnote 971: According to Waddell (Buddhism, p. 242) he appears to be a rebirth of Dupgani Sheptun, a Lama greatly respected by the Tibetan invaders of Bhutan. For some account of the religion of Bhutan in the early 19th century, see the article by Davis in T.R.A.S. vol. II. 1830, p. 491.]
[Footnote 972: The fullest account of Sikhimese Buddhism is given by Waddell in the Gazetteer of Sikhim, 1894. See also Rémy, Pèlerinage au Monastère de Pemmiontsi, 1880; Silacara "Buddhism in Sikkim," Buddhist Review, 1916, p. 97.]
LI. TIBET (continued)
THE CANON
Tibet is so remote and rude a land that it is a surprise to learn that it has a voluminous literature and further that much of this literature, though not all, is learned and scholastic. The explanation is that the national life was most vigorous in the great monasteries which were in close touch with Indian learning. Moreover Tibetan became to some extent the Latin of the surrounding countries, the language of learning and religion.
For our purpose the principal works are the two great collections of sacred and edifying literature translated into Tibetan and known as the Kanjur and Tanjur[973]. The first contains works esteemed as canonical, including Tantras. The second is composed of exegetical literature and also of many treatises on such subjects as medicine, astronomy and grammar[974]. The two together correspond roughly speaking to the Chinese Tripitaka, but are more bulky. The canonical part is smaller but the commentaries and miscellaneous writings more numerous. There are also other differences due to the fact that the great literary epoch of Tibet was in the ninth century, whereas nearly three-quarters of the Chinese Tripitaka had been translated before that date. Thus the Kanjur appears to contain none[975] of the Abhidhamma works of the Hînayâna and none of the great Nikâyas as such, though single sûtras are entered in the catalogues as separate books. Further there is only one version of the Vinaya whereas the Chinese Tripitaka has five, but there are several important Tantras which are wanting in Chinese. The Tibetan scriptures reflect the late Buddhism of Magadha when the great books of the Hinayanist Canon were neglected, though not wholly unknown, and a new tantric literature was flourishing exuberantly.
The contents of the Kanjur and Tanjur are chiefly known by analyses and indices[976], although several editions and translations of short treatises have been published[977]. The information obtained may be briefly summarized as follows.
The Kanjur in its different editions consists of one hundred or one hundred and eight volumes, most of which contain several treatises, although sometimes one work, for instance the Vinaya, may fill many volumes. The whole collection is commonly divided into seven parts[978].
I. The Dulva[979], equivalent to the Vinaya. It is stated to be the Mûla-sarvâstivâda Vinaya, and so far as any opinion can be formed from the small portions available for comparison, it agrees with the Chinese translation of Kumârajîva and also (though with some difference in the order of paragraphs) with the Sanskrit Prâtimoksha found at Kucha[980]. It is longer and more mixed with narrative than the corresponding Pali code.
II. The second division is known as Śer-chin[981], corresponding to the Prajñâ-pâramitâ and in the estimation of the Tibetans to the Abhidharma. It is said to have been first collected by Kâśyapa and to represent the teaching delivered by the Buddha in his fifty-first year. This section appears to contain nothing but versions, longer or shorter, of the Prajñâpâramitâ, the limit of concentration being reached by a text in which the Buddha explains that the whole of this teaching is comprised in the letter A. As in China and Japan, the Vajracchedikâ (rDo-rJe-gCod-pa) is very popular and has been printed in many editions.
III. The third division is called Phal-chen, equivalent to Avataṃsaka. Beckh treats it as one work in six volumes with out subdivisions. Feer gives forty-five subdivisions, some of which appear as separate treatises in the section of the Chinese Tripitaka called Hua Yen[982].
IV. The fourth division called dKon-brtsegs or Ratnakûṭa agrees closely with the similar section of the Chinese Tripitaka but consists of only forty-eight or forty-five sûtras, according to the edition[983].
V. The fifth section is called mDo, equivalent to Sûtra. In its narrower sense mDo means sûtras which are miscellaneous in so far as they do not fall into special classes, but it also comprises such important works as the Lalita-vistara, Lankâvatâra and Saddharma-puṇḍarîka. Of the 270 works contained in this section about 90 are prima facie identical with works in the Ching division of the Chinese Tripitaka and probably the identity of many others is obscured by slight changes of title. An interesting point in the mDo is that it contains several sûtras translated from the Pali[984], viz. Nos. 13-25 of vol. XXX, nine of which are taken from the collection known as Paritta. The names and dates of the translators are not given but the existence of these translations probably indicates that a knowledge of Pali lingered on in Magadha later than is generally supposed. It will also be remembered that about A.D. 1000, Atîśa though a Tantrist, studied in Burma and presumably came in contact with Pali literature. Rockhill notes that the Tanjur contains a commentary on the Lotus Sûtra written by Prithivibandhu, a monk from Ceylon, and Pali manuscripts have been found in Nepal[985]. It is possible that Sinhalese may have brought Pali books to northern India and given them to Tibetans whom they met there.
VI. The sixth division is called Myaṇg-ḥdas or Nirvâṇa, meaning the description of the death of the Buddha which also forms a special section in the Chinese Tripitaka. Here it consists of only one work, apparently corresponding to Nanjio 113[986].
VII. The seventh and last section is called rGyud[987] or Tantra. It consists of twenty-two volumes containing about 300 treatises. Between thirty and forty are prima facie identical with treatises comprised in the Chinese Tripitaka and perhaps further examination might greatly increase the number, for the titles of these books are often long and capable of modification. Still it is probable that the major part of this literature was either deliberately rejected by the Chinese or was composed at a period when religious intercourse had become languid between India and China but was still active between India and Tibet. From the titles it appears that many of these works are Brahmanic in spirit rather than Buddhist; thus we have the Mahâgaṇapati-tantra, the Mahâkâla-tantra, and many others. Among the better known Tantras may be mentioned the Arya-mañjuśrî-mûla-tantra and the Śrî-Guhya Samaja[988], both highly praised by Csoma de Körös: but perhaps more important is the Tantra on which the Kâlacakra system is founded. It is styled Paramâdibuddha-uddhṛita-śrî-kâlacakra and there is also a compendium giving its essence or Hṛidaya.
The Tanjur is a considerably larger collection than the Kanjur for it consists of 225 volumes but its contents are imperfectly known. A portion has been catalogued by Palmyr Cordier. It is known to contain a great deal of relatively late Indian theology such as the works of Aśvaghosha, Nâgârjuna, Asanga, Vasubandhu, and other Mahayanist doctors, and also secular literature such as the Meghadûta of Kâlidâsa, together with a multitude of works on logic, rhetoric, grammar and medicine[989]. Some treatises, such as the Udâna[990] occur in both collections but on the whole the Tanjur is clearly intended as a thesaurus of exegetical and scientific literature, science being considered, as in the middle ages of Europe, to be the handmaid of the Church. Grammar and lexicography help the understanding of scripture: medicine has been of great use in establishing the influence of the Lamas: secular law is or should be an amplification of the Church's code: history compiled by sound theologians shows how the true faith is progressive and triumphant: art and ritual are so near together that their boundaries can hardly be delimitated. Taking this view of the world, we find in the Tanjur all that a learned man need know[991].
It is divided into two parts, mDo (Sûtra) and rGyud (Tantra), besides a volume of hymns and an index. The same method of division is really applicable to the Kanjur, for the Tibetan Dulva is little more than a combination of Sûtras and Jâtakas and sections two, three, four and six of the Kanjur are collections of special sûtras. In both compilations the tantric section appears to consist of later books expounding ideas which are further from the teaching of Gotama than the Mahayanist sûtras.
To the great majority of works in both collections is prefixed a title which gives the Sanskrit name first in transcription and then in translation, for instance "In Sanskrit Citralakshana: in Tibetan Ri-moi-mthsan-ñid[992]." Hence there is usually no doubt as to what the Tibetan translations profess to be. Sometimes however the headings are regrettably brief. The Vinaya for instance appears to be introduced with that simple superscription and with no indication of the school or locality to which the text belonged.
Although the titles of books are given in Sanskrit, yet all Indian proper names which have a meaning (as most have) are translated. Thus the name Drona (signifying a measure and roughly equivalent to such an English name as Dr. Bushell) is rendered by Bre-bo, a similar measure in Tibetan. This habit greatly increases the difficulty of reading Tibetan texts. The translators apparently desired to give a Tibetan equivalent for every word and even for every part of a word, so as to make clear the etymology as well as the meaning of the sacred original. The learned language thus produced must have varied greatly from the vernacular of every period but its slavish fidelity makes it possible to reconstruct the original Sanskrit with tolerable certainty.
I have already mentioned the presence of translations from the Pali. There are also a few from the Chinese[993] which appear to be of no special importance. One work is translated from the Bruza language which was perhaps spoken in the modern Gilgit[994] and another from the language of Khotan[995]. Some works in the Kanjur have no Sanskrit titles and are perhaps original compositions in Tibetan. The Tanjur appears to contain many such.
But the Kanjur and Tanjur as a whole represent the literature approved by the late Buddhism of Bengal and certain resemblances to the arrangement of the Chinese Tripitaka suggest that not only new sûtras but new classifications of sûtras had replaced the old Pitakas and Agamas. The Tibetan Canon being later than the Chinese has lost the Abhidharma and added a large section of Tantras. But both canons recognize the divisions known as Prajñâ-pâramitâ, Ratnakuṭa, Avatamsaka, and Mahâparinirvâṇa as separate sections. The Ratnakûta is clearly a collection of sûtras equivalent to a small Nikâya[996]. This is probably also true of the voluminous Prajñâ-pâramitâ in its various editions, but the divisions are not commonly treated as separate works except the Vajracchedikâ. The imperfectly known Avatamsaka Sûtra appears to be a similar collection, since it is described as discourses of the Buddha pronounced at eight assemblies. The Mahâparinirvâṇa Sûtra though not nominally a collection of sûtras (at least in its Pali form) is unique both in subject and structure, and it is easy to understand why it was put in a class by itself.
The translation of all this literature falls into three periods, (i) from the seventh century until the reign of Ralpachan in the ninth, (ii) the reign of Ralpachan, and (in) some decades following the arrival of Atîśa in 1038. In the first period work was sporadic and the translations made were not always those preserved in the Kanjur. Thonmi Sanbhota, the envoy sent to India in 616 is said to have made renderings of the Karaṇḍa Vyûha and other works (but not those now extant) and three items in the Tanjur are attributed to him[997]. The existence of early translations has been confirmed by Stein who discovered at Endere a Tibetan manuscript of the Śalistambhasûtra which is said not to be later than about 740 A.D.[998] The version now found in the Kanjur appears to be a revision and expansion of this earlier text.
A few translations from Chinese texts are attributed to the reign of Khri-gtsug-lde-btsan (705-755) and Rockhill calls attention to the interesting statement that he sent envoys to India who learned Sanskrit books by heart and on their return reproduced them in Tibetan. If this was a common habit, it may be one of the reasons why Tibetan translations sometimes show differences in length, arrangement and even subject matter when compared with Sanskrit and Chinese versions bearing the same name. During the reign of Khri-sroṇ-lde-btsan and the visit of Padma-Sambhava (which began in A.D. 747 according to the traditional chronology) the number of translations began to increase. Two works ascribed to the king and one to the saint are included in the canon, but the most prolific writer and translator of this period was Kamalaśîla. Seventeen of his original works are preserved in the Tanjur and he translated part of the Ratnakûta. The great period of translation--the Augustan age of Tibet as it is often called--was beginning and a solid foundation was laid by composing two dictionaries containing a collection of Sanskrit Buddhist terms[999].
The Augustus of Tibet was Ralpachan who ruled in the ninth century, though Tibetan and Chinese chronicles are not in accord as to his exact date. He summoned from Kashmir and India many celebrated doctors who with the help of native assistants took seriously in hand the business of rendering the canon into Tibetan. They revised the existing translations and added many more of their own. It is probable that at least half of the works now contained in the Kanjur and Tanjur were translated or revised at this time and that the additions made later were chiefly Tantras (rGyud). On the other hand it is also probable that many tantric translations ascribed to this epoch are really later[1000]. The most prolific of Ralpachan's translators was Jinamitra, a pandit of Kashmir described as belonging to the Vaibhâshika school, who translated a large part of the Vinaya and many sûtras[1001]. Among the many Tibetan assistants Ye'ses-sde and Dpal-brTsegs are perhaps those most frequently mentioned. These Tibetan translators are commonly described by the title of Lo-tsa-va. As in China the usual procedure seems to have been that an Indian pandit explained the sacred text to a native. The latter then wrote it down, but whereas in China he generally paraphrased whatever he understood, in Tibet he endeavoured to reproduce it with laborious fidelity.
The language of the translations, which is now the accepted form of literary Tibetan, appears to have been an archaic and classical dialect even in the early days of Tibetan Buddhism, for it is not the same as the language of the secular documents dating from the eighth century, which have been found in Turkestan, and it remains unchanged in the earliest and later translations. It may possibly have been the sacred language of the Bonpo[1002] priests.
As narrated in the historical section Buddhism suffered a severe reverse with the death of Ralpachan and it was nearly a century before a revival began. This revival was distinctly tantric and the most celebrated name connected with it is Atîśa. According to Csoma de Körös's chronology the Kâlacakra system was introduced in 1025 and the eminent translator bLo-ldan-shes-rab[1003], a follower of Atîśa, was born in 1057. It is thus easy to understand how during the eleventh century a great number of tantric works were translated and the published catalogues of the Kanjur and Tanjur confirm the fact, although the authors of the translations are not mentioned so often as in the other divisions. To Atîśa is ascribed the revision of many works in the Tantra section of the Kanjur and twenty others composed by him are found in the Tanjur[1004]. It is said that the definitive arrangement of the two collections as we know them was made by Bu-ston early in the thirteenth century[1005]. The Kanjur (but not the Tanjur) was translated into Mongol by order of Khutuktu Khagan (1604-1634) the last prince of the Chakhar Mongols but a printed edition was first published by the Emperor K'ang-Hsi. Though it is said that the Tanjur was translated and printed by order of Ch'ien-Lung, the statement is doubtful. If such a translation was made it was probably partial and in manuscript[1006].
Manuscripts are still extensively copied and used in Tibet but the Kanjur has been printed from wooden blocks for the last 200 years. There are said to be two printing presses, the older at Narthang near Tashilhunpo where an edition in 100 volumes is produced and another at Derge in the eastern province. This edition is in 108 volumes. An edition was also printed at Peking by order of K'ang-Hsi in red type and with a preface by the Emperor himself[1007].
Besides the canon the Tibetans possess many religious or edifying works composed in their own language[1008]. Such are the Padma-than-yig, or life of Padma-Sambhava, the works of Tsong-kha-pa, and several histories such as those of Bu-ston, Târanâtha, Sum-pa, and hJigs-med-nam-mkha[1009], biographies of Lamas without number, accounts of holy places, works of private devotion, medical treatises and grammars.
There are also numerous works called Terma which profess to be revelations composed by Padma-Sambhava. They are said to be popular, though apparently not accepted by the Yellow Church.
Although it hardly comes within the scope of the present study, I may mention that there is also some non-Buddhist literature in Tibet, sometimes described as scriptures of the Bön religion and sometimes as folklore. As samples may be cited Laufer's edition and translation of the Hundred Thousand Nâgas[1010] and Francke's of parts of the Kesar-saga[1011].
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 973: The Tibetan orthography is bKah-hgyur (the translated command) and bsTan-ḥgyur (the translated explanation). Various spellings are used by European writers such as Kah-gyur, Kandjour, Bkahgyur, etc. Waddell writes Kah-gyur and Tän-gyur.]
[Footnote 974: Though this distinction seems to hold good on the whole, yet it is not strictly observed. Thus the work called Udâna and corresponding to the Dhammapada is found in both the Kanjur and Tanjur.]
[Footnote 975: Nanjio's catalogue states that a great many Abhidhaṛma works in Chinese agree with Tibetan, but their titles are not to be found in Csoma's analysis of the Kanjur. They may however be in the Tanjur, which is less fully analyzed.]
[Footnote 976: Analysis of the Dulva, etc., four parts in Asiatic Researches, vol. XX. 1836, by A. Csoma Körösi. Translated into French by Feer, Annales du Musée Guimet, tome 2me, 1881. Index des Kanjur, herausgegeben von I.J. Schmidt (in Tibetan), 1845. Huth, Verzeichnis der in Tibetischen Tanjur, Abtheilung mDo, erhaltenen Werke in Sitzungsber. Berlin. Akad. 1895. P. Cordier, Catalogue du fonds Tibétain de la Bibliothèque Nationale. Beckh, Verzeichnis der tibetischen Handscriften der K. Bibliothek zu Berlin, 1 Abth., Kanjur, 1914. This is an analysis of the edition in 108 volumes, whereas Csoma de Körösi and Feer analyzed the edition in 100 volumes. The arrangement of the two editions is not quite the same. See too Pelliot's review of Beckh's catalogue in J.A. 1914, II. pp. 111 ff. See also Waddell, "Tibetan Manuscripts and Books" in Asiatic Quarterly, July, 1912, pp. 80-113, which, though not an analysis of the Canon, incidentally gives much information.]
[Footnote 977: E.g. Udâna ( = Dhammapada) by Rockhill, 1892 (transl.), and Beckh (text 1911) Madhyamakâvatâra: de la Vallée Poussin, 1912, Madyamika-śâstra: Max Walleser, 1911 (transl.), Citralakshana, ed. and trans. Laufer, 1913; Feer, _Fragments extraits du Kanjur, Annales du Musée Guimet_, tome 5me, 1883.]
[Footnote 978: It is also sometimes divided into three Pitakas. When this is done, the Dulva is the Vinaya P., the Śer-chin is the Abhidharma P., and all the other works whether Sûtras or Tantras are classed together as the Sûtra P.]
[Footnote 979: hDul-ba.]
[Footnote 980: See Nanjio, Nos. 1115-1119, 1122, 1132-4. Rockhill, Prâtimoksha Sûtra selon la version Tibétaine, 1884. Huth, Tibetische Version der Naihsargikaprâyaccittikadharmâs, 1891. Finot and Hüber, "Le Prâtimoksa des Sarvâstivadins," J.A. 1913, II. p. 465.]
[Footnote 981: Strictly Śer-phyin.]
[Footnote 982: Waddell in Asiatic Quarterly, 1912, XXXIV. p. 98, renders the title as Vata sangha, which probably represents Avataṃsaka. Sarat Chandra Das, sub voce, says Phal-chen-sde-pa = Mahâsanghika.]
[Footnote 983: The statements of Nanjio as to "deest in Tibetan" are not quite accurate as regards the edition in 108 volumes. Compare his catalogue with Beckh's.]
[Footnote 984: This statement made by such scholars as Feer (Anal. du Kanjour, p. 288) and Rockhill (Udâna, p. x) is of great weight, but I have not found in their works any quotation from the Tibetan translation saying that the original language was not Sanskrit and the titles given by Peer are in Sanskrit not in Pali. I presume it is not meant that the Tibetan text is a translation from a Sanskrit text which corresponds with the Pali text known to us. In Beckh's catalogue of the edition in 108 volumes the same titles occur in the Prajñâ-pâramitâ section, but without any statement that the works are translated from Pali. See Beckh, p. 12, and Feer, pp. 288 ff.]
[Footnote 985: Life of the Buddha, p. 224, and J.R.A.S. 1899, p. 422.]
[Footnote 986: There is another shorter sûtra on the same subject in the mDo section of the Kanjur. Feer, p. 247. In the edition of 108 volumes, the whole section is incorporated in the mDo, Beckh, p. 33.]
[Footnote 987: The word seems originally to mean string or chain.]
[Footnote 988: Apparently not the same as the Tathâgata-Guhyaka alias Guhya Samagha described by R. Mitra, Sk. Bud. Lit. p. 261.]
[Footnote 989: See notices of these in four articles by Satiścandra Vidyâbhûshana in J.A.S. Beng. 1907.]
[Footnote 990: I.e. the Dhammapada.]
[Footnote 991: Huth's analysis of vols. 117-124 of the Tanjur (Sitzungsber. Kōn. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1895) shows that they contain inter alia, eight works on Sanskrit literature and philology besides the Meghadûta, nine on medicine and alchemy with commentaries, fourteen on astrology and divination, three on chemistry (the composition of incense), eight on gnomic poetry and ethics, one encyclopædia, six lives of the Saints, six works on the Tibetan language and five on painting and fine art. Cordier gives further particulars of the medical works in B.E.F.E.O. 1903, p. 604. They include a veterinary treatise.]
[Footnote 992: See title in Laufer's edition.]
[Footnote 993: See Feer, l.c. for instance, pp. 287, 248.]
[Footnote 994: See Feer, l.c. p. 344, and Laufer, "Die Bruza Sprache" in T'oung Pao, 1908. It is said that King Ru-che-tsan of Brusha or Dusha translated (? what date) the Mûla-Tantra and Vyâkhyâ-Tantra into the language of his country. See J.A.S.B. 1882, p. 12. Beckh states that four works have titles in Chinese, one in Bruža and one in Tartar (Hor-gyi-skad-du).]
[Footnote 995: Laufer, ibid. p. 4.]
[Footnote 996: See Nanjio, No. 87, and Feer, l.c. pp. 208-212, but the two works may not be the same. The Tibetan seems to be a collection of 45 sûtras.]
[Footnote 997: Rockhill, l.c. p. 212.]
[Footnote 998: Stein, Ancient Khotan, pp. 426-9 and App. B. See also Pelliot in B.E.F.E.O. 1908, pp. 507 ff.]
[Footnote 999: The Mahâvyutpatti edited by Minayeff in _Bibl. Buddhica_ and an abridgement.]
[Footnote 1000: According to Feer (Analyse, p. 325) Tibetan historians state that at this epoch kings prohibited the translation of more than a few tantric works.]
[Footnote 1001: Numerous works are also ascribed to Sarvajñâdeva and Dharmaka, both of Kashmir, and to the Indian Vidyâkaraprabhâ and Surendrabodhi.]
[Footnote 1002: See Francke in J.R.A.S. 1914, pp. 56-7.]
[Footnote 1003: See Pander, Pantheon, No. 30.]
[Footnote 1004: Waddell, Buddhism, p. 36, gives a list of them.]
[Footnote 1005: It appears to me that there is some confusion between Brom-ston, a disciple of Atîśa, who must have flourished about 1060 and Bu-ston, who was born in 1288. Grünwedel says that the latter is credited with the compilations of the Kanjur and Tanjur, but Rockhill (Life of the Buddha, p. 227) describes Bu-ston as a disciple of Atîśa.]
[Footnote 1006: See Huth, Geschichte des Budd. in der Mongolei, 291, and Laufer, "Skizze der Mongolischen Literatur" (in Keleti Szemle, 1907), p. 219. Also Pelliot in J.A. 1914, II. pp. 112-3.]
[Footnote 1007: See Laufer in Bull. de l'Acad. de S. Pétersbourg, 1909, pp. 567-574. There are some differences in the editions. That of Narthang is said to contain a series of sûtras translated from the Pali and wanting in the Red Edition, but not to contain two translations from Chinese which are found in the Red Edition. See the preface to Beckh's catalogue. The MS. analyzed by him was obtained at Peking, but it is not known whence it came. An edition by Ch'ien Lung is mentioned by some authors. It is also said that an edition is printed at Punakha in Bhutan, and another in Mongolian at Kumbum.]
[Footnote 1008: Some of these are probably included in the Tanjur, which has not been fully catalogued. See J.A.S. Beng. 1904, for a list of 85 printed books bought in Lhasa, 1902, and Waddell's article in Asiatic Quarterly, July, 1912, already referred to.]
[Footnote 1009: Edited and translated by Huth as Geschichte des Buddhismus in der Mongolei, 1892.]
[Footnote 1010: Finno Ugrian Society of Helsingfors, 1898.]
[Footnote 1011: Same Society, 1900 and 1902, and J.A.S.B. 1906-7.]
LII. TIBET (continued)
DOCTRINES OF LAMAISM
Lamaism may be defined as a mixture of late Indian Buddhism (which is itself a mixture of Buddhism and Hinduism) with various Tibetan practices and beliefs. The principal of these are demonophobia and the worship of human beings as incarnate deities. Demonophobia is a compendious expression for an obsession which victimizes Chinese and Hindus to some extent as well as Tibetans, namely, the conviction that they are at all times surrounded by fierce and terrible beings against whom they must protect themselves by all the methods that religion and magic can supply. This is merely an acute form of the world-wide belief that all nature is animated by good and bad spirits, of which the latter being more aggressive require more attention, but it assumes startlingly conspicuous forms in Tibet because the Church has enlisted all the forces of art, theology and philosophy to aid in this war against demons. The externals of Tibetan worship suffer much from the idea that benevolent deities assume a terrible guise in order to strike fear into the hosts of evil[1012]. The helpers and saviours of mankind such as Avalokita and Târâ are often depicted in the shape of raging fiends, as hideous and revolting as a fanciful brush and distorted brain can paint them. The idea inspiring these monstrous images is not the worship of cruelty and terror, but the hope that evil spirits may be kept away when they see how awful are the powers which the Church can summon. Nevertheless the result is that a Lama temple often looks like a pandemonium and meeting house for devil-worship, an Olympus tenanted by Gorgons, Hydras and Furies. It is only fair to say that Tibetan art sometimes represents with success gods and saints in attitudes of repose and authority, and has produced some striking portraits[1013], but its most marked feature (which it shares with literature) is a morbid love of the monstrous and terrible, a perpetual endeavour to portray fiends surrounded with every circumstance of horror, and still more appalling deities, all eyes, heads and limbs, wreathed with fire, drinking blood from skulls and trampling prostrate creatures to death beneath their feet. Probably the wild and fantastic landscapes of Tibet, the awful suggestions of the spectral mists, the real terrors of precipice, desert and storm have wrought for ages upon the minds of those who live among them.
Like demonophobia, the worship of incarnate deities is common in eastern Asia but here it acquires an extent and intensity unknown elsewhere. The Tibetans show a strange power of organization in dealing with the supernatural. In India incarnations have usually been recognized post-mortem and as incalculable manifestations of the spirit[1014]. But at least since the seventeenth century, the Lamas have accepted them as part of the Church's daily round and administrative work. The practices of Shamanism probably prepared the way, for in his mystic frenzies the Shaman is temporarily inhabited by a god and the extreme ease with which distinguished persons are turned into gods or Bodhisattvas in China and Japan is another manifestation of the same spirit. An ancient inscription[1015] applies to the kings of Tibet the word ḥphrul which is also used of the Grand Lamas and means that a deity is transformed, or as we say, incarnate in a human person. The Yellow Church officially recognized[1016] the Emperor of China as an incarnation of Mañjuśrî and the Mongols believed the Tsar of Russia to be an incarnation of the White Târâ.
The admixtures received by Buddhism in Tibet are not alien to Indian thought. They received an unusual emphasis but India provided terrible deities, like Kâlî with her attendant fiends, and also the idea that the divine embodies itself in human personalities or special manifestations. Thus Tibetan Buddhism is not so much an amalgam, as a phase of medieval Hindu religion disproportionately developed in some directions. The Lamas have acquired much the same status as the Brahmans. If they could not make themselves a hereditary caste, they at least enforced the principle that they are the necessary intermediaries between gods and men. Though they adopted the monastic system of Buddhism, they are not so much monks as priests and ghostly warriors who understand the art of fighting with demons.
Yet Tibet like Japan could assimilate and transform as well as borrow. The national and original element in Lamaism becomes plain when we compare Tibet with the neighbouring land of Nepal. There late Indian Buddhism simply decayed under an overgrowth of Brahmanism. In Tibet it acquired more life and character than it had in its native Bengal. This new character has something monstrous and fantastic in government as well as art: the magic fortresses of the Snowland, peopled by priests and demons, seem uncanny homes for plain mortals, yet Lamaism has the strength belonging to all genuine expressions of national character and it clearly suits the Tibetans and Mongols. The oldest known form of Tibetan religion had some of the same characteristics. It is called Bön or Pön. It would be outside my province to discuss it here, but even when first heard of it was more than a rude form of animism. In the eighth century its hierarchy was sufficiently strong to oppose the introduction of Buddhism and it possibly contained a pre-buddhist stratum of Iranian ideas[1017]. In later times it adopted or travestied Buddhist dogma, ritual and literature, much as Taoism did in China, but still remained a repository of necromancy, magic, animal sacrifices, devil-dancing, and such like practices, which have in all ages corrupted Tibetan Buddhism though theoretically disapproved.
Of Tibetan Buddhism anterior to 747 there is little to be said. It consisted in the sporadic introduction of books and images from India and did not assume any national character, for it is clear that in this period Tibet was not regarded as a Buddhist country. The first phase deserving the name of Lamaism begins with the arrival of Padma-Sambhava in 747. The Nying-ma-pa or Old School claims to represent his teaching, but, as already mentioned, the various sects have interacted on one another so much that their tenets are hardly distinctive. Still it is pretty clear that what Padma-Sambhava brought with him was the late form of India Buddhism called Mantrayâna, closely allied to the Chên Yen of China, and transported to Japan under the name of Shingon and also to the Buddhism of Java as represented in the sculptures of Boroboedoer. The Far East felt shy of the tantric element in this teaching, whereas the Tibetans exaggerated it, but the doctrinal basis is everywhere the same, namely, that there are five celestial Buddhas, of whom Vairocana is the principal and in some sense the origin. These give rise to celestial emanations, female as well as male, and to terrestrial reflexes such as Śâkyamuni. Among the other features of Padma-Sambhava's teaching the following may be enumerated with more or less certainty: (a) A readiness to tolerate and incorporate the local cults of the countries where he preached. (b) A free use of spells (dhâraṇî) and magical figures (maṇḍala) for the purpose of subduing demons and acquiring supernatural powers. (c) The belief that by such methods an adept can not only summon a deity but assume his form and in fact become the deity. (d) The worship of Amitâbha, among other deities, and a belief in his paradise. (e) The presentation of offerings, though not of flesh, in sacrifice[1018] and the performance of ceremonies on behalf of departed souls. (f) The worship of departed and perhaps of living teachers. His image is a conspicuous object of veneration in the Nying-ma-pa sect but he does not appear to have taught the doctrine of hierarchical succession by incarnation. Grünwedel[1019] has pointed out that the later corruptions of Buddhism in northern India, Tibet and Central Asia are connected with the personages known as the eighty-four Mahâsiddhas, or great magicians. Their appearance as shown in pictures is that of Brahmanic ascetics rather than of Buddhist Bhikshus, but many of them bear names which are not Indian. Their dates cannot be fixed at present and appear to cover a period from the early centuries of our era up to about 1200, so that they represent not a special movement but a continuous tendency to import into Buddhism very various currents of thought, north Indian, Iranian, Central Asian and even Mohammedan.
The visit of Padma-Sambhava was followed by a period of religious activity which culminated in the ninth century under King Ralpachan, but it does not appear that the numerous translations from Indian works made in this reign did more than supplement and amplify the doctrine already preached. But when after a lengthy eclipse Buddhism was reinstated in the eleventh century under the auspices of Atîśa and other foreign teachers we hear of something new, called the Kâlacakra[1020] system also known as the Vajrayâna. Pending the publication of the Kâlacakra Tantra[1021], it is not easy to make definite statements about this school which presumably marks the extreme point of development or degeneration in Buddhism, but a persistent tradition connects it with a country called Śambhala or Zhambhala, translated in Tibetan as bDe-ḥbyuṇ or source of happiness. This country is seen only through a haze of myth: it may have been in India or it may have been somewhere in Central Asia, where Buddhism mingled with Turkish ideas[1022]. Its kings were called Kulika and the Tibetan calendar introduced by Atîśa is said to have come from it. This fact and the meaning of the word Kâlacakra (wheel of time) suggest that the system has some connection with the Turkish cycle of twelve animals used for expressing dates[1023]. A legend[1024] states that Śâkyamuni promulgated the Kâlacakra system in Orissa (Dhânyakaṭaka) and that Sucandra, king of Śambhala, having miraculously received this teaching wrote the Kâlacakra Tantra in a prophetic spirit, although it was not published until 965 A.D. This is really the approximate date of its compilation and I can only add the following disjointed data[1025].
Tibetan authorities state that it was introduced into Nâlandâ by a Pandit called Tsilu or Chilu and accepted by Narotapa who was then head of the University. From Nâlandâ it spread to Tibet. Manjuśrîkîrti, king of Śambhala, is said to have been an exponent of it and to have begun his reign 674 years after the death of the Buddha. But since he is also the second incarnation of the Panchen Lama and since the fourth (Abhayakara) lived about 1075, he may really have been a historical character in the latter part of the tenth century. Its promulgation is also ascribed to a personage called Siddha Pito. It must be late for it is said to mention Islam and Mohammed. It is perhaps connected with anti-mohammedan movements which looked to Kalkî, the future incarnation of Vishnu, as their Messiah, for Hindu tradition says that Kalkî will be born in Śambhalagrâma[1026]. We hear also of a Siddha called Telopa or Tailopa, who was a vigorous opponent of Islam. The mythology of the school is Vishnuite, not Sivaitic, and it is noticeable that the Pâncarâtra system which had some connection with Kashmir lays stress on the wheel or discus (cakra or sudarśana) of Vishnu which is said to be the support of the Universe and the manifestation of Creative will. The Kâlacakra is mentioned as a special form of this cosmic wheel having six spokes[1027].
The peculiar doctrine of the Buddhist Kâlacakra is that there is an Adi-Buddha[1028], or primordial Buddha God, from whom all other Buddhas are derived. It is possible that it represents a last effort of Central Asian Buddhism to contend with Moslims, which instead of denying the bases of Mohammed's teaching tried to show that monotheism (like everything else) could be found in Buddhism--a method of argument frequent in India. The doctrine of the Adi-Buddha was not however new or really important. For the Indian mind it is implied in the dogma of the three bodies of Buddha, for the Sambhogakâya is practically an Indian Deva and the Dharmakâya is the pantheos or Brahmâ. Under the influence of the Kâlacakra the Lamas did not become theists in the sense of worshipping one supreme God but they identified with the Adi-Buddha some particular deity, varying according to the sects. Thus Samantabhadra, who usually ranks as a Bodhisattva--that is as inferior to a Buddha--was selected by some for the honour. The logic of this is hard to explain but it is clearly analogous to the procedure, common to the oldest and newest phases of Hindu religion, by which a special deity is declared to be not only all the other gods but also the universal spirit[1029]. It does not appear that the Kâlacakra Tantra met with general acceptance. It is unknown in China and Japan and not well known in Nepal[1030].
The Kâlacakra adopted all the extravagances of the Tantras and provided the principal Buddhas and Bodhisattvas with spouses, even giving one to the Adi-Buddha himself[1031]. Extraordinary as this is from a Buddhist point of view, it is little more than the Hindu idea that the Supreme Being became male and female for the purpose of producing the universe. But the general effect of the system on monastic and religious life was bad. Celibacy was not observed; morals, discipline and doctrine alike deteriorated. A striking instance is afforded by the ceremonies used by Pagspa when receiving Kublai into the Church. The Tibetan prelate presumably wished to give the Emperor what was best and most important in his creed and selected a formula for invoking a demoniac Buddha.
The latest phase of Lamaism was inaugurated by Tsong-kha-pa's reformation and is still vigorous. Politically and socially it was of capital importance, for it disciplined the priesthood and enabled the heads of the Church to rule Tibet. In doctrine it was not marked by the importation of new ideas, but it emphasized the worship of Avalokita as the patron of Tibet, it systematized the existing beliefs about reincarnation, thereby creating a powerful hierarchy, and it restricted Tantrism, without abolishing it. But many monasteries persistently refused to accept these reforms.
Tibetan mythology and ceremonial have been described in detail by Grünwedel, Waddell and others. The pantheon is probably the largest in the world. All heaven and hell seem to meet in it. The originals of the deities are nearly all to be found in Nepalese Buddhism[1032] and the perplexing multiplicity of Tibet is chiefly due to the habit of representing one deity in many forms and aspects, thus making him a dozen or more personages both for art and for popular worship. The adoration of saints and their images is also more developed than in Nepal and forms some counterpoise to the prevalent demonolatry.
I will not attempt to catalogue this fantastic host but will merely notice the principal elements in it.
The first of these may be called early Buddhist. The figure of Śâkyamuni is frequent in poses which illustrate the familiar story of his life and the statue in the cathedral of Lhasa representing him as a young man is the most venerated image in all Tibet. The human Buddhas anterior to him also receive recognition together with Maitreya. The Pratimoksha is still known, the Uposatha days are observed and the details of the ordination services recall the prescriptions of the Pali Vinaya; formulæ such as the four truths, the eightfold path and the chain of causation are still in use and form the basis of ethics.
The later (but still not tantric) doctrines of Indian Mahayanism are naturally prominent. The three bodies of Buddha are well known and also the series of five Celestial Buddhas with corresponding Bodhisattvas and other manifestations. I feel doubtful whether the table given by Waddell[1033] can be accepted as a compendium of the Lamaist creed. The symmetry is spoiled by the existence of other groups such as the Thirty Buddhas, the Thousand Buddhas, and the Buddhas of Healing, and also by the habit just mentioned of representing deities in various forms. For instance Amoghapâśa, theoretically a form of Avalokita, is in practice distinct. The fact is that Lamaism accepted the whole host of Indian Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, with additions of its own. The classifications made by various sûtras and tantras were not sufficiently dogmatic to become articles of faith: chance and fancy determined the prominence and popularity of a given figure. Among the Buddhas those most worshipped are Amitâbha, Śâkya and Bhaishajyaguru or the Buddha of Healing: among the Bodhisattvas, Avalokita, Maitreya and Mañjuśrî.
There is nothing in the above differing materially from Chinese or Japanese Buddhism. The peculiarities of Tibet are brought out by the tantric phase which those countries eschewed. Three characteristics of Tibetan Tantrism, which are all more or less Indian, may be mentioned. Firstly, all deities, even the most august, become familiar spirits, who are not so much worshipped as coerced by spells. The neophyte is initiated into their mysteries by a special ceremonial[1034]: the adept can summon them, assume their attributes and attain union with them. Secondly, great prominence is given to goddesses, either as the counterparts of male deities or as independent. Thirdly, deities appear in various forms, described as mild, angry or fiendish. It is specially characteristic of Lamaism that naturally benevolent deities are represented as raging in furious frenzy.
Whether the superhuman beings of Tantrism are Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, or Hindu gods like Mahâkala, it is correct to describe them as deities, for they behave and are treated like Indian Devas. Besides the relatively old and simple forms of the various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, there are many others which are usually accommodated to the system by being described as protecting spirits, that is virtuous and religious fiends who expend their ferocity on the enemies of the Church.
Of these Protectors there are two classes, which are not mutually exclusive, namely, the tutelary deities of individuals, and the defenders of the faith or tutelaries of the whole Church. The former, who are extremely important in the religious life of the Lamas, are called Yi-dam and may be compared with the Ishṭa-devatâs of the Hindus: the latter or Chos Skyoṇ correspond to the Dharmapâlas. Every Lama selects a Yi-dam either for life or for a period. His choice must remain a secret but he himself has no doubts, as after fasting and meditation the deity will appear to him[1035]. Henceforth he every morning repeats formulæ which are supposed to give him the appearance of his tutelary and thus scare away hostile demons. The most efficacious tutelaries are tantric forms of the Dhyâni Buddhas, especially Vajrasattva, Vajradhara and Amitâyus. The deity is represented not in the guise of a Buddha but crowned, robed, and holding a thunderbolt, and his attributes appear to be derived from those of Indra[1036]. In his arms he always clasps a Śakti.
A second class of tutelaries is composed of so-called Buddhas, accompanied by Śaktis and terrific in aspect, who are manifestations of the Buddhahood for special purposes. I do not know if this description is theologically correct, for these fantastic figures have no relation to anything deserving the name of Buddhism, but Grünwedel[1037] has shown that they are comparable with the various forms of Śiva. This god does not become incarnate like Vishnu but manifests himself from time to time in many shapes accompanied by a retinue who are sometimes merely attendants and sometimes alternative forms of the Lord. Vîrabhadra, the terrible being created by Śiva from himself in order to confound Daksha's sacrifice, is a close parallel to the demoniac Buddhas of Lamaism. Some of them, such as Mahâkâla and Samvara, show their origin in their names and the rest, such as Hevajra, Buddhakapâla and Yamântaka, are similar. This last is a common subject for art, a many headed and many limbed minotaur, convulsed by a paroxysm of devilish passion. Among his heads the most conspicuous is the face of an ox, yet this grotesque demon is regarded as a manifestation of the benign and intellectual Mañjuśri whose images in other lands are among the most gracious products of Buddhist sculpture.
Most tutelary deities of this class act as defenders of the faith and each sect has one or two as its special guardians[1038]. The idea is ancient for even in the Pitakas, Sakka and other spirits respectfully protect the Buddha's disciples, and the Dharmapâlas of Gandharan art are the ancestors of the Chos Skyoṇ. But in Tibet these assume monstrous and manifold disguises. The oldest is Vajrapâṇi and nearly all the others are forms of Śiva (such as Acala or Mi-gyo-ba who reappears in Japan as Fudo) or personages of his retinue. Eight of them are often adored collectively under the name of the Eight Terrible Ones. Several of these are well-known figures in Hindu mythology, for though the Lamas usually give Buddhist titles to their principal deities, yet they also venerate Hindu gods, without any explanation of their status. Thus hJigs-med-nam-mkha says that he composed his history with the help of Śiva[1039]. The members of this group vary in different enumerations but the following usually form part of it.
(a) Hayagrîva[1040], the horse-necked god. In India he appears to be connected with Vishnu rather than Śiva. The magic dagger with which Lamas believe they can stab demons is said to be a form of him. The Mongols regard him as the protector of horses. (b) Yama, the Indian god of the dead, accompanied by a hellish retinue including living skeletons. (c) Mahâkâla, the form of Śiva already mentioned. It was by his inspiration that Pagspa was able to convert Khubilai Khan. (d) Lha-mo, the goddess, that is Devî, the spouse of Śiva. (e) lCam-sraṇ, a war god of somewhat uncertain origin but perhaps a Tibetan form of Kârtikeya. Other deities frequently included in this group are Yamântaka, mentioned above, Kubera or Vaiśravana, the Hindu god of wealth, and a deity called the White Brahmâ (Thsangspa dKarpo). This last is an ordinary human figure riding on a white horse and brandishing a sword. He wears white clothes and a crown or turban. He is perhaps Kalkî who, as suggested above, had some connection with the Kâlacakra. The Eight Terrible Ones and their attendants are represented by grotesquely masked figures in the dances and mystery plays enacted by Lamas. These performances are said to be still known among the vulgar as dances of the Red Tiger Devil, but in the hands of the Yellow Church have become a historical drama representing the persecution of Buddhism under King Lang-dar-ma and its ultimate triumph after he has been slain by the help of these ghostly champions.
Lamaist books mention numerous other Indian divinities, such as Brahmâ, the thirty-three Devas, the Kings of the four quarters, etc. These have no particular place in the system but their appearance in art and literature is natural, since they are decorative though not essential parts of early Buddhism. The same may be said of all the host of Nâgas, Yakshas, Rakshasas, etc. But though these multitudinous spirits have been rearranged and classified in conformity with Hindu ideas they are not an importation but rather part of the old folklore of Tibet, in many ways identical with the same stratum of thought in India. Thus the snake demigods or Nâgas[1041] occupy in both countries a large place in the popular imagination. In the higher ranks of the Lamaist pantheon all the figures seem to be imported, but some indigenous godlings have retained a place in the lower classes. Such are rDo-rje-legs, at first an opponent of Buddhism as preached by Padma-Sambhava but honoured as a deity after making due submission, and the Five Kings[1042], a group of fierce spirits, under the presidency of dPe-dkar.
It remains to say a word of the numerous goddesses who play an important part in Tibetan Buddhism, as in Hindu Tantrism. They are usually represented as the female counterparts or better halves of male deities, but some are self-sufficient. The greatest of these goddesses is Târâ[1043]. Though Lamaist theology describes her as the spouse of Avalokita she is not a single personality but a generic name applied to a whole class of female deities and, as in many other cases, no clear distinction is drawn between her attendants and the forms which she herself assumes. Originally benevolent and depicted with the attributes of Lakshmî she is transformed by a turn of Tibetan imagination, with which the reader is now familiar, into various terrible shapes and is practically the same as the spouse of Śiva, celebrated in the Tantras under countless names. Twenty-one Târâs are often enumerated in a list said to be well known even to the laity[1044] and there are others. Among them are (a) the Green Târâ, the commonest form in Tibet. (b) The White Târâ, much worshipped by Mongols and supposed to be incarnate in the Tsar of Russia, (c) Bhrikutî, a dark blue, angry, frowning form, (d) Ushṇîshavijayâ[1045], a graceful and benevolent form known to the Japanese. She is mentioned in the Horiuji palm-leaf manuscript which dates from at least 609 A.D. (e) Parṇaśavarî, represented as wearing a girdle of leaves and also called Gandhârî, Piśâcî and Sarva-Śavarâṇâm Bhagavatî[1046]. She is apparently the goddess of an aboriginal tribe in India. (f) Kurukullâ, a goddess of riches, inhabiting caves. She is said to have given great wealth to the fifth Grand Lama, and though she might be suspected of being a native deity was known in Nepal and India[1047].
The Goddess Marîcî, often depicted with Târâ, appears to be distinct and in one form is represented with a sow's head and known as Vajravarâhî. As such she is incarnate in the abbesses of several monasteries, particularly Samding on lake Yamdok[1048].
A notice of Tibetan Buddhism can hardly avoid referring to the use of praying wheels and the celebrated formula Om maṇi padme hum. Though these are among the most conspicuous and ubiquitous features of Lamaism their origin is strangely obscure[1049]. Attempts to connect the praying wheel with the wheel of the law, the cakravartin and other uses of the wheel in Indian symbolism, are irrelevant, for the object to be explained is not really a wheel but a barrel, large or small, containing written prayers, or even a whole library. Those who turn the barrel acquire all the merit arising from repeating the prayers or reading the books. In Tibet this form of devotion is a national mania. People carry small prayer wheels in their hands as they walk and place large ones in rivers to be turned by the current. In China, Japan and Korea we find revolving libraries and occasional praying machines, though not of quite the same form as in Tibet[1050], but, so far as I know, there is nothing to show that these were not introduced from Tibet into China and thence found their way further East. The hypothesis that they were known in India and thence exported to Tibet on one side and China on the other naturally suggests itself, but the total absence of praying machines in India as well as in the ruined cities of Central Asia and the general Hindu habit of regarding scriptures and spells as words rather than written documents lend it no support. It may be that when the illiterate Tibetans first became acquainted with written prayers, they invented this singular method of utilizing them without reading them.
Equally obscure is the origin of the formula Om maṇi padme[1051] hum, which permeates Tibet, uttered by every human voice, revolved in countless machines, graven on the rocks, printed on flags. It is obviously a Dhâraṇî[1052] and there is no reason to doubt that it came to Tibet with the first introduction of Buddhism, but also no record. The earliest passage hitherto quoted for its occurrence is a Chinese translation made between 980 and 1001 A.D.[1053] and said to correspond with the Kanjur and the earliest historical mention of its use is found in Willelm de Rubruk (1254) and in the writings of Bu-ston[1054]. The first legend of its origin is contained in the Manikambum, a work of doubtful age and authorship but perhaps as old as the fifteenth century[1055]. The popularity of the prayer may date from the time when the pontiffs of Lhasa were recognized as incarnations of Avalokita. The first and last words are mystic syllables such as often occur in these formulæ. Maṇi padme is generally interpreted to mean the jewel in the lotus[1056], but Thomas has pointed out that it is more consonant with grammar and usage to regard the syllables as one word and the vocative of a feminine title similar to Padmapâṇi, one of Avalokita's many names. The analogy of similar spells supports this interpretation and it seems probable that the formula was originally an invocation of the Śakti under the title of Maṇipadmâ, although so far as I know it is now regarded by the Tibetans as an address to the male Avalokita. It has also been suggested that the prominence of this prayer may be due to Manichæan influence and the idea that it contained the name of Mani. The suggestion is not absurd for in many instances Manichæism and Buddhism were mixed together, but if it were true we should expect to find the formula frequently used in the Tarim basin, but of such use there is no proof.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1012: The Shingon sect in Japan depict benevolent deities in a raging form, Funnu. See Kokka, No. 292, p. 58. The idea goes back to India where the canons of sacred art recognize that deities can be represented in a pacific (śânta or saumya) or in a terrific (ugra or raudra) form. See Gopinath Rao, Hindu Iconography, vol. I. p. 19, and vol. II of the same for a lengthy description of the aspects of Śiva.]
[Footnote 1013: E.g. Grünwedel, Buddhist art in India, fig. 149, id. Mythologie, fig. 54.]
[Footnote 1014: But there is still a hereditary incarnation of Ganeśa near Poona, which began in the seventeenth century. See Asiatic Researches, VII. 381.]
[Footnote 1015: See Waddell in J.R.A.S. 1909, p. 941.]
[Footnote 1016: See e.g. J.A.S.B. 1882, p. 41. The Svayambhû Purâna also states that Mañjuśrî lives in China. See J. Buddhist Text Society, 1894, vol. II. part II. p. 33.]
[Footnote 1017: See T'oung Pao, 1908, p. 13. For the Bön generally see also J.A.S. Bengal, 1881, p. 187; Rockhill, Land of the Lamas, pp. 217-218; and T'oung Pao, 1901, pp. 24-44.]
[Footnote 1018: The Lamas offer burnt sacrifices but it is not quite clear whether these are derived from the Indian homa adopted by Tantric Buddhism or from Tibetan and Mongol ceremonies. See, for a description of this ceremony, My Life in Mongolia, by the Bishop of Norwich, pp. 108-114.]
[Footnote 1019: Mythologie des Buddhismus, p. 40.]
[Footnote 1020: In Tibetan Dus-kyi-hkhor-lo. Mongol, Tsagun kürdün.]
[Footnote 1021: Announced in the Bibliotheca Buddhica.]
[Footnote 1022: See Pelliot, Quelques transcriptions apparentées à Cambhala dans les textes Chinois (in T'oung Pao, vol. XX. 1920, p. 73) for some conjectures. Kulika is translated into Tibetan as Rigs-Ldan. Tibetan texts speak of books coming from Śambhala, see Laufer in T'oung Pao, 1913, p. 596.]
[Footnote 1023: See Laufer in T'oung Pao, 1907, p. 402. In Sumpa's chronology, J.A.S. Beng. p. 46, the reign of a Kulika Emperor seems to be simply a designation for a century.]
[Footnote 1024: See J.A.S.B. 82, p. 225. The king is also (but apparently incorrectly) called Candra-Bhadra.]
[Footnote 1025: See Grünwedel, Mythologie, p. 41. Sarat Chandra Das in J.A.S. Beng. 1882, p. 15, and J.A.S. Beng. 1912, p. 21, being reprints of earlier articles by Csoma de Körös.]
[Footnote 1026: See Kalkî Purâna. Vishnu Purâna, IV. XXIV, Bhâg. Pur. XII. ii. 18, and Norman in Trans. III, Int. Congress Religions, vol. II. p. 85. Also Aufrecht, Cat. Cod. Sansk. 73A, 84B.]
[Footnote 1027: See Schrader, Introd. to the Pâncarâtra, pp. 100-106 and 96.]
[Footnote 1028: See the article "Adi Buddha" by De la Vallée Poussin in Hastings' Encyc. of Religion and Ethics.]
[Footnote 1029: See, for a modern example of this, the Ganeśâtharvaśirshopanishad (Anândâ srama edition, pp. 11 and 16) Tvam eva sarvam khalvidam Brahmâsi ... Tvam Brahmâ Tvam Vishnus Tvam Rudras Tvam Indras Tvam Agnis Tvam Vâyus Tvam Sûryas Tvam Candramâs Tvam Brahma. Here Gaṇeśa includes all the deities and the Pantheos. There is also a book called Gaṇeśadarśanam in which the Vedanta sûtras are rewritten and Gaṇeśa made equivalent to Brahma. See Madras, Cat. of Sk. MSS. 1910-1913, p. 1030.]
[Footnote 1030: It is just mentioned in S. Lévi's Nepal II, p. 385, but is not in Rajendralal Mitra's Catalogue.]
[Footnote 1031: Waddell, Buddhism, p. 131. Pander, Pantheon, p. 59, No. 56.]
[Footnote 1032: Nepalese Buddhism knows not only the Dhyâni Buddhas, Śaktis and Bodhisattvas including Vajrasattva and Vajradhara, but also deities like Hayagrîva, Yamântaka, Bhrikutî, Marîcî, Kurukullâ. In both Nepal and Tibet are found pictures called Thsogs-śiṇ in which the deities of the Pantheon (or at least the principal of them) are grouped according to rank. See for an example containing 138 deities the frontispiece of Getty's Gods of Northern Buddhism.]
[Footnote 1033: Buddhism, pp. 350-1.]
[Footnote 1034: For an outline of the method followed by Tibetans in studying the Tantras, see Journal Buddhist Text Society, 1893, vol. I. part III. pp. 25-6.]
[Footnote 1035: The deity may appear in an unusual form, so the worshipper can easily persuade himself that he has received the desired revelation.]
[Footnote 1036: A figure identified with Indra or Vajrapâni is found in Gandhara sculptures.]
[Footnote 1037: Mythologie, p. 97.]
[Footnote 1038: The Dhyâni Buddhas however seem to be the Yi-dam of individuals only.]
[Footnote 1039: Huth's edition, p. 1.]
[Footnote 1040: See Buddhist Text Society, vol. II. part II. appendix II. 1904, p. 6.]
[Footnote 1041: See Laufer, "Hundert Tausend Nâgas" in Memoirs of Finno-Ugrian Society, 1898.]
[Footnote 1042: Or Five Bodies, sKu-Lṇa. dPe-dKar or Pe-har is by some authorities identified with the Chinese deity Wei-to. This latter is represented in the outer court of most Chinese temples.]
[Footnote 1043: In Tibetan sGrol-ma, in Mongol Dara äkä. For the early history of Târâ see Blonay, Matériaux pour servir à l'histoire de ... Târâ, 1895.]
[Footnote 1044: Waddell, Buddhism, p. 360.]
[Footnote 1045: Tibetan gTsug-tor-rnam-par-rgyal-ma.]
[Footnote 1046: Cf. Whitehead's statement (Village Gods of S. India, p. 79) that women worshipping certain goddesses are clad only in the twigs of the mimosa tree.]
[Footnote 1047: See Foucher, Icon. Bouddhique, 1900, p. 142, and Târanâtha tr. Schiefner, p. 102.]
[Footnote 1048: See Waddell. Grünwedel seems to regard Vajra-Varâhî as distinct from Marîcî.]
[Footnote 1049: As for instance is also the origin of Linga worship in India.]
[Footnote 1050: See Steiner in _Mitth. der Deutsch. Gesellsch. Natur-u. Völkerkunde Ost-Asiens_, 1909-10, p. 35.]
[Footnote 1051: Padme is said to be commonly pronounced peme.]
[Footnote 1052: Waddell quotes a similar spell known in both Tibet and Japan, but addressed to Vairocana. Om Amogha Vairocanamahâmudra mani padma jvalapravarthtaya hūm. Buddhism, p. 149.]
[Footnote 1053: Divyâvadâna (Cowell and Neil), pp. 613-4, and Raj. Mitra, Nepalese Bud. Lit. p. 98. See also the learned note of Chavannes and Pelliot, based on Japanese sources in J.A. 1913, I. 314. The text referred to is Nanjio, No. 782. It is not plain if it is the same as earlier translations with similar titles. A mantra of six syllables not further defined is extolled in the Divyâvadâna and the Guṇakâraṇḍavyûha.]
[Footnote 1054: Bu-ston was born in 1288 and the summary of his writings contained in the Journal of the Buddhist Text Society, vol. I. 1893, represents the formula as used in the times of Atîśa, c. 1030.]
[Footnote 1055: See for this legend, which is long but not very illuminating, Rockhill's Land of the Lamas, pp. 326-334.]
[Footnote 1056: J.R.A.S. 1906, p. 464, and Francke, ib. 1915, pp. 397-404. He points out the parallel between the three formulae: Om vagîśvari mum: Om maṇipadme hum: Om vajrapâṇi hum. The hymn to Durgâ in Mahâbhâr. Bhîshmapar, 796 (like many other hymns) contains a long string of feminine vocatives ending in e or i.]
LIII. TIBET (continued)
SECTS
Lamaism is divided into various sects, which concern the clergy rather than the laity. The differences in doctrine are not very important. Each sect has special tutelary deities, scriptures and practices of its own but they all tend to borrow from one another whatever inspires respect or attracts worshippers. The baser sort try to maintain their dignity by imitating the institutions of the superior sects, but the superior cannot afford to neglect popular superstitions. So the general level is much the same. Nevertheless, these sectarian differences are not without practical importance for each sect has monasteries and a hierarchy of its own and is outwardly distinguished by peculiarities of costume, especially by the hat. Further, though the subject has received little investigation, it is probable that different sects possess different editions of the Kanjur or at any rate respect different books[1057]. Since the seventeenth century the Gelugpa has been recognized as the established church and the divinity of the Grand Lama is not disputed, but in earlier times there were many monastic quarrels and forced conversions. In the eighteenth century the Red clergy intrigued with the Gurkhas in the hope of supplanting their Yellow brethren and even now they are so powerful in eastern Tibet that this hope may not be unreasonable, should political troubles shake the hierarchy of Lhasa. In spite of the tendency to borrow both what is good and what is bad, some sects are on a higher grade intellectually and morally than others. Thus the older sects do not insist on celibacy or abstinence from alcohol, and Tantrism and magic form the major part of religion, whereas the Gelugpa or established church maintains strict discipline, and tantric and magical rites, though by no means prohibited, are at least practised in moderation.
Setting aside the earliest period, the history of Buddhism in Tibet is briefly that it was established by Padma-Sambhava about 750, reformed by Atîśa about 1040 and again reformed by Tsong-kha-pa about 1400. The sects correspond to these epochs. The oldest claims to preserve the teaching of Padma-Sambhava, those of middle date are offshoots of the movement started by Atîśa, and the newest represents Atîśa's principal sect corrected by the second reformation. The oldest sect is known as Nying-ma-pa or rNyiṇ-ma-pa, signifying the old ones, and also as the Red Church from the colour of the hats worn by the clergy. Among its subdivisions one called the sect of Udyâna[1058], in reference to Padma-Sambhava's birthplace, appears to be the most ancient and still exists in the Himalayas and eastern Tibet. The Nying-ma Lamas are said to have kept the necromancy of the old Tibetan religion more fully than any of the reformed sects. They pay special worship to Padma-Sambhava and accept the revelations ascribed to him. Celibacy and abstinence are rarely observed in their monasteries but these are by no means of low repute. Among the more celebrated are Dorje-dag and Mindolling: the great monastery of Pemiongchi[1059] in Sikhim is a branch establishment of the latter.
Of the sects originating in Atîśa's reformation the principal was the Kadampa[1060], but it has lost much of its importance because it was remodelled by Tsong-kha-pa and hence hardly exists to-day as an independent body. The Sakya sect is connected with the great monastery of the same name situated about fifty miles to the north of Mount Everest and founded in 1071 by Sakya, a royal prince. It acquired great political importance, for from 1270 to 1340 its abbots were the rulers of Tibet. The historian Târanâtha belonged to one of its sub-sects, and about 1600 settled in Mongolia where he founded the monastery of Urga and established the line of reincarnate Lamas which still rules there. But shortly after his death this monastery was forcibly taken over by the Yellow Church and is still the centre of its influence in Mongolia. In theology the Sakya offers nothing specially distinctive but it mixes the Tantras of the old and new sects and according to Waddell[1061] is practically indistinguishable from the Nying-ma-pa. The same is probably true of the Kar-gyu-pa[1062] said to have been founded by Marpa and his follower Milaräpa, who set an example of solitary and wandering lives. It is sometimes described as a Nying-ma sect[1063] but appears to date from after Atîśa's reforms, although it has a strong tendency to revert to older practices. It has several important sub-sects, such as the Karmapa found in Sikhim and Darjiling, as well as in Tibet, the Dugpa which is predominant in Bhotan and perhaps in Ladak[1064], and the Dikung-pa, which owns a large monastery one hundred miles north-east of Lhasa. Milaräpa (or Mila), the cotton-clad saint who wandered over the Snow-land in the light garments of an Indian ascetic, is perhaps the post picturesque figure in Lamaism and in some ways reminds us of St. Francis of Assisi[1065]. He was a worker of miracles and, what is rarer in Tibet, a poet. His compositions known as the Hundred Thousand Songs are still popular and show the same delicately sensitive love of nature as the Psalms of the Theragâthâ.
The main distinction is between the Gelugpa or Yellow Church and all the other sects. This is merely another way of saying that Atîśa reformed the corrupt superstitions which he found but that his reformed church in its turn became corrupt and required correction. This was given by Tsong-kha-pa who belonged originally to the Kadampa. He collected the scattered members of this sect, remodelled its discipline, and laid the foundations of the system which made the Grand Lamas rulers of Tibet. In externals the Gelugpa is characterized by the use of the yellow cap and the veneration paid to Tsong-kha-pa's image. Its Lamas are all celibate and hereditary succession is not recognized. Among the many great establishments which belong to it are the four royal monasteries or Ling in Lhasa; Gandan, Depung and Serra near Lhasa; and Tashilhunpo.
It has often been noticed that the services performed by the Gelugpa[1066] and by the Roman Catholic Church are strangely similar in appearance. Is this an instance of borrowing or of convergence? On the one hand it is stated that there were Roman missions in Amdo in Tsong-kha-pa's youth, and the resemblances are such as would be natural if he had seen great celebrations of the mass and taken hints. In essentials the similarity is small but in externals such as the vestments and head-dresses of the officiants, the arrangement of the choir, and the general mise-en-scène, it is striking. On the other hand many points of resemblance in ceremonial, though not all, are also found in the older Japanese sects, where there can hardly be any question of imitating Christianity, and it would seem that a ritual common to Tibet and Japan can be explained only as borrowed from India. Further, although Tsong-kha-pa may have come in contact with missionaries, is it likely that he had an opportunity of seeing Roman rites performed with any pomp? It is in the great choral services of the two religions that the resemblance is visible, not in their simpler ritual. For these reasons, I think that the debt of Lamaism to the Catholic Church must be regarded as not proven, while admitting the resemblance to be so striking that we should be justified in concluding that Tsong-kha-pa copied Roman ceremonial, could it be shown that he was acquainted with it.
The life and ritual of the Lamas have often been described, and I need not do more than refer the reader to the detailed account given by Waddell in his Buddhism of Tibet [1067], but it is noticeable that the monastic system is organized on a larger scale and inspired by more energy than in any other country. The monasteries of Tibet, if inferior to those of Japan in the middle ages, are the greatest Buddhist establishments now existing. For instance Depung has 7000 monks, Serra 5500 and Tashilhunpo 3800: at Urga in Mongolia there are said to be 14,000. One is not surprised to hear that these institutions are veritable towns with their own police and doubtless the spirit of discipline learned in managing such large bodies of monks has helped the Lamaist Church in the government of the country. Also these monasteries are universities. Candidates for ordination study a course of theology and are not received as novices or full monks unless they pass successive examinations. In every monastery there is a central temple in which the monks assemble several times a day to chant lengthy choral offices. Of these there are at least five, the first before dawn and the last at 7 p.m. Though the value of Lamas' learning and ritual may be questioned, it is clear that many of them lead strenuous lives in the service of a religion which, if fantastic, still expresses with peculiar intensity the beliefs and emotions of the Tibetans and Mongols and has forced men of violence to believe that a power higher than their own is wielded by intellect and asceticism.
There seems to be no difference between Tibetan and Mongolian Lamaism in deities, doctrines or observances[1068]. Mongolian Lamas imitate the usages of Tibet, study there when they can and recite their services in Tibetan, although they have translations of the scriptures in their own language. Well read priests in Peking have told me that it is better to study the canon in Tibetan than in Mongol, because complete copies in Mongol, if extant, are practically unobtainable.
The political and military decadence of the Mongols has been ascribed by some authors to Lamaism and to the substitution of priestly for warlike ideals. But such a substitution is not likely to have taken place except in minds prepared for it by other causes and it does not appear that the Moslims of Central Asia are more virile and vigorous than the Buddhists. The collapse of the Mongols can be easily illustrated if not explained by the fate of Turks and Tartars in the Balkan Peninsula and Russia. Wherever the Turks are the ruling race they endeavour to assert their superiority over all Christians, often by violent methods. But when the positions are reversed and the Christians become rulers as in Bulgaria, the Turks make no resistance but either retire or acquiesce meekly in the new regime.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1057: See for instance the particulars given as to various branches of the Nying-ma pa sect in J.A.S.B. 1882, pp. 6-14.]
[Footnote 1058: Urgyen-pa or Dzok-chen-pa.]
[Footnote 1059: Or Pemayangtse.]
[Footnote 1060: bKah-gDams-pa.]
[Footnote 1061: Buddhism, p. 70.]
[Footnote 1062: bKah-brGyud-pa.]
[Footnote 1063: Sandberg, Handbook of Tibetan, p. 207.]
[Footnote 1064: Authorities differ as to the name of the sect which owns Himis and other monasteries in Ladak.]
[Footnote 1065: See for some account of him and specimens of his poems, Sandberg, Tibet and the Tibetans, chap. XIII.]
[Footnote 1066: I do not know whether the ceremonies of the other sects offer the same resemblance. Probably they have all imitated the Gelugpa. Some authors attribute the resemblance to contact with Nestorian Christianity in early times but the resemblance is definitely to Roman costumes and ceremonies not to those of the Eastern church. Is there any reason to believe that the Nestorian ritual resembled that of western catholics?]
[Footnote 1067: See also Filchner, Das Kloster Kumbum, 1906.]
[Footnote 1068: Almost the only difference that I have noticed is that whereas Tibetans habitually translate Indian proper names, Mongols frequently use Sanskrit words, such as Manjuśrî, or slightly modified forms such as Dara, Maidari ( = Târâ, Maitreya). The same practice is found in the old Uigur translations. See Bibl. Buddh. XII. Tisastvustik. For an interesting account of contemporary Lamaism in Mongolia see Binstead, "Life in a Khalkha Steppe Monastery," J.R.A.S. 1914, 847-900.]
LIV. JAPAN
This work as originally planned contained a section on Japanese Buddhism consisting of three chapters, but after it had been sent to the publishers I was appointed H.M. Ambassador in Tokyo and I decided to omit this section. Let not any Japanese suppose that it contained disparaging criticism of his country or its religions. It would, I hope, have given no offence to either Buddhists or Shintoists, but an ambassador had better err on the side of discretion and refrain from public comments on the institutions of the country to which he is accredited.
The omission is regrettable in so far as it prevents me from noticing some of the most interesting and beautiful developments of Buddhism, but for historical purposes and the investigation of the past the loss is not great, for Japanese Buddhism throws little light on ancient India or even on ancient China. It has not influenced other countries. Its interest lies not in the relics of antiquity which it has preserved but in the new shape and setting which a race at once assimilative and inventive has given to old ideas.
Though the doctrine of the Buddha reached Japan from China through Korea[1069], Chinese and Japanese Buddhism differ in several respects. Lamaism never gained a footing in Japan, probably because it was the religion of the hated Mongols. There was hardly any direct intercourse with India. Whereas the state religion of China was frequently hostile to Buddhism, in Japan such relations were generally friendly and from the seventh century until the Meiji era an arrangement known as Ryō-bu Shintō or two-fold Shintō was in force, by which Shintō shrines were with few exceptions handed over to the custody of Buddhist priests, native deities and historical personages being declared to be manifestations of various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Again, Buddhism in Japan has had a more intimate connection with social, political and even military matters in various periods than in China. This is one reason for its chief characteristic, namely, the large number and distinct character of its sects. They are not merely schools like the religious divisions of India and China, but real sects with divergent doctrines and sometimes antagonistic to one another.
It became the fashion in Japan to talk of the twelve sects, but the names given are not always the same.
One of the commonest lists is as follows[1070]:
1. Kusha. 5. Hossō. 9. Jōdo. 2. Jo-jitsu. 6. Kegon. 10. Zen. 3. Ritsu-shu or Risshu 7. Tendai. 11. Shin. 4. Sanron. 8. Shingon. 12. Nichiren.
This list is historically correct, but Nos. 1-4 are almost or quite extinct, and the number twelve is therefore sometimes made up as follows:
1. Hossō. 5. Yūzū Nembutsu. 9. Ōbaku. 2. Kegon. 6. Jōdo. 10. Shin. 3. Tendai. 7. Rinzai. 11. Nichiren. 4. Shingon. 8. Sōdō. 12. Ji.
Here Nos. 7, 8, 9 are subdivisions of the Zen and 5 and 12 are two small sects.
Taking the first list, we may easily distinguish two classes. The first eight, called by the Japanese Hasshū, are all old and all imported from China. They represent the Buddhism of the Nara and Hei-an periods. The other four all arose after 1170 and were all remodelled, if not created, in Japan. Chronologically the sects may be arranged as follows, the dates marking the foundation or introduction of each:
(i) Seventh century: Sanron, 625; Jo-jitsu, 625; Hossō, 657; Kusha, 660. (ii) Eighth century: Kegon, 735; Ritsu, 745. (iii) Ninth century: Tendai, 805; Shingon, 806. (iv) Twelfth and thirteenth centuries: Yūzū Nembutsu, 1123; Jōdo, 1174; Zen, 1202; Shin, 1224; Nichiren, 1253; Ji, 1275.
All Japanese sects of importance are Mahayanist. The Hinayana is represented only by the Kusha, Jo-jitsu and Risshu. The two former are both extinct: the third still numbers a few adherents, but is not anti-Mahayanist. It merely insists on the importance of discipline.
Though the Hossō and Kegon sects are not extinct, their survival is due to their monastic possessions rather than to the vitality of their doctrines, but the great sects of the ninth century, the Tendai and Shingon, are still flourishing. For some seven hundred years, especially in the Fujiwara period, they had great influence not only in art and literature, but in political and even in military matters, for they maintained large bodies of troops consisting of soldier monks or mercenaries and were a considerable menace to the secular authority. So serious was the danger felt to be that in the sixteenth century Nobunaga and Hideyoshi destroyed the great monasteries of Hieizan and Negoro and the pretensions of the Buddhist Church to temporal power were brought to an end.
But apart from this political activity, new sects which appeared in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries suited the popular needs of the time and were a sign of true religious life. Two of these sects, the Jōdo and Shinshū[1071], are Amidist--that is to say they teach that the only or at least the best way of winning salvation is to appeal to the mercy of Amida, who will give his worshippers a place in his paradise after death. The Jōdo is relatively old fashioned, and does not differ much in practice from the worship of Amida as seen in China, but the Shinshū has no exact parallel elsewhere. Though it has not introduced many innovations in theology, its abandonment of monastic discipline, its progressive and popular spirit and its conspicuous success make it a distinct and remarkable type. Its priests marry and eat meat: it has no endowments and relies on voluntary subscription, yet its temples are among the largest and most conspicuous in Japan. But the hierarchical spirit is not absent and since Shinshū priests can marry, there arose the institution of hereditary abbots who were even more like barons than the celibate prelates of the older sects.
The Nichiren sect is a purely Japanese growth, without any prototype in China, and is a protest against Amidism and an attempt to restore Shaka--the historical Buddha--to his proper position from which he has been ousted. Nichiren, the founder, is one of the most picturesque figures of Japanese history. His teaching, which was based on the Lotus Sûtra, was remarkable for its combative spirit and he himself played a considerable part in the politics of his age. His followers form one of the most influential and conspicuous sects at the present day, although not so numerous as the Amidists.
Zen is the Japanese equivalent of Ch'an or Dhyâna and is the name given to the sect founded in China by Bodhidharma. It is said to have been introduced into Japan in the seventh century, but died out. Later, under the Hōjō Regents, and especially during the Ashikaga period, it flourished exceedingly. Zen ecclesiastics managed politics like the French cardinals of the seventeenth century and profoundly influenced art and literature, since they produced a long line of painters and writers. But the most interesting feature in the history of this sect in Japan is that, though it preserves the teaching of Bodhidharma without much change, yet it underwent a curious social metamorphosis, for it became the chosen creed of the military class and contributed not a little to the Bushido or code of chivalry. It is strange that this mystical doctrine should have spread among warriors, but its insistence on simplicity of life, discipline of mind and body, and concentration of thought harmonized with their ideals.
Apart from differences of doctrine such as divide the Shinshu, Nichiren and Zen, Japanese sects show a remarkable tendency to multiply subdivisions, due chiefly to disputes as to the proper succession of abbots. Thus the Jōdo sect has four subsects, and the first and second of these are again subdivided into six and four respectively. And so with many others. Even the little Ji sect, which is credited with only 509 temples in all Japan, includes thirteen subdivisions.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1069: The accepted date is A.D. 552.]
[Footnote 1070: These names are mostly borrowed from the Chinese and represent: 1. Chü-shê; 2. Ch'êng-shih; 3. Lü; 4. San-lun; 5. Fa-hsiang; 6. Hua-yen; 7. T'ien-t'ai; 8. Chên-yen; 9. Ching-t'u; 10. Ch'an. See my remarks on these sects in the section on Chinese Buddhism. See Haas, Die Sekten dea Japanischen Buddhismus, 1905: many notices in the same author's Annalen des Jap. Bud. cited above and Ryauon Fujishima, Le Buddhisme Japonais, 1889.]
[Footnote 1071: As well as the smaller sects called Ji and Yūzūnembutsu.]:
LV. INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA
In phrases like the above title, the word influence is easy and convenient. When we hesitate to describe a belief or usage as borrowed or derived, it comes pat to say that it shows traces of external influence. But in what circumstances is such influence exercised? It is not the necessary result of contact, for in the east of Europe the Christian Church has not become mohammedanized nor in Poland and Roumania has it contracted any taint of Judaism. In these cases there is difference of race as well as of religion. In business the Turk and Jew have some common ground with the oriental Christian: in social life but little and in religion none at all. Europe has sometimes shown an interest in Asiatic religions, but on the whole an antipathy to them. Christianity originated in Palestine, which is a Mediterranean rather than an Asiatic country, and its most important forms, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, took shape on European soil. Such cults as the worship of Isis and Mithra were prevalent in Europe but they gained their first footing among Asiatic slaves and soldiers and would perhaps not have maintained themselves among European converts only. And Buddhism, though it may have attracted individual minds, has never produced any general impression west of India. Both in Spain and in south-eastern Europe Islam was the religion of invaders and made surprisingly few converts. Christian heretics, such as the Nestorians and Monophysites, who were expelled from Constantinople and had their home in Asia, left the west alone and proselytized in the east. The peculiar detestation felt by the Church for the doctrines of the Manichæans was perhaps partly due to the fact that they were in spirit Asiatic. And the converse of this antipathy is also true: the progress of Christianity in Asia has been insignificant.
But when people of the same race profess different creeds, these creeds do influence one another and tend to approximate. This is specially remarkable in India, where Islam, in theory the uncompromising opponent of image worship and polytheism, is sometimes in practice undistinguishable from the lower superstitions of Hinduism. In the middle ages Buddhism and Hinduism converged until they coincided so completely that Buddhism disappeared. In China it often needs an expert to distinguish the manifestations of Taoism and Buddhism: in Japan Buddhism and the old national religion were combined in the mixed worship known as Ryōbu Shintō. In the British Isles an impartial observer would probably notice that Anglicans and English Roman Catholics (not Irish perhaps) have more in common than they think.
There are clearly two sets of causes which may divide a race between religions: internal movements, such as the rise of Buddhism, and external impulses, such as missions or conquest. Conquest pure and simple is best illustrated by the history of Islam, also by the conversion of Mexico and South America to Roman Catholicism. But even when conversion is pacific, it will generally be found that, if it is successful on a large scale, it means the introduction of more than a creed. The religious leader in his own country can trust to his eloquence and power over his hearers. The real support of the missionary, however little he may like the idea, is usually that he represents a superior type of civilization. At one time in their career Buddhism and Christianity were the greatest agencies for spreading civilization in Asia and Europe respectively. They brought with them art and literature: they had the encouragement of the most enlightened princes: those who did not accept them in many cases remained obviously on a lower level. Much the same thing happens in Africa to-day. The natives who accept Mohammedanism or Christianity are moved, not by the arguments of the Koran or Bible, but by the idea that it is a fine thing to be like an Arab or a European. A pagan in Uganda is literally a pagan; an uninstructed rustic from a distant village.
Now if we consider the relations of India with the west, we find on neither side the conditions which usually render propaganda successful. Before the Mohammedan invasions and the Portuguese conquest of Goa, no faith can have presented itself to the Hindus with anything like the prestige which marked the advent of Buddhism in China and Japan. Alexander opened a road to India for Hellenic culture and with it came some religious ideas, but the Greeks had no missionary spirit and if there were any early Christian missions they must have been on a small scale. The same is true of the west: if Asoka's missions reached their destination, they failed to inspire any record of their doings. Still there was traffic by land and sea. The Hindus, if self-complacent, were not averse to new ideas, and before the establishment of Christianity there was not much bigotry in the west, for organized religion was unknown in Europe: practices might be forbidden as immoral or anti-social but such expressions as contrary to the Bible or Koran had no equivalent. Old worships were felt to be unsatisfying: new ones were freely adopted: mysteries were relished. There was no invasion, nothing that suggested foreign conquest or alarmed national jealousy, but the way was open to ideas, though they ran some risk of suffering transformation on their long journey.
As I have repeatedly pointed out, Hinduism and Buddhism are essentially religions of central and eastern, not of western Asia, but they came in contact with the west in several regions and an enquiry into the influence which they exercised or felt can be subdivided. There is the question whether they owe anything to Christianity in their later developments and also the question whether Christianity has borrowed anything from them[1072]. Other questions to be considered are the relations of Indian religions to Zoroastrianism in ancient and to Islam in more recent times, which, if of less general interest than problems involving Christianity, are easier to investigate and of considerable importance.
Let us begin with the influence of Christianity on Indian religion. For earlier periods the record of contact between Hindus and Christians is fragmentary, but the evidence of the last two centuries may give a significant indication as to the effect of early Christian influence. In these two centuries Christianity has been presented to the Hindus in the most favourable circumstances: it has come as the religion of the governing power and associated with European civilization: it has not, like Mohammedanism, been propagated by force or accompanied by any intolerance which could awaken repugnance, but its doctrines have been preached and expounded by private missionaries, if not always with skill and sympathy, at least with zeal and a desire to persuade. The result is that according to the census of 1911 there are now 3,876,000 Christians including Europeans, that is to say, a sect a little stronger than the Sikhs as against more than sixty-six million Mohammedans. Of these 3,876,000 many are drawn from the lowest castes or from tribes that are hardly considered as Hindus. Some religious associations, generally known as Somaj, have been founded under the influence of European philosophy as much as of Christianity: imitation of European civilization (which is quite a different thing from Christianity) is visible in the objects and methods of religious and philanthropic institutions: some curious mixed sects of small numerical strength have been formed by the fusion of Christian with Hindu or Mohammedan elements or of all three together. Yet the religious thought and customs of India in general seem hardly conscious of contact with Christianity: there is no sign that they have felt any fancy for the theology of the Athanasian Creed or the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church which might have interested speculative and ritualistic minds. Similarly, though intellectual intercourse between India and China was long and fairly intimate and though the influence of Indian thought on China was very great, yet the influence of China on Indian thought is negligible. This being so, it would be rash to believe without good evidence that, in the past, doctrines which have penetrated Indian literature during centuries and have found acceptance with untold millions owe their origin to obscure foreign colonists or missions.
Writers who wish to prove that Indian religions are indebted to Christianity often approach their task with a certain misconception. They assume that if at some remote epoch a few stray Christians reached India, they could overcome without difficulty the barriers of language and social usage and further that their doctrine would be accepted as something new and striking which would straightway influence popular superstition and philosophic thought. But Lyall gives a juster perspective in his poem about the Meditations of a Hindu Prince who, grown sceptical in the quest of truth, listens to the "word of the English," and finds it:
"Naught but the world wide story how the earth and the heavens began, How the gods were glad and angry and a deity once was man."
Many doctrines preached by Christianity such as the love of God, salvation by faith, and the incarnation, had been thought out in India before the Christian era, and when Christian missionaries preached them they probably seemed to thoughtful Hindus a new and not very adequate version of a very old tale. On the other hand the central and peculiar doctrine of dogmatic Christianity is that the world has been saved by the death of Christ. If this doctrine of the atonement or the sacrifice of a divine being had appeared in India as an importation from the west, we might justly talk of the influence of Christianity on Indian religion. But it is unknown in Hinduism and Buddhism or (since it is rash to make absolute statements about these vast and multifarious growths of speculation) it is at any rate exceedingly rare. These facts create a presumption that the resemblances between Christianity and Indian religion are due to coincidence rather than borrowing, unless borrowing can be clearly proved, and this conclusion, though it may seem tame, is surely a source of satisfaction. The divagations of human thought are manifold and its conclusions often contradictory, but if there is anything that can be called truth it is but natural that logic, intuition, philosophy, poetry, learning and saintship should in different countries sometimes attain similar results.
Christianity, like other western ideas, may have reached India both by land and by sea. After the conquests of Alexander had once opened the route to the Indus and established Hellenistic kingdoms in its vicinity, the ideas and art of Greece and Rome journeyed without difficulty to the Panjab, arriving perhaps as somewhat wayworn and cosmopolitan travellers but still clearly European. A certain amount of Christianity may have come along this track, but for any historical investigation clearly the first question is, what is the earliest period at which we have any record of its presence in India? It would appear[1073] that the first allusions to the presence of Christians in Parthia, Bactria and the border lands of India date from the third century and that the oldest account[1074] of Christian communities in southern India is the narrative of Cosmas Indicopleustes (c. 525 A.D.). These latter Christians probably came to India by sea from Persia in consequence of the persecutions which raged there in 343 and 414, exactly as at a later date the Parsees escaped the violence of the Moslims by emigrating to Gujarat and Bombay.
The story that the Apostle Thomas preached in some part of India has often been used as an argument for the early introduction and influence of Christianity, but recent authorities agree in thinking that it is legendary or at best not provable. The tale occurs first in the Acts of St. Thomas[1075], the Syriac text of which is considered to date from about 250. It relates how the apostle was sold as a slave skilled in architecture and coming to the Court of Gundaphar, king of India, undertook to build, a palace but expended the moneys given to him in charity and, when called to account, explained that he was building for the king a palace in heaven, not made with hands. This sounds more like an echo of some Buddhist Jâtaka written in praise of liberality than an embellishment of any real biography. Other legends make southern India the sphere of Thomas's activity, though he can hardly have taught in both Madras and Parthia, and a similar uncertainty is indicated by the tradition that his relics were transported to Edessa, which doubtless means that according to other accounts he died there. Tradition connects Thomas with Parthians quite as much as with Indians, and, if he really contributed to the diffusion of Christianity, it is more likely that he laboured in the western part of Parthia than on its extreme eastern frontiers. The fact that there really was an Indo-Parthian king with a name something like Gondophares no more makes the legend of St. Thomas historical than the fact that there was a Bohemian king with a name something like Wenceslas makes the Christmas carol containing that name historical.
On the other hand it is clear that during the early centuries of our era no definite frontier in the religious and intellectual sphere can be drawn between India and Persia. Christianity reached Persia early: it formed part of the composite creed of Mani, who was born about 216, and Christians were persecuted in 343. From at least the third century onwards Christian ideas may have entered India, but this does not authorize the assumption that they came with sufficient prestige and following to exercise any lively influence, or in sufficient purity to be clearly distinguished from Zoroastrianism and Manichæism.
By water there was an ancient connection between the west coast of India and both the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Traffic by the former route was specially active, from the time of Augustus to that of Nero. Pliny[1076] complains that every year India and the East took from Italy a hundred million sesterces in return for spices, perfumes and ornaments. Strabo[1077] who visited Egypt tells how 120 ships sailed from Myos Hormos (on the Red Sea) to India "although in the time of the Ptolemies scarcely any one would undertake this voyage." Muziris (Cranganore) was the chief depot of western trade and even seems to have been the seat of a Roman commercial colony. Roman coins have been found in northern and even more abundantly in southern India, and Hindu mints used Roman models. But only rarely can any one except sailors and merchants, who made a speciality of eastern trade, have undertaken the long and arduous journey. Certainly ideas travel with mysterious rapidity. The debt of Indian astronomy to Greece is undeniable[1078] and if the same cannot be affirmed of Indian mathematics and medicine yet the resemblance between Greek and Indian treatises on these sciences is remarkable. Early Tamil poems[1079] speak of Greek wines and dumb (that is unintelligible) Roman soldiers in the service of Indian kings, but do not mention philosophers, teachers or missionaries. After 70 A.D. this trade declined, perhaps because the Flavian Emperors and their successors were averse to the oriental luxuries which formed its staple, and in 215 the massacre ordered by Caracalla dealt a blow to the commercial importance of Alexandria from which it did not recover for a long time. Thus the period when intercourse between Egypt and India was most active is anterior to the period when Christianity began to spread: it is hardly likely that in 70 or 80 A.D. there were many Christians in Egypt.
As already mentioned, colonies of Christians from Persia settled on the west coast of India, where there are also Jewish colonies of considerable antiquity. The story that this Church was founded by St. Thomas and that his relics are preserved in south India has not been found in any work older than Marco Polo[1080]. Cosmas Indicopleustes states that the Bishop of Kalliana was appointed from Persia, and this explains the connection of Nestorianism with southern India, for at that time the Nestorian Catholicos of Ctesiphon was the only Christian prelate tolerated by the Persian Government.
This Church may have had a considerable number of adherents for it was not confined to Malabar, its home and centre, but had branches on the east coast near Madras. But it was isolated and became corrupt. It is said that in 660 it had no regular ministry and in the fourteenth century even baptism had fallen into disuse. Like the popular forms of Mohammedanism it adopted many Hindu doctrines and rites. This implies on the one hand a considerable exchange of ideas: on the other hand, if such reformers as Râmânuja and Râmânanda were in touch with these Nestorians we may doubt if they would have imbibed from them the teaching of the New Testament. There is evidence that Roman Catholic missions on their way to or from China landed in Malabar during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and made some converts. In 1330 the Pope sent a Bishop to Quilon with the object of bringing the Nestorians into communion with the see of Rome. But the definite establishment of Roman Catholicism dates from the Portuguese conquest of Goa in 1510, followed by the appointment of an Archbishop and the introduction of the Inquisition. Henceforth there is no difficulty in accounting for Christian influence, but it is generally admitted that the intolerance of the Portuguese made them and their religion distasteful to Hindus and Moslims alike. We hear, however, that Akbar, desiring to hear Christian doctrines represented in a disputation held at his Court, sent for Christian priests from Goa, and his Minister Abul Fazl is quoted as having written poetry in which mosques, churches and temples are classed together as places where people seek for God[1081].
Such being the opportunities and approximate dates for Christian influence in India, we may now examine the features in Hinduism which have been attributed to it. They may be classified under three principal heads, (i) The monotheistic Sivaism of the south. (ii) Various doctrines of Vaishnavism such as bhakti, grace, the love and fatherhood of God, the Word, and incarnation. (iii) Particular ceremonies or traditions such as the sacred meal known as Prasâda and the stories of Krishna's infancy.
In southern India we have a seaboard in communication with Egypt, Arabia and the Persian Gulf. The reality of intercourse with the west is attested by Roman, Jewish, Nestorian and Mohammedan settlements, but on the other hand the Brahmans of Malabar are remarkable even according to Hindu standards for their strictness and aloofness. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the want of chronology in south Indian literature makes it difficult to sketch with any precision even the outlines of its religious history, but it is probable that Aryan religion came first in the form of Buddhism and Jainism and that Sivaism made its appearance only when the ground had been prepared by them. They were less exposed than the Buddhism of the north to the influences which created the Mahâyâna, but they no doubt mingled with the indigenous beliefs of the Dravidians. There is no record of what these may have been before contact with Hindu civilization; in historical times they comprise the propitiation of spirits, mostly malignant and hence often called devils, but also a strong tendency to monotheism and ethical poetry of a high moral standard. These latter characteristics are noticeable in most, if not all, Dravidian races, even those which are in the lower stages of civilization[1082]. This temperament, educated by Buddhism and finally selecting Sivaism, might spontaneously produce such poems as the Tiruvâçagam. Such ideas as God's love for human souls and the soul's struggle to be worthy of that love are found in other Indian religions besides Tamil Sivaism and in their earlier forms cannot be ascribed to Christian influence, but it must be admitted that the poems of the Sittars show an extraordinary approximation to the language of devotional literature in Europe. If, as Caldwell thinks, these compositions are as recent as the sixteenth or seventeenth century, there is no chronological difficulty in supposing their contents to be inspired by Christian ideas. But the question rather is, would Portuguese Catholicism or corrupt Nestorianism have inspired poems denouncing idolatry and inculcating the purest theism? Scepticism on this point is permissible. I am inclined to think that the influence of Christianity as well as the much greater influence of Mohammedanism was mostly indirect. They imported little in the way of custom and dogma but they strengthened the idea which naturally accompanies sectarianism, namely, that it is reasonable and proper for a religion to inculcate the worship of one all-sufficient power. But that this idea can flourish in surroundings repugnant to both Christianity and Islam is shown by the sect of Lingâyats.
The resemblances to Christianity in Vishnuism are on a larger scale than the corresponding phenomena in Sivaism. In most parts of India, from Assam to Madras, the worship of Vishnu and his incarnations has assumed the form of a monotheism which, if frequently turning into pantheism, still persistently inculcates loving devotion to a deity who is himself moved by love for mankind. The corresponding phase of Sivaism is restricted to certain periods and districts of southern India. The doctrine of bhakti, or devotional faith, is common to Vishnuites and Sivaites, but is more prominent among the former. It has often been conjectured to be due to Christian influence but the conjecture is, I think, wrong, for the doctrine is probably pre-Christian. Pâṇini[1083] appears to allude to it, and the idea of loving devotion to God is fully developed in the Śvetâśvatara Upanishad and the Bhagavad-gîtâ, works of doubtful date it is true, but in my opinion anterior to the Christian era and on any hypothesis not much posterior to it. Some time must have elapsed after the death of Christ before Christianity could present itself in India as an influential doctrine. Also bhakti does not make its first appearance as something new and full grown. The seed, the young plant and the flower can all be found on Indian soil. So, too, the idea that God became man for the sake of mankind is a gradual Indian growth. In the Veda Vishnu takes three steps for the good of men. It is probable that his avatâras were recognized some centuries before Christ and, if this is regarded as not demonstrable, it cannot be denied that the analogous conception of Buddhas who visit the world to save and instruct mankind is pre-Christian[1084]. Similarly though passages may be found in the writings of Kabir and others in which the doctrine of Śabda or the Word is stated in language recalling the fourth Gospel, and though in this case the hypothesis of imitation offers no chronological difficulties, yet it is unnecessary. For Śabda, in the sense of the Veda conceived as an eternal self-existent sound, is an old Indian notion and when stated in these terms does not appear very Christian. It is found in Zoroastrianism, where Manthra Spenta the holy word is said to be the very soul of God[1085], and it is perhaps connected with the still more primitive notion that words and names have a mysterious potency and are in themselves spells. But even if the idea of Śabda were derived from the idea of Logos it need not be an instance of specifically Christian influence, for this Logos idea was only utilized by Christianity and was part of the common stock of religious thought prevalent about the time of Christ in Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor, and it is even possible that its earlier forms may owe something to India. And were it proved that the teaching of Kabir, which clearly owes much to Islam, also owes much to Christianity, the fact would not be very important, for the followers of Kabir form a small and eccentric though interesting sect, in no way typical of Hinduism as a whole.
The form of Vishnuism known as Pancarâtra appears to have had its origin, or at least to have flourished very early, in Kashmir and the extreme north-west, and perhaps a direct connection may be traced between central Asia and some aspects of the worship of Krishna at Muttra. The passage of Greek and Persian influence through the frontier districts is attested by statuary and coins, but no such memorials of Christianity have been discovered. But the leaders of the Vishnuite movement in the twelfth and subsequent centuries were mostly Brahmans of southern extraction who migrated to Hindustan. Stress is sometimes laid on the fact that they lived in the neighbourhood of ancient Nestorian churches and even Garbe thinks that Râmânuja, who studied for some time at Conjevaram, was in touch with the Christians of Mailapur near Madras. I find it hard to believe that such contact can have had much result. For Râmânuja was a Brahman of the straitest sect who probably thought it contamination to be within speaking distance of a Christian[1086]. He was undoubtedly a remarkable scholar and knew by heart all the principal Hindu scriptures, including those that teach bhakti. Why then suppose that he took his ideas not from works like the Bhagavad-gîtâ on which he wrote a commentary or from the Pancarâtra which he eulogizes, but from persons whom he must have regarded as obscure heretics? And lastly is there any proof that such ideas as the love of God and salvation by faith flourished among the Christians of Mailapur? In remote branches of the oriental Church Christianity is generally reduced to legends and superstitions, and this Church was so corrupt that it had even lost the rite of baptism and is said to have held that the third person of the Trinity was the Madonna[1087] and not the Holy Ghost. Surely this doctrine is an extraordinary heresy in Christianity and far from having inspired Hindu theories as to the position of Vishnu's spouse is borrowed from those theories or from some of the innumerable Indian doctrines about the Śakti.
It is clear that the Advaita philosophy of Śankara was influential in India from the ninth century to the twelfth and then lost some of its prestige owing to the rise of a more personal theism. It does not seem to me that any introduction or reinforcement of Christianity, to which this theistic movement might be attributed, can be proved to have taken place about 1100, and it is not always safe to seek for a political or social explanation of such movements. But if we must have an external explanation, the obvious one is the progress of Mohammedanism. One may even suggest a parallel between the epochs of Śankara and of Râmânuja. The former, though the avowed enemy of Buddhism, introduced into Hinduism the doctrine of Mâyâ described by Indian critics as crypto-Buddhism. Râmânuja probably did not come into direct contact with Islam[1088], which was the chief enemy of Hinduism in his time, but his theism (which, however, was semi-pantheistic) may have been similarly due to the impression produced by that enemy on Indian thought[1089].
It is easy to see superficial parallels between Hindu and Christian ceremonies, but on examination they are generally not found to prove that there has been direct borrowing from Christianity. For instance, the superior castes are commonly styled twice born in virtue of certain initiatory ceremonies performed on them in youth, and it is natural to compare this second birth with baptismal regeneration. But, though there is here a real similarity of ideas, it would be hard to deny that these ideas as well as the practices which express them have arisen independently[1090]. And though a practice of sprinkling the forehead with water similar to baptism is in use among Hindus, it is only a variety of the world-wide ceremony of purification with sacred water. Several authors have seen a resemblance between the communion and a sacred meal often eaten in Hindu temples and called prasâd (favour) or mahâprasâd. The usual forms of this observance do not resemble the Mass in externals (as do certain ceremonies in Lamaism) and the analogy, if any, resides in the eating of a common religious meal. Such a meal in Indian temples has its origin in the necessity and advantage of disposing of sacrificial food. It cannot be maintained that the deities eat the substance of it and, if it is not consumed by fire, the obvious method of disposal is for mankind to eat it. The practice is probably world-wide and the consumers may be either the priests or the worshippers. Both varieties of the rite are found in India. In the ancient Soma sacrifices the officiants drank the residue of the sacred drink: in modern temples, where ample meals are set before the god more than once a day, it is the custom, perhaps because it is more advantageous, to sell them to the devout. From this point of view the prasâd is by no means the equivalent of the Lord's Supper, but rather of the things offered to idols which many early Christians scrupled to eat. It has, however, another and special significance due to the regulations imposed by caste. As a rule a Hindu of respectable social status cannot eat with his inferiors without incurring defilement. But in many temples members of all castes can eat the prasâd together as a sign that before the deity all his worshippers are equal. From this point of view the prasâd is really analogous to the communion inasmuch as it is the sign of religious community, but it is clearly distinct in origin and though the sacred food may be eaten with great reverence, we are not told that it is associated with the ideas of commemoration, sacrifice or transubstantiation which cling to the Christian sacrament[1091].
The most curious coincidences between Indian and Christian legend are afforded by the stories and representations of the birth and infancy of Krishna. These have been elaborately discussed by Weber in a well-known monograph[1092]. Krishna is represented with his mother, much as the infant Christ with the Madonna; he is born in a stable[1093], and other well-known incidents such as the appearance of a star are reproduced. Two things strike us in these resemblances. Firstly, they are not found in the usual literary version of the Indian legend[1094], and it is therefore probable that they represent an independent and borrowed story: secondly, they are almost entirely concerned with the mythological aspects of Christianity. Many Christians would admit that the adoration of the Virgin and Child is unscriptural and borrowed from the worship of pagan goddesses who were represented as holding their divine offspring in their arms. If this is admitted, it is possible that Devakî and her son may be a replica not of the Madonna but of a pagan prototype. But there is no difficulty in admitting that Christian legends and Christian art may have entered northern India from Bactria and Persia, and have found a home in Muttra. Only it does not follow from this that any penetrating influence transformed Hindu thought and is responsible for Krishna's divinity, for the idea of bhakti, or for the theology of the Bhagavad-gîtâ. The borrowed features in the Krishna story are superficial and also late. They do not occur in the Mahâbhârata and the earliest authority cited by Weber is Hemâdri, a writer of the thirteenth century. Allowing that what he describes may have existed several centuries before his own date, we have still no ground for tracing the main ideas of Vaishnavism to Christianity and the later vagaries of Krishnaism are precisely the aspects of Indian religion which most outrage Christian sentiment.
One edition of the Bhavishya Purana contains a summary of the book of Genesis from Adam to Abraham[1095]. Though it is a late interpolation, it shows conclusively that the editors of Puranas had no objection to borrowing from Christian sources and it maybe that some incidents in the life of Krishna as related by the Vishnu, Bhâgavata and other Puranas are borrowed from the Gospels, such as Kamsa's orders to massacre all male infants when Krishna is born, the journey of Nanda, Krishna's foster-father, to Mathurâ in order to pay taxes and the presentation of a pot of ointment to Krishna by a hunchback woman whom he miraculously makes straight. In estimating the importance of such coincidences we must remember that they are merely casual details in a long story of adventures which, in their general outline, bear no relation to the life of Christ. The most striking of these is the "massacre of the Innocents." The Harivaṃsa, which is not later than the fifth century A.D., relates that Kamsa killed all the other children of Devakî, though it does not mention a general massacre, and Pâtanjali (c. 150 B.C.) knew the legend of the hostility between Krishna and Kamsa and the latter's death[1096]. So if anything has been borrowed from the Gospel account it is only the general slaughter of children. The mention of a pot of ointment strikes Europeans because such an object is not familiar to us, but it was an ordinary form of luxury in India and Judæa alike, and the fact that a woman honoured both Krishna and Christ in the same way but in totally different circumstances is hardly more than a chance coincidence. The fact that both Nanda and Joseph leave their homes in order to pay their taxes is certainly curious and I will leave the reader to form his own opinion about it. The instance of the Bhavishya Purana shows that Hindus had no scruples about borrowing from the Bible and in some Indian dialects the name Krishna appears as Krishto or Kushto. On the other hand, whatever borrowing there may have been is concerned exclusively with trivial details: the principal episodes of the Krishna legend were known before the Christian era.
This is perhaps the place to examine a curious episode of the Mahâbhârata which narrates the visit of certain sages to a region called Śvetadvîpa, the white island or continent, identified by some with Alexandria or a Christian settlement in central Asia. The episode occurs in the Śantiparvan[1097] of the Mahâbhârata and is introduced by the story of a royal sacrifice, at which most of the gods appeared in visible shape but Hari (Vishnu or Krishna) took his offerings unseen. The king and his priests were angry, but three sages called Ekata, Dvita and Trita, who are described as the miraculous offspring of Brahmâ, interposed explaining that none of those present were worthy to see Hari. They related how they had once desired to behold him in his own form and after protracted austerities repaired under divine guidance to an island called Śvetadvîpa on the northern shores of the Sea of Milk[1098]. It was inhabited by beings white and shining like the moon who followed the rules of the Pancarâtra, took no food and were continually engaged in silent prayer. So great was the effulgence that at first the visitors were blinded. It was only after another century of penance that they began to have hopes of beholding the deity. Then there suddenly arose a great light. The inhabitants of the island ran towards it with joined hands and, as if they were making an offering, cried, "Victory to thee, O thou of the lotus eyes, reverence to thee, producer of all things: reverence to thee, Hṛishikeśa, great Purusha, the first-born." The three sages saw nothing but were conscious that a wind laden with perfumes blew past them. They were convinced, however, that the deity had appeared to his worshippers. A voice from heaven told them that this was so and that no one without faith (abhakta) could see Nârâyaṇa.
A subsequent section of the same book tells us that Nârada visited Śvetadvîpa and received from Nârâyaṇa the Pancarâtra, which is thus definitely associated with the locality.
Some writers have seen in this legend a poetical account of contact with Christianity, but wrongly, as I think. We have here no mythicized version of a real journey but a voyage of the imagination. The sea of milk, the white land and its white shining inhabitants are an attempt to express the pure radiance proper to the courts of God, much as the Book of Revelation tells of a sea of glass, elders in white raiment and a deity whose head and hair were white like wool and snow. Nor need we suppose, as some have done, that the worship of the white sages is an attempt to describe the Mass. The story does not say that whenever the White Islanders held a religious service the deity appeared, but that on a particular occasion when the deity appeared they ran to meet him and saluted him with a hymn. The idea that prayer and meditation are the sacrifice to be offered by perfected saints is thoroughly Indian and ancient. The account testifies to the non-Brahmanic character of this worship of Vishnu, which was patronized by the Brahmans though not originated by them, but there is nothing exotic in the hymn to Nârâyaṇa and the epithet first-born (pûrvaja), in which some have detected a Christian flavour, is as old as the Rig Veda. The reason for laying the scene of the story in the north (if indeed the points of the compass have any place in this mythical geography) is no doubt the early connection of the Pancarâtra with Kashmir and north-western India[1099]. The facts that some Puranas people the regions near Śvetadvîpa with Iranian sun-worshippers[1100] and that some details of the Pancarâtra (though not the system as a whole) show a resemblance to Zoroastrianism suggest interesting hypotheses as to origin of this form of Vishnuism, but more facts are needed to confirm them. Chronology gives us little help, for though the Mahâbhârata was substantially complete in the fourth century, it cannot be denied that additions may have been made to it later and that the story of Śvetadvîpa may be one of them. There were Nestorian Bishops at Merv and Herat in the fifth century, but there appears to be no evidence that Christianity reached Transoxiana before the fall of the Sassanids in the first half of the seventh century.
Thus there is little reason to regard Christianity as an important factor in the evolution of Hinduism, because (a) there is no evidence that it appeared in an influential form before the sixteenth century and (b) there is strong evidence that most of the doctrines and practices resembling Christianity have an Indian origin. On the other hand abundant instances show that the Hindus had no objection to borrowing from a foreign religion anything great or small which took their fancy. But the interesting point is that the principal Christian doctrines were either indigenous in India--such as bhakti and avatâras--or repugnant to the vast majority of Hindus, such as the crucifixion and atonement. I do not think that Nestorianism had any appreciable effect on the history of religious thought in southern India. Hellenic and Zoroastrian ideas undoubtedly entered north-western India, but, though Christian ideas may have come with them, few of the instances cited seem even probable except some details in the life of Krishna which affect neither the legend as a whole nor the doctrines associated with it. Some later sects, such as the Kabirpanthis, show remarkable resemblances to Christianity, but then the teaching of Kabir was admittedly a blend of Hinduism and Islam, and since Islam accepted many Christian doctrines, it remains to be proved that any further explanation is needed. Barth observed that criticism is generally on the look out for the least trace of Christian influence on Hinduism but does not pay sufficient attention to the extent of Moslim influence. Every student of Indian religion should bear in mind this dictum of the great French savant. After the sixteenth century there is no difficulty in supposing direct contact with Roman Catholicism. Tukaram, the Maratha poet who lived comparatively near to Goa, may have imitated the diction of the Gospels.
Some authors[1101] are disposed to see Christian influence in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, particularly in the Amidist sects. I have touched on this subject in several places but it may be well to summarize my conclusions here.
The chief Amidist doctrines are clearly defined in the Sukhâ vatî-vyûha which was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese in the latter half of the second century A.D. It must therefore have existed in Sanskrit at least in the first century of our era, at which period dogmatic Christianity could hardly have penetrated to India or any part of Central Asia where a Sanskrit treatise was likely to be written. Its doctrines must therefore be independent of Christianity and indeed their resemblance to Christianity is often exaggerated, for though salvation by faith in Amida is remarkably like justification by faith, yet Amida is not a Saviour who died for the world and faith in him is coupled with the use of certain invocations. The whole theory has close parallels in Zoroastrianism and is also a natural development of ideas already existing in India.
Nor can I think that the common use of rites on behalf of the dead in Buddhist China is traceable to Christianity. In this case too the parallel is superficial, for the rites are in most cases not prayers for the dead: the officiants recite formulae by which they acquire merit and they then formally transfer this merit to the dead. Seeing how great was the importance assigned to the cult of the dead in China, it is not necessary to seek for explanations why a religion trying to win its way in those countries invented ceremonies to satisfy the popular craving, and Buddhism had no need to imitate Christianity, for from an early period it had countenanced offerings intended to comfort and help the departed.
Under the T'ang dynasty Manichæism, Nestorianism and new streams of Buddhism all entered China. These religions had some similarity to one another, their clergy may have co-operated and Manichæism certainly adopted Buddhist ideas. There is no reason why Buddhism should not have adopted Nestorian ideas and, in so far as the Nestorians familiarized China with the idea of salvation by faith in a divine personage, they may have helped the spread of Amidism. But the evidence that we possess seems to show not that the Nestorians introduced the story of Christ's life and sacrifice into Buddhism but that they suppressed the idea of atonement by his death, possibly under Buddhist influence.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1072: The most learned and lucid discussion of these questions, which includes an account of earlier literature on the subject, is to be found in Garbe's Indien und das Christentum, 1914. But I am not able to accept all his conclusions. The work, to which I am much indebted, is cited below as Garbe. See also Carpenter, Theism in Medieval India, 1921, pp. 521-524.]
[Footnote 1073: See Garbe and Harnack, Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums, ii. Chrysostom (Hom. in Joh. 2. 2) writing at the end of the fourth century speaks of Syrians, Egyptians, Persians and ten thousand other nations learning Christianity from translations into their languages, but one cannot expect geographical accuracy in so rhetorical a passage.]
[Footnote 1074: Eusebius (Ecc. Hist. v. 10), supported by notices in Jerome and others, states that Pantænus went from Alexandria to preach in India and found there Christians using the Gospel according to Matthew written in Hebrew characters. It had been left there by the Apostle Bartholomew. But many scholars are of opinion that by India in this passage is meant southern Arabia. In these early notices India is used vaguely for Eastern Parthia, Southern Arabia and even Ethiopia. It requires considerable evidence to make it probable that at the time of Pantænus (second century A.D.) any one in India used the Gospel in a Semitic language.]
[Footnote 1075: See, for the Thomas legend, Garbe, Vincent Smith, Early History of India, 3rd ed. pp. 231 ff., and Philipps in I.A.. 1903, pp. 1-15 and 145-160.]
[Footnote 1076: Nat. Hist. xii. 18 (41).]
[Footnote 1077: II. iv. 12. Strabo died soon after 21 A.D.]
[Footnote 1078: It is seen even in borrowed words, e.g. hora = ὢρα: Jyau = Ζεὺς: Heli = ἢλιος.]
[Footnote 1079: See Kanakasabhai's book, The Tamils 1800 years ago.]
[Footnote 1080: Harnack (Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums, II. 126) says "Dass die Thomas-Christen welche man im 16 Jahrhundert in Indien wieder entdeckte bis ins 3 Jahrhundert hinaufgehen lässt sich nicht erweisen."]
[Footnote 1081: For Akbar and Christianity, see Cathay and the Way Thither (Hakluyt Society), vol. IV. 172-3.]
[Footnote 1082: See Gover, Folk Songs of Southern India, 1871.]
[Footnote 1083: iv. 3. 95, 98.]
[Footnote 1084: Cf. the Pali verses in the Therîgâthâ, 157: "Hail to thee, Buddha, who savest me and many others from suffering."]
[Footnote 1085: See Yasht, 13. 81 and Vendidad, 19. 14.]
[Footnote 1086: The liberal ideas as to caste held by some Vishnuites are due to Râmânand (c. 1400) who was excommunicated by his coreligionists. I find it hard to agree with Garbe that Râmânuja admitted the theoretical equality of all castes. He says himself (Srî-Bhâshya, II. 3. 46, 47) that souls are of the same nature in so far as they are all parts of Brahman (a proposition which follows from his fundamental principles and is not at all due to Christian influence), but that some men are entitled to read the Veda while others are debarred from the privilege. All fire, he adds, is of the same nature, but fire taken from the house of a Brahman is pure, whereas fire taken from a cremation ground is impure. Even so the soul is defiled by being associated with a low-caste body.]
[Footnote 1087: See Grieson and Garbe. But I have not found a quotation from any original authority. Mohammed, however, had the same notion of the Trinity.]
[Footnote 1088: But the Mappilahs or Moplahs appear to have settled on the Malabar coast about 900 A.D.]
[Footnote 1089: Similarly the neo-Confucianism of the Sung dynasty was influenced by Mahâyânist Buddhism. Chu-hsi and his disciples condemned Buddhism, but the new problems and new solutions which they brought forward would not have been heard of but for Buddhism.]
[Footnote 1090: The idea of the second birth is found in the Majjhima Nikâya, where in Sutta 86 the converted brigand Angulimala speaks of his regenerate life as Yato aham ariyâya jâtiyâ jâto, "Since I was born by this noble (or holy) birth." Brahmanic parallels are numerous, e.g. Manu, 2. 146.]
[Footnote 1091: It is said, however, that the celebration of the Prasâd by the Kabirpanthis bears an extraordinary resemblance to the Holy Communion of Christians. This may be so, but, as already mentioned, this late and admittedly composite sect is not typical of Hinduism as a whole.]
[Footnote 1092: Krishṇajanmâshṭamî, _Memoirs of Academy of Berlin_, 1867.]
[Footnote 1093: In spite of making enquiry I have never seen or heard of these representations of a stable myself. As Senart points out (Légende, p. 336) all the personages who play a part in Krishna's early life are shown in these tableaux in one group, but this does not imply that shepherds and their flocks are supposed to be present at his birth.]
[Footnote 1094: Though the ordinary legend does not say that Krishna was born in a stable yet it does associate him with cattle.]
[Footnote 1095: Pargiter, Dynasties of the Kali age, p. xviii.]
[Footnote 1096: Commentary on Pânini, 2. 3. 36, 3. 1. 36 and 3. 2. 111. It seems probable that Pâtanjali knew the story of Krishna and Kamsa substantially as it is recounted in the Harivaṃsa.]
[Footnote 1097: Section 337. A journey to Śvetadvîpa is also related in the Kathâsarit sâgara, LIV.]
[Footnote 1098: The most accessible statement of the geographical fancies here referred to is in Vishnu Purâna, Book II, chap. IV. The Sea of Milk is the sixth of the seven concentric seas which surround Jambudvîpa and Mt. Meru. It divides the sixth of the concentric continents or Śâkadvîpa from the seventh or Pushkara-dvîpa. The inhabitants of Śâkadvîpa worship Vishnu as the Sun and have this much reality that at any rate, according to the Vishnu and Bhavishya Purânas, they are clearly Iranian Sun-worshippers whose priests are called Magas or Mṛigas. Pushkara-dvîpa is a terrestrial paradise: the inhabitants live a thousand years, are of the same nature as the gods and free from sorrow and sin. "The three Vedas, the Purânas, Ethics and Polity are unknown" among them and "there are no distinctions of caste or order: there are no fixed institutes." The turn of fancy which located this non-Brahmanic Utopia in the north seems akin to that which led the Greeks to talk of Hyperboreans. Fairly early in the history of India it must have been discovered that the western, southern, and eastern coasts were washed by the sea so that the earthly paradise was naturally placed in the north. Thus we hear of an abode of the blessed called the country of the holy Uttara Kurus or northern Kurus. Here nothing can be perceived with human senses (Mahâbh. Sabhâ, 1045), and it is mentioned in the same breath as Heaven and the city of Indra (ib. Anusâs. 2841).
It is not quite clear (neither is it of much moment), whether the Mahâbhârata intends by Śvetadvîpa one of these concentric world divisions or a separate island. The Kûrma and Padma Purânas also mention it as the shining abode of Vishnu and his saintly servants.]
[Footnote 1099: Garbe thinks that the Sea of Milk is Lake Balkash. For the Pancarâtra see book v. iii. 3.]
[Footnote 1100: See note 2 on last page.]
[Footnote 1101: E.g. several works of Lloyd and Saeki, _The Nestorian Monument in China_.]