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- § 1. In the summer of 1913 I happened to attend a Buddhist I service held on a Sunday evening in a small room in Buckingham Street, London. A Ceylon friend of mine read. a portion of the Buddhist Scriptures, and there was, in lieu of prayer, recitation by some present of verses from the devotional literature of Buddhism.
Mrs. Rhys Davids was to have preached the sermon. As she was unable to come, her sermon was read by her distinguished husband, the well-known scholar, Professor Rhys-Davids. The severe simplicity of the service, and the-abstruse grandeur of the discourse, seemed to me to symbolize, and fit in well with, the chilling disconsolateness of all I had known in Ceylon of the psychic solitudes of the religion of the Buddha. That the service made me recall, in contrast, the warmth of worship which I had for years associated with certain annual demonstrations in the Temple at Maligakande in Colombo, and likewise did I remember, and again in contrast, the pomp and picturesqueness of the perahera festival at Kandy in connection with the yearly exposition of the sacred Tooth Relic at the Dalada Maligawa. The London service in the small room in Buckingham Street, not far from the rush and struggle and turmoil of life near Trafalgar Square, is typical of philosophic Buddhism, Buddhism strictly so called, the lofty lonelinesses of which upon its withering heights, the average man, the average woman, in the East or in the West, cannot easily reach. For such ordinary men and ordinary women is the blending with the Buddhism of the Buddha of popular beliefs, theistic and animistic, and for such are pnasalas and temples, shrines, and from such are votive flowers and free-will offerings, prayers and praise. This blending may have existed from the very earliest times. The origins of Buddhism belong to a period when such parallel lines of religion formed a feature in Hinduism. There was Brahmanism, with its philosophy, and there was too the religion for the masses, the unphilosophic many. Buddhism grew out of Brahmanism, out of Brahmanism which had travelled far from Vedic ideals, and left very -much in the rear the Vedic gods The old religion was reformed and revolutionized by the new. Buddhism is, in a sense, Reformed Brahmanism It was the resultant of a revolution in thought accomplished in the midst of conflicting factors which formed the environment in which the Reformation was born. There were in the Gangetic Valley, when Buddhism arose, Animism and Polytheism side by side with, Mononism and dualism, and there was rigid orthodoxy striving for life amidst demonolatry and idolatry, and
James Pratts India and Its Faiths, p. 404.
As to the few gods in Buddhas time, see T. W. Rhys-Davids Early Buddhisin, p. 15. T. W. Rhys-Davids Early Buddhisin, pp; 22-6
there were too the materialistic systems of and there were thought of rank rationalism and atheistic free-thinking.
2. The birth of the founder of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha, in the sixth century before Christ at Kapilavastu in the chief town of the Sakya tribe of Aryans, about a hundred miles from the holy city of Benares,put him in the midst of Brahmanical surroundings. His father was a wealthy land-owner and was able to give his son Gautama a good education. The leanings of Gautama, there is abundant traditional proof, were towards the ascetic life.
It is amongst the very earliest of facts alleged about Gautama that he, on a certain day, deliberately gave up father and mother, wife and child, and all- earthly ties, left his home, to become a wanderer. This was the Great
Renunciation, the historicity of which, however, deficiently attested, need not be a matter of doubt. At any rate, if a legend, it has the sanction of antiquity co-eval with the beginnings of Buddhism. Fact and legend are beautifully interwoven in Edwin Arnolds great poem . Gautama became a Wanderer , a mendicant ascetic. In Rajagriha, in the eastern valley of the Ganges, were several Hindu hermits. Gautama became the disciple of first one of theme Alara, and then of another, Udraka. He learnt under them the then current tenets of philosophic,:Hinduism. The Brahmanic upbringing of the Buddha is a fact not to be overlooked in the study of Buddhist origins and in the assessment of the extent of Brahmanic influence in the formulation of Buddhist fundamentals. The very first point made clear
by the study of the original documents is that the Buddha never seriously thought of founding a religious system
in direct opposition to Brahmanism. He himself was a Hindu of the Hindus, and he remained a Hindu to the end.
It is certain that long before Gautamas time, the Brahmans had paid great attention to the deepest questions of
ontology and ethics, and were divided into different schools, in one or other of which most of Gautamas metaphysical
tenets had previously been taught. Such originality as can be claimed for him arises more from the importance which
he attached to moral training above ritual or metaphysics or penance ; and to the systematized form in which he
presented ideas derived from those of various previous thinkers. Like all other leaders of thought he was the creature
of his time and it must not be supposed that his philosophy was entirely of his own creation .
> 4 Monier Williams, Buddhism, p. 56. Pals Religion of the Hindus Buddhist Period, gives a garbled summary
of T. W. Rhys-Davidss Buddhism, pp. 22-6.
5That he was a king is now considered legendary.
6Some Rishis so named are the authors of some of the hymns of the Rig Veda.
7The Light of Asia, Book- iv.
8The class of wanderers is briefly described by Rhys-Davids, Early Buddhism, p. 4.
9Monier-Williams, J.R.A.S. (N.S.), vol. xviii, pp. 129-30.
10 J. M. Robertson (Pagan Christs, part ii, Ch. ii, 13) thinks that Buddha is unhistorical and is the outcome
of the mythopoeic action of the religious mind.
11 T. H. Rhys-Davids, Buddhisim, p.
Gautama, a modern writer, observes, I specialize on some existing beliefs, modilied many, rejected others, and
substituted new ones ; but his greatest contribution to the new religion was himself-his tender love, his sublime
faith, his purity, enlightenment and peace .
§ 3. The personality of no religious teacher before Christ, not excluding I the man Moses who was very meek
, has so permeated his teaching and affected the faith of his followers as that of Gautama Buddha. This is all
the more marvellous when we remember that he built on old foundations utilizing already existing material... The
bulk of his doctrine, as we shall presently see, is traceable to Brahmanic sources. It is still more remarkable
that preaching, such as his and that of his early disciples, purely ethical and metaphysical, with all the wonted
accessories of worship and religion practically eliminated, god, priest, sacrifice, ceremony fell on listening
ears and there were added. to the Orde; daily many that felt convinced. It is obvious that in the Brahmanic environment
of of the age of the buddha there was receptive preparedness. This consisted, among other favourable factors, of
resentment in the hearts of the laity against the arrogance and exclusiveness of the Brahmans as teachers and as
priests, and likewise of impatience to break down the slowly strengthening barriers of caste . Gautama was not
a Brahman, and, being a Hindu layman, he was able successfully to appeal to the laity of his time. W. L,. Hares
Buddhist Religion, p. 10, Numbers xii. 3.
Caste, as now known in India, was not known then.
Early Buddhism, p. 10.
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