Buddhism
Main
religion and philosophy that developed from the teachings of the Buddha
(Sanskrit: “awakened one”), a teacher who lived in northern India
between the mid-6th and the mid-4th centuries bce (before the Common Era
or Christian era). Spreading from India to Central and Southeast Asia,
China, Korea, and Japan, Buddhism has played a central role in the
spiritual, cultural, and social life of Asia, and during the 20th
century it spread to the West.
Ancient Buddhist scripture and doctrine developed in several closely
related literary languages of ancient India, especially in Pali and
Sanskrit. In this article Pali and Sanskrit words that have gained
currency in English are treated as English words and are rendered in the
form in which they appear in English-language dictionaries. Exceptions
occur in special circumstances—as, for example, in the case of the
Sanskrit term dharma (Pali: dhamma), which has meanings that are not
usually associated with the English “dharma.” Pali forms are given in
the sections on the core teachings of early Buddhism that are
reconstructed primarily from Pali texts and in sections that deal with
Buddhist traditions in which the primary sacred language is Pali.
Sanskrit forms are given in the sections that deal with Buddhist
traditions whose primary sacred language is Sanskrit and in other
sections that deal with traditions whose primary sacred texts were
translated from Sanskrit into a Central or East Asian language such as
Tibetan or Chinese.
The foundations of Buddhism » The cultural context
Buddhism arose in northeastern India sometime between the late 6th
century and the early 4th century bce, a period of great social change
and intense religious activity. There is disagreement among scholars
about the dates of the Buddha’s birth and death. Many modern scholars
believe that the historical Buddha lived from about 563 to about 483
bce. Many others believe that he lived about 100 years later (from about
448 to 368 bce). At this time in India, there was much discontent with
Brahmanic (Hindu high-caste) sacrifice and ritual. In northwestern India
there were ascetics who tried to create a more personal and spiritual
religious experience than that found in the Vedas (Hindu sacred
scriptures). In the literature that grew out of this movement, the
Upanishads, a new emphasis on renunciation and transcendental knowledge
can be found. Northeastern India, which was less influenced by the
Aryans who had developed the main tenets and practices of the Vedic
Hindu faith, became the breeding ground of many new sects. Society in
this area was troubled by the breakdown of tribal unity and the
expansion of several petty kingdoms. Religiously, this was a time of
doubt, turmoil, and experimentation.
A proto-Samkhya group (i.e., one based on the Samkhya school of
Hinduism founded by Kapila) was already well established in the area.
New sects abounded, including various skeptics (e.g., Sanjaya
Belatthiputta), atomists (e.g., Pakudha Kaccayana), materialists (e.g.,
Ajita Kesakambali), and antinomians (i.e., those against rules or
laws—e.g., Purana Kassapa). The most important sects to arise at the
time of the Buddha, however, were the Ajivikas (Ajivakas), who
emphasized the rule of fate (niyati), and the Jains, who stressed the
need to free the soul from matter. Although the Jains, like the
Buddhists, have often been regarded as atheists, their beliefs are
actually more complicated. Unlike early Buddhists, both the Ajivikas and
the Jains believed in the permanence of the elements that constitute the
universe, as well as in the existence of the soul.
Despite the bewildering variety of religious communities, many shared
the same vocabulary—nirvana (transcendent freedom), atman (“self” or
“soul”), yoga (“union”), karma (“causality”), Tathagata (“one who has
come” or “one who has thus gone”), buddha (“enlightened one”), samsara
(“eternal recurrence” or “becoming”), and dhamma (“rule” or “law”)—and
most involved the practice of yoga. According to tradition, the Buddha
himself was a yogi—that is, a miracle-working ascetic.
Buddhism, like many of the sects that developed in northeastern India
at the time, was constituted by the presence of a charismatic teacher,
by the teachings this leader promulgated, and by a community of
adherents that was often made up of renunciant members and lay
supporters. In the case of Buddhism, this pattern is reflected in the
Triratna—i.e., the “Three Jewels” of Buddha (the teacher), dharma (the
teaching), and sangha (the community).
In the centuries following the founder’s death, Buddhism developed in
two directions represented by two different groups. One was called the
Hinayana (Sanskrit: “Lesser Vehicle”), a term given to it by its
Buddhist opponents. This more conservative group, which included what is
now called the Theravada (Pali: “Way of the Elders”) community, compiled
versions of the Buddha’s teachings that had been preserved in
collections called the Sutta Pitaka and the Vinaya Pitaka and retained
them as normative. The other major group, which calls itself the
Mahayana (Sanskrit: “Greater Vehicle”), recognized the authority of
other teachings that, from the group’s point of view, made salvation
available to a greater number of people. These supposedly more advanced
teachings were expressed in sutras that the Buddha purportedly made
available only to his more advanced disciples.
As Buddhism spread, it encountered new currents of thought and
religion. In some Mahayana communities, for example, the strict law of
karma (the belief that virtuous actions create pleasure in the future
and nonvirtuous actions create pain) was modified to accommodate new
emphases on the efficacy of ritual actions and devotional practices.
During the second half of the 1st millennium ce, a third major Buddhist
movement, Vajrayana (Sanskrit: “Diamond Vehicle”), or Esoteric Buddhism,
developed in India. This movement was influenced by gnostic and magical
currents pervasive at that time, and its aim was to obtain spiritual
liberation and purity more speedily.
Despite these vicissitudes, Buddhism did not abandon its basic
principles. Instead, they were reinterpreted, rethought, and
reformulated in a process that led to the creation of a great body of
literature. This literature includes the Pali Tipitaka (“Three
Baskets”)—the Sutta Pitaka (“Basket of Discourse”), which contains the
Buddha’s sermons; the Vinaya Pitaka (“Basket of Discipline”), which
contains the rule governing the monastic order; and the Abhidhamma
Pitaka (“Basket of Special [Further] Doctrine”), which contains
doctrinal systematizations and summaries. These Pali texts have served
as the basis for a long and very rich tradition of commentaries that
were written and preserved by adherents of the Theravada community. The
Mahayana and Vajrayana/Esoteric traditions have accepted as Buddhavacana
(“the word of the Buddha”) many other sutras and tantras, along with
extensive treatises and commentaries based on these texts. Consequently,
from the first sermon of the Buddha at Sarnath to the most recent
derivations, there is an indisputable continuity—a development or
metamorphosis around a central nucleus—by virtue of which Buddhism is
differentiated from other religions.
Giuseppe Tucci
Joseph M. Kitagawa
Frank E. Reynolds
The foundations of Buddhism » The life of the Buddha
The teacher known as the Buddha lived in northern India sometime between
the mid-6th and the mid-4th centuries before the Common Era. In ancient
India the title buddha referred to an enlightened being who has awakened
from the sleep of ignorance and achieved freedom from suffering.
According to the various traditions of Buddhism, buddhas have existed in
the past and will exist in the future. Some Buddhists believe that there
is only one buddha for each historical age, others that all beings will
become buddhas because they possess the buddha nature (tathagatagarbha).
The historical figure referred to as the Buddha (whose life is known
largely through legend) was born on the northern edge of the Ganges
River basin, an area on the periphery of the ancient civilization of
North India, in what is today southern Nepal. He is said to have lived
for 80 years. His family name was Gautama (in Sanskrit) or Gotama (in
Pali), and his given name was Siddhartha (Sanskrit: “he who achieves his
aim”) or Siddhatta (in Pali). He is frequently called Shakyamuni, “the
sage of the Shakya clan.” In Buddhist texts he is most commonly
addressed as Bhagavat (often translated as “Lord”), and he refers to
himself as the Tathagata, which can mean both “one who has thus come”
and “one who has thus gone.” Traditional sources on the date of his
death—or, in the language of the tradition, his “passage into
nirvana”—range from 2420 to 290 bce. Scholarship in the 20th century
limited this range considerably, with opinion generally divided between
those who believed he lived from about 563 to 483 bce and those who
believed he lived about a century later.
Information about his life derives largely from Buddhist texts, the
earliest of which were produced shortly before the beginning of the
Common Era and thus several centuries after his death. According to the
traditional accounts, however, the Buddha was born into the ruling
Shakya clan and was a member of the Kshatriya, or warrior, caste. His
mother, Maha Maya, dreamt one night that an elephant entered her womb,
and 10 lunar months later, while she was strolling in the garden of
Lumbini, her son emerged from under her right arm. His early life was
one of luxury and comfort, and his father protected him from exposure to
the ills of the world, including old age, sickness, and death. At age 16
he married the princess Yashodhara, who would eventually bear him a son.
At 29, however, the prince had a profound experience when he first
observed the suffering of the world while on chariot rides outside the
palace. He resolved then to renounce his wealth and family and live the
life of an ascetic. During the next six years, he practiced meditation
with several teachers and then, with five companions, undertook a life
of extreme self-mortification. One day, while bathing in a river, he
fainted from weakness and therefore concluded that mortification was not
the path to liberation from suffering. Abandoning the life of extreme
asceticism, the prince sat in meditation under a tree and received
enlightenment, sometimes identified with understanding the Four Noble
Truths. For the next 45 years, the Buddha spread his message throughout
northeastern India, established orders of monks and nuns, and received
the patronage of kings and merchants. At the age of 80, he became
seriously ill. He then met with his disciples for the last time to
impart his final instructions and passed into nirvana. His body was then
cremated and the relics distributed and enshrined in stupas (funerary
monuments that usually contained relics), where they would be venerated.
The Buddha’s place within the tradition, however, cannot be
understood by focusing exclusively on the events of his life and time
(even to the extent that they are known). Instead, he must be viewed
within the context of Buddhist theories of time and history. Among these
theories is the belief that the universe is the product of karma, the
law of the cause and effect of actions. The beings of the universe are
reborn without beginning in six realms as gods, demigods, humans,
animals, ghosts, and hell beings. The cycle of rebirth, called samsara
(literally “wandering”), is regarded as a domain of suffering, and the
Buddhist’s ultimate goal is to escape from that suffering. The means of
escape remains unknown until, over the course of millions of lifetimes,
a person perfects himself, ultimately gaining the power to discover the
path out of samsara and then revealing that path to the world.
A person who has set out to discover the path to freedom from
suffering and then to teach it to others is called a bodhisattva. A
person who has discovered that path, followed it to its end, and taught
it to the world is called a buddha. Buddhas are not reborn after they
die but enter a state beyond suffering called nirvana (literally
“passing away”). Because buddhas appear so rarely over the course of
time and because only they reveal the path to liberation from suffering,
the appearance of a buddha in the world is considered a momentous event.
The story of a particular buddha begins before his birth and extends
beyond his death. It encompasses the millions of lives spent on the path
toward enlightenment and Buddhahood and the persistence of the buddha
through his teachings and his relics after he has passed into nirvana.
The historical Buddha is regarded as neither the first nor the last
buddha to appear in the world. According to some traditions he is the
7th buddha, according to another he is the 25th, and according to yet
another he is the 4th. The next buddha, Maitreya, will appear after
Shakyamuni’s teachings and relics have disappeared from the world.
Sites associated with the Buddha’s life became important pilgrimage
places, and regions that Buddhism entered long after his death—such as
Sri Lanka, Kashmir, and Burma (now Myanmar)—added narratives of his
magical visitations to accounts of his life. Although the Buddha did not
leave any written works, various versions of his teachings were
preserved orally by his disciples. In the centuries following his death,
hundreds of texts (called sutras) were attributed to him and would
subsequently be translated into the languages of Asia.
Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
The foundations of Buddhism » The Buddha’s message
The teaching attributed to the Buddha was transmitted orally by his
disciples, prefaced by the phrase “evam me sutam” (“thus have I heard”);
therefore, it is difficult to say whether or to what extent his
discourses have been preserved as they were spoken. They usually allude
to the place and time they were preached and to the audience to which
they were addressed. Buddhist councils in the first centuries after the
Buddha’s death attempted to specify which teachings attributed to the
Buddha could be considered authentic.
The foundations of Buddhism » The Buddha’s message » Suffering,
impermanence, and no-self
The Buddha based his entire teaching on the fact of human suffering and
the ultimately dissatisfying character of human life. Existence is
painful. The conditions that make an individual are precisely those that
also give rise to dissatisfaction and suffering. Individuality implies
limitation; limitation gives rise to desire; and, inevitably, desire
causes suffering, since what is desired is transitory.
Living amid the impermanence of everything and being themselves
impermanent, human beings search for the way of deliverance, for that
which shines beyond the transitoriness of human existence—in short, for
enlightenment. The Buddha’s doctrine offered a way to avoid despair. By
following the “path” taught by the Buddha, the individual can dispel the
“ignorance” that perpetuates this suffering.
According to the Buddha of the early texts, reality, whether of
external things or the psychophysical totality of human individuals,
consists of a succession and concatenation of microelements called
dhammas (these “components” of reality are not to be confused with
dhamma meaning “law” or “teaching”). The Buddha departed from
traditional Indian thought in not asserting an essential or ultimate
reality in things. Moreover, he rejected the existence of the soul as a
metaphysical substance, though he recognized the existence of the self
as the subject of action in a practical and moral sense. Life is a
stream of becoming, a series of manifestations and extinctions. The
concept of the individual ego is a popular delusion; the objects with
which people identify themselves—fortune, social position, family, body,
and even mind—are not their true selves. There is nothing permanent,
and, if only the permanent deserved to be called the self, or atman,
then nothing is self.
To make clear the concept of no-self (anatman), Buddhists set forth
the theory of the five aggregates or constituents (khandhas) of human
existence: (1) corporeality or physical forms (rupa), (2) feelings or
sensations (vedana), (3) ideations (sanna), (4) mental formations or
dispositions (sankhara), and (5) consciousness (vinnana). Human
existence is only a composite of the five aggregates, none of which is
the self or soul. A person is in a process of continuous change, and
there is no fixed underlying entity.
The foundations of Buddhism » The Buddha’s message » Karma
The belief in rebirth, or samsara, as a potentially endless series of
worldly existences in which every being is caught up was already
associated with the doctrine of karma (Sanskrit: karman; literally “act”
or “deed”) in pre-Buddhist India, and it was accepted by virtually all
Buddhist traditions. According to the doctrine, good conduct brings a
pleasant and happy result and creates a tendency toward similar good
acts, while bad conduct brings an evil result and creates a tendency
toward similar evil acts. Some karmic acts bear fruit in the same life
in which they are committed, others in the immediately succeeding one,
and others in future lives that are more remote. This furnishes the
basic context for the moral life.
The acceptance by Buddhists of the teachings of karma and rebirth and
the concept of the no-self gives rise to a difficult problem: how can
rebirth take place without a permanent subject to be reborn? Indian
non-Buddhist philosophers attacked this point in Buddhist thought, and
many modern scholars have also considered it to be an insoluble problem.
The relation between existences in rebirth has been explained by the
analogy of fire, which maintains itself unchanged in appearance and yet
is different in every moment—what may be called the continuity of an
ever-changing identity.
The foundations of Buddhism » The Buddha’s message » The Four Noble
Truths
Awareness of these fundamental realities led the Buddha to formulate the
Four Noble Truths: the truth of misery (dukkha), the truth that misery
originates within us from the craving for pleasure and for being or
nonbeing (samudaya), the truth that this craving can be eliminated
(nirodhu), and the truth that this elimination is the result of
following a methodical way or path (magga).
The foundations of Buddhism » The Buddha’s message » The law of
dependent origination
The Buddha, according to the early texts, also discovered the law of
dependent origination (paticca-samuppada), whereby one condition arises
out of another, which in turn arises out of prior conditions. Every mode
of being presupposes another immediately preceding mode from which the
subsequent mode derives, in a chain of causes. According to the
classical rendering, the 12 links in the chain are: ignorance (avijja),
karmic predispositions (sankharas), consciousness (vinnana), form and
body (nama-rupa), the five sense organs and the mind (salayatana),
contact (phassa), feeling-response (vedana), craving (tanha), grasping
for an object (upadana), action toward life (bhava), birth (jati), and
old age and death (jaramarana). According to this law, the misery that
is bound with sensate existence is accounted for by a methodical chain
of causation. Despite a diversity of interpretations, the law of
dependent origination of the various aspects of becoming remains
fundamentally the same in all schools of Buddhism.
The foundations of Buddhism » The Buddha’s message » The Eightfold Path
The law of dependent origination, however, raises the question of how
one may escape the continually renewed cycle of birth, suffering, and
death. It is not enough to know that misery pervades all existence and
to know the way in which life evolves; there must also be a means to
overcome this process. The means to this end is found in the Eightfold
Path, which is constituted by right views, right aspirations, right
speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right
mindfulness, and right meditational attainment.
The foundations of Buddhism » The Buddha’s message » Nirvana
The aim of Buddhist practice is to be rid of the delusion of ego and
thus free oneself from the fetters of this mundane world. One who is
successful in doing so is said to have overcome the round of rebirths
and to have achieved enlightenment. This is the final goal in most
Buddhist traditions, though in some cases (particularly though not
exclusively in some Pure Land schools in China and Japan) the attainment
of an ultimate paradise or a heavenly abode is not clearly distinguished
from the attainment of release.
The living process is again likened to a fire. Its remedy is the
extinction of the fire of illusion, passions, and cravings. The Buddha,
the Enlightened One, is one who is no longer kindled or inflamed. Many
poetic terms are used to describe the state of the enlightened human
being—the harbour of refuge, the cool cave, the place of bliss, the
farther shore. The term that has become famous in the West is nirvana,
translated as passing away or dying out—that is, the dying out in the
heart of the fierce fires of lust, anger, and delusion. But nirvana is
not extinction, and indeed the craving for annihilation or nonexistence
was expressly repudiated by the Buddha. Buddhists search for salvation,
not just nonbeing. Although nirvana is often presented negatively as
“release from suffering,” it is more accurate to describe it in a more
positive fashion: as an ultimate goal to be sought and cherished.
In some early texts the Buddha left unanswered certain questions
regarding the destiny of persons who have reached this ultimate goal. He
even refused to speculate as to whether fully purified saints, after
death, continued to exist or ceased to exist. Such questions, he
maintained, were not relevant to the practice of the path and could not
in any event be answered from within the confines of ordinary human
existence. Indeed, he asserted that any discussion of the nature of
nirvana would only distort or misrepresent it. But he also asserted with
even more insistence that nirvana can be experienced—and experienced in
the present existence—by those who, knowing the Buddhist truth, practice
the Buddhist path.
Giuseppe Tucci
Hajime Nakamura
Frank E. Reynolds
Historical Development » India » Expansion of Buddhism
The Buddha was a charismatic leader who founded a distinctive religious
community based on his unique teachings. Some of the members of that
community were, like the Buddha himself, wandering ascetics. Others were
laypersons who venerated the Buddha, followed certain aspects of his
teachings, and provided the wandering ascetics with the material support
that they required.
In the centuries following the Buddha’s death, the story of his life
was remembered and embellished, his teachings were preserved and
developed, and the community that he had established became a
significant religious force. Many of the wandering ascetics who followed
the Buddha settled in permanent monastic establishments and developed
monastic rules. At the same time, the Buddhist laity came to include
important members of the economic and political elite.
During its first century of existence, Buddhism spread from its place
of origin in Magadha and Kosala throughout much of northern India,
including the areas of Mathura and Ujjayani in the west. According to
Buddhist tradition, invitations to the Council of Vesali (Sanskrit:
Vaishali), held just over a century after the Buddha’s death, were sent
to monks living throughout northern and central India. By the middle of
the 3rd century bce, Buddhism had gained the favour of a Mauryan king,
Asoka, who had established an empire that extended from the Himalayas in
the north to almost as far as Sri Lanka in the south.
To the rulers of the republics and kingdoms arising in northeastern
India, the patronage of newly emerging sects such as Buddhism was one
way of counterbalancing the political power exercised by Brahmans
(high-caste Hindus). The first Mauryan emperor, Chandragupta (c. 321–c.
297 bce), patronized Jainism and, according to some traditions, finally
became a Jain monk. His grandson, Asoka, who ruled over the greater part
of the subcontinent from about 268 to 232 bce, traditionally played an
important role in Buddhist history because of his support of Buddhism
during his lifetime. He exerted even more influence posthumously,
through stories that depicted him as a chakravartin (“a great
wheel-rolling monarch”). He is portrayed as a paragon of Buddhist
kingship who accomplished many fabulous feats of piety and devotion. It
is therefore very difficult to distinguish the Asoka of history from the
Asoka of Buddhist legend and myth.
The first actual Buddhist “texts” that are still extant are
inscriptions (including a number of well-known Asokan pillars) that
Asoka had written and displayed in various places throughout his vast
kingdom. According to these inscriptions, Asoka attempted to establish
in his realm a “true dhamma” based on the virtues of self-control,
impartiality, cheerfulness, truthfulness, and goodness. Although he
promoted Buddhism, he did not found a state church, and he was known for
his respect for other religious traditions. He sought to maintain unity
in the Buddhist monastic community, however, and he promoted an ethic
that focused on the layman’s obligations in this world. His aim, as
articulated in his edicts, was to create a religious and social milieu
that would enable all “children of the king” to live happily in this
life and to attain heaven in the next. Thus, he set up medical
assistance for human beings and beasts, maintained reservoirs and
canals, and promoted trade. He established a system of dhamma officers
(dhamma-mahamattas) in order to help govern the empire. And he sent
diplomatic emissaries to areas beyond his direct political control.
Asoka’s empire began to crumble soon after his death, and the Mauryan
dynasty was finally overthrown in the early decades of the 2nd century
bce. There is some evidence to suggest that Buddhism in India suffered
persecution during the Shunga-Kanva period (185–28 bce). Despite
occasional setbacks, however, Buddhists persevered; and before the
emergence of the Gupta dynasty, which created the next great pan-Indian
empire in the 4th century ce, Buddhism had become a leading if not
dominant religious tradition in India.
During the approximately five centuries between the fall of the
Mauryan dynasty and the rise of the Gupta dynasty, major developments
occurred in all aspects of Buddhist belief and practice. Well before the
beginning of the Common Era, stories about the Buddha’s many previous
lives, accounts of important events in his life as Gautama, stories of
his “extended life” in his relics, and other aspects of his sacred
biography were elaborated on. In the centuries that followed, groups of
these stories were collected and compiled in various styles and
combinations.
Beginning in the 3rd century bce, and possibly earlier, magnificent
Buddhist monuments such as the great stupas at Bharhut and Sanchi were
built. During the early centuries of the 1st millennium ce, similar
monuments were established virtually throughout the subcontinent.
Numerous monasteries emerged too, some in close association with the
great monuments and pilgrimage sites. Considerable evidence, including
inscriptional evidence, points to extensive support from local rulers,
including the women of the various royal courts.
During this period Buddhist monastic centres proliferated, and there
developed diverse schools of interpretation concerning matters of
doctrine and monastic discipline. Within the Hinayana tradition there
emerged many different schools, most of which preserved a variant of the
Tipitaka (which had taken the form of written scriptures by the early
centuries of the Common Era), held distinctive doctrinal positions, and
practiced unique forms of monastic discipline. The traditional number of
schools is 18, but the situation was very complicated, and exact
identifications are hard to make.
About the beginning of the Common Era, distinctively Mahayana
tendencies began to take shape. It should be emphasized, however, that
many Hinayana and Mahayana adherents continued to live together in the
same monastic institutions. In the 2nd or 3rd century, the Madhyamika
school, which has remained one of the major schools of Mahayana
philosophy, was established, and many other expressions of Mahayana
belief, practice, and communal life appeared. By the beginning of the
Gupta era, the Mahayana had become the most dynamic and creative
Buddhist tradition in India.
At this time Buddhism also expanded beyond the Indian subcontinent.
It is most likely that Asoka sent a diplomatic mission to Sri Lanka and
that Buddhism was established there during his reign. By the beginning
of the Common Era, Buddhism, which had become very strong in
northwestern India, had followed the great trade routes into Central
Asia and China. According to later tradition, this expansion was greatly
facilitated by Kanishka, a great Kushana king of the 1st or 2nd century
ce, who ruled over an area that included portions of northern India and
Central Asia.
Historical Development » India » Buddhism under the Guptas and Palas
By the time of the Gupta dynasty (c. 320–c. 600 ce), Buddhism in India
was being influenced by the revival of Brahmanic religion and the rising
tide of bhakti (a devotional movement that emphasized the intense love
of a devotee for a personal god). During this period, for example, some
Hindus practiced devotion to the Buddha, whom they regarded as an avatar
(incarnation) of the Hindu deity Vishnu, and some Buddhists venerated
Hindu deities who were an integral part of the wider religious context
in which they lived.
Throughout the Gupta and Pala periods, Hinayana Buddhists remained a
major segment of the Indian Buddhist community. Their continued
cultivation of various aspects of Buddhist teaching led to the emergence
of the Yogacara school, the second great tradition of Mahayana
philosophy. A third major Buddhist tradition, the Vajrayana or Esoteric
tradition, developed out of the Mahayana school and became a powerful
and dynamic religious force. The new form of text associated with this
tradition, the tantras, appeared during the Gupta period, and there are
indications that distinctively Tantric rituals began to be employed at
this time as well. It was during the Pala period (8th–12th centuries),
however, that the Vajrayana/Esoteric tradition emerged as the most
dynamic component of Indian Buddhist life.
Also during the Gupta period, there emerged a new Buddhist
institution, the Mahavihara (“Great Monastery”), which often functioned
as a university. This institution enjoyed great success during the reign
of the Pala kings. The most famous of these Mahaviharas, located at
Nalanda, became a major centre for the study of Buddhist texts and the
refinement of Buddhist thought, particularly Mahayana and Vajrayana
thought. The monks at Nalanda also developed a curriculum that went far
beyond traditional Buddhism and included much Indian scientific and
cultural knowledge. In subsequent years other important Mahaviharas were
established, each with its own distinctive emphases and characteristics.
These great Buddhist monastic research and educational institutions
exerted a profound religious and cultural influence not only in India
but throughout many other parts of Asia as well.
Although Buddhist institutions seemed to be faring well under the
Guptas, Chinese pilgrims visiting India between 400 and 700 ce discerned
a decline in the Buddhist community and the beginning of the absorption
of Indian Buddhism by Hinduism. Among these pilgrims was Faxian, who
left China in 399, crossed the Gobi Desert, visited various holy places
in India, and returned to China with numerous Buddhist scriptures and
statues. The most famous of the Chinese travelers, however, was the
7th-century monk Xuanzang. When he arrived in northwestern India, he
found “millions of monasteries” reduced to ruins by the Huns, a nomadic
Central Asian people. In the northeast Xuanzang visited various holy
places and studied Yogacara philosophy at Nalanda. After visiting Assam
and southern India, he returned to China, carrying with him copies of
more than 600 sutras.
After the destruction of numerous Buddhist monasteries in the 6th
century ce by the Huns, Buddhism revived, especially in the northeast,
where it flourished for many more centuries under the kings of the Pala
dynasty. The kings protected the Mahaviharas, built new centres at
Odantapuri, near Nalanda, and established a system of supervision for
all such institutions. Under the Palas the Vajrayana/Esoteric form of
Buddhism became a major intellectual and religious force. Its adherents
introduced important innovations into Buddhist doctrine and symbolism.
They also advocated the practice of new Tantric forms of ritual practice
that were designed both to generate magical power and to facilitate more
rapid progress along the path to enlightenment. During the reigns of the
later Pala kings, contacts with China decreased as Indian Buddhists
turned their attention toward Tibet and Southeast Asia.
Historical Development » India » The demise of Buddhism in India
With the collapse of the Pala dynasty in the 12th century, Indian
Buddhism suffered yet another setback, from which it did not recover.
Although small pockets of influence remained, the Buddhist presence in
India became negligible.
Scholars do not know all the factors that contributed to Buddhism’s
demise in its homeland. Some have maintained that it was so tolerant of
other faiths that it was simply reabsorbed by a revitalized Hindu
tradition. This did occur, though Indian Mahayanists were occasionally
hostile toward bhakti and toward Hinduism in general. Another factor,
however, was probably much more important. Indian Buddhism, having
become primarily a monastic movement, seems to have lost touch with its
lay supporters. Many monasteries had become very wealthy, so much so
that they were able to employ indentured slaves and paid labourers to
care for the monks and to tend the lands they owned. Thus, after the
Muslim invaders sacked the Indian monasteries in the 12th and 13th
centuries, the Buddhist laity showed little interest in a resurgence.
Historical Development » India » Contemporary revival
In the 19th century Buddhism was virtually extinct in India. In far
eastern Bengal and Assam, a few Buddhists preserved a tradition that
dated back to pre-Muslim times, and some of them experienced a
Theravada-oriented reform that was initiated by a Burmese monk who
visited the area in the mid-19th century. By the end of that century, a
very small number of Indian intellectuals had become interested in
Buddhism through Western scholarship or through the activities of the
Theosophical Society, one of whose leaders was the American Henry
Olcott. The Sinhalese reformer Anagarika Dharmapala also exerted some
influence, particularly through his work as one of the founders of the
Mahabodhi Society, which focused its initial efforts on restoring
Buddhist control of the pilgrimage site at Bodh Gaya, the presumed site
of the Buddha’s enlightenment.
Beginning in the early 20th century, a few Indian intellectuals
became increasingly interested in Buddhism as a more rational and
egalitarian alternative to Hinduism. Although this interest remained
limited to a very tiny segment of the intellectual elite, a small
Buddhist movement with a broader constituency developed in South India.
Even as late as 1950, however, an official government census identified
fewer than 200,000 Buddhists in the country, most of them residing in
east Bengal and Assam.
Since 1950 the number of Buddhists in India has increased
dramatically. One very small factor in this increase was the flood of
Buddhist refugees from Tibet following the Chinese invasion of that
country in 1959. The centre of the Tibetan refugee community, both in
India and around the world, was established in Dharmsala, but many
Tibetan refugees settled in other areas of the subcontinent as well.
Another very small factor was the incorporation of Sikkim—a region with
a predominantly Buddhist population now in the northeastern part of
India—into the Republic of India in 1975.
The most important cause of the contemporary revival of Buddhism in
India was the mass conversion, in 1956, of hundreds of thousands of
Hindus living primarily in Maharashtra state who had previously been
members of the so-called scheduled castes (formerly called
untouchables). This conversion was initiated by Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar,
a leader of the scheduled castes who was also a major figure in the
Indian independence movement, a critic of the caste policies of Mahatma
Gandhi, a framer of India’s constitution, and a member of India’s first
independent government. As early as 1935 Ambedkar decided to lead his
people away from Hinduism in favour of a religion that did not recognize
caste distinctions. After a delay of more than 20 years, he determined
that Buddhism was the appropriate choice. He also decided that 1956—the
year in which Theravada Buddhists were celebrating the 2,500th year of
the death of the Buddha—was the appropriate time. A dramatic conversion
ceremony, held in Nagpur, was attended by hundreds of thousands of
people. Since 1956 more than three million persons (a very conservative
estimate) have joined the new Buddhist community.
The Buddhism of Ambedkar’s community is based on the teachings found
in the ancient Pali texts and has much in common with the Theravada
Buddhist communities of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. There are
important differences that distinguish the new group, however. They
include the community’s reliance on Ambedkar’s own interpretations,
which are presented in his book The Buddha and His Dhamma; the
community’s emphasis on a mythology concerning the Buddhist and
aristocratic character of the Mahar (the largest of the scheduled
castes); and its recognition of Ambedkar himself as a saviour figure who
is often considered to be a bodhisattva (future buddha). Another
distinguishing characteristic of the Mahar Buddhists is the absence of a
strong monastic community, which has allowed laypersons to assume the
primary leadership roles. During the last several decades, the group has
produced its own corpus of Buddhist songs and many vernacular books and
pamphlets that deal with various aspects of Buddhist doctrine, practice,
and community life.
Historical Development » Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia
The first clear evidence of the spread of Buddhism outside India dates
from the reign of King Asoka (3rd century bce), whose inscriptions show
that he sent Buddhist missionaries to many different regions of the
subcontinent as well as into certain border areas. Asokan emissaries
were sent to Sri Lanka and to an area called Suvarnabhumi, which many
modern scholars have identified with the Mon country in southern Myanmar
(Burma) and central Thailand.
Historical Development » Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia » Sri Lanka
According to Sinhalese tradition, Buddhism took root in Sri Lanka soon
after the arrival of Asoka’s son, the monk Mahinda, and six companions.
These monks converted King Devanampiya Tissa and much of the nobility.
King Tissa built the Mahavihara monastery, which became the main centre
of the version of Theravada Buddhism that was ultimately dominant in Sri
Lanka. After Tissa’s death (c. 207 bce), Sri Lanka was ruled by kings
from South India until the time of Dutthagamani (101–77 bce), a
descendant of Tissa, who overthrew King Elara. Dutthagamani’s
association with Buddhism clearly strengthened the religion’s ties with
Sri Lankan political institutions.
In the post-Dutthagamani period, the Mahavihara tradition developed
along with other Sri Lankan monastic traditions. The Sinhalese
chronicles report that, in the last half of the 1st century bce, King
Vattagamani called a Buddhist council (the fourth in the Sinhalese
reckoning) at which the Pali oral tradition of the Buddha’s teachings
was committed to writing. The same king is said to have sponsored the
construction of the Abhayagiri monastery, which eventually included
Hinayana, Mahayana, and even Vajrayana monks. Although these
cosmopolitan tendencies were resisted by the Mahavihara monks, they were
openly supported by King Mahasena (276–303 ce). Under Mahasena’s son,
Shri Meghavanna, the “tooth of the Buddha” was taken to the Abhayagiri,
where it was subsequently maintained and venerated at the royal
palladium.
During the 1st millennium ce, the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka
coexisted with various forms of Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism, and
Esoteric Buddhism. As Buddhism declined in India, it underwent a major
revival and reform in Sri Lanka, where the Theravada traditions of the
Mahavihara became especially prominent. Sri Lanka became a Theravada
kingdom with a sangha that was unified under Mahavihara leadership and
ruled by a monarch who legitimated his rule in Theravada terms. This
newly constituted Theravada tradition subsequently spread from Sri Lanka
into Southeast Asia, where it exerted a powerful influence.
In early modern times Sri Lanka fell prey to Western colonial powers.
The Portuguese (1505–1658) and the Dutch (1658–1796) seized control of
the coastal areas, and later the British (1794–1947) took over the
entire island. Buddhism suffered considerable disruption under
Portuguese and Dutch rule, and the higher ordination lineage lapsed. In
the 18th century, however, King Kittisiri Rajasiah (1747–81), who ruled
in the upland regions, invited monks from Siam (Thailand) to reform
Buddhism and restore the higher ordination lineages.
During the late 18th and 19th centuries, the monastic community in
Sri Lanka was divided into three major bodies. The Siam Nikaya, founded
during the reform of the late 18th century, was a conservative and
wealthy sect that admitted only members of the Goyigama, the highest
Sinhalese caste. The Amarapura sect, founded in the early 19th century,
opened its ranks to members of lower castes. The third division, the
Ramanya sect, is a small modernist group that emerged in the 19th
century. In addition, several reform groups were established among the
laity. These groups include the important Sarvodaya community, which is
headed by A.T. Ariyaratne. This group has established religious,
economic, and social development programs that have had a significant
impact on Sinhalese village life.
Since Sri Lanka gained its independence from the British in 1947, the
country has been increasingly drawn into a conflict between the
Sinhalese Buddhist majority and the Tamil Hindu minority. In the late
20th century, this conflict escalated into a vicious civil war. Many
Sinhalese, including a significant number of monks, have closely
associated their Buddhist religion with the political agenda and
anti-Tamil violence of the more militant Sinhalese nationalists. Other
Buddhist leaders, however, have tried to adopt a more moderate position
and to encourage a negotiated solution that would reestablish the kind
of peaceful coexistence that has characterized Sri Lankan politics
through the greater part of the island’s long history.
Historical Development » Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia » Southeast Asia
The peoples of Southeast Asia have not been mere satellites of the more
powerful Indian and Chinese civilizations. On the contrary, the cultures
that arose in these three vast areas might better be thought of as
alternative developments that occurred within a greater Austroasiatic
civilization, sometimes called the Asia of the monsoons. The
transmission of Buddhism and Hinduism to Southeast Asia can thus be
regarded as the spread of the religious symbols of the more advanced
Austroasiatic peoples to other Austroasiatic groups sharing some of the
same basic religious presuppositions and traditions.
In Southeast Asia the impact of Buddhism was felt in very different
ways in three separate regions. In two of these (the region of
Malaysia/Indonesia and the region on the mainland extending from Myanmar
to southern Vietnam), the main connections have been with India and Sri
Lanka via trade routes. In Vietnam, the third region, the main
connections have been with China.
Historical Development » Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia » Southeast
Asia » Malaysia and Indonesia
Although some scholars locate the Suvarnabhumi (“Land of Gold”), to
which Asokan missionaries were supposedly sent, somewhere on the Malay
Peninsula or in Indonesia, this is probably not accurate. It is certain,
however, that Buddhism reached these areas by the early centuries of the
1st millennium ce.
With the help of the monk Gunavarman and other Indian missionaries,
Buddhism gained a firm foothold on Java well before the 5th century ce.
Buddhism was also introduced at about this time in Sumatra, and by the
7th century the king of Srivijaya on the island of Sumatra was a
Buddhist. When the Chinese traveler I-ching visited this kingdom in the
7th century, he noted that Hinayana was dominant in the area but that
there were also a few Mahayanists. It was also in the 7th century that
the great scholar from Nalanda, Dharmapala, visited Indonesia.
The Shailendra dynasty, which ruled over the Malay Peninsula and a
large section of Indonesia from the 7th century to the 9th century,
promoted the Mahayana and Tantric forms of Buddhism. During this period
major Buddhist monuments were erected in Java, including the marvelous
Borobudur, which is perhaps the most magnificent of all Buddhist stupas.
From the 7th century onward, Vajrayana Buddhism spread rapidly
throughout the area. King Kertanagara of Java (reigned 1268–92) was
especially devoted to Tantric practice.
In the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia, as in India, Buddhism gradually
lost its hold during the first half of the 2nd millennium ce. In some
areas Buddhism was assimilated to Hinduism, forming a Hindu-oriented
amalgam that in some places (for example in Bali) has persisted to the
present. In most of Malaysia and Indonesia, however, both Hinduism and
Buddhism were replaced by Islam, which remains the dominant religion in
the area. In modern Indonesia and Malaysia, Buddhism exists as a living
religion primarily among the Chinese minority, but there is also a small
non-Chinese community of Buddhists that is concentrated in the vicinity
of Borobudur.
Historical Development » Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia » Southeast
Asia » From Myanmar to the Mekong delta
A second area of Buddhist expansion in Southeast Asia extends from
Myanmar in the north and west to the Mekong delta in the south and east.
According to the local Mon/Burman traditions, this is Suvarnabhumi, the
area visited by missionaries from the Asokan court. It is known that
Buddhist kingdoms had appeared in this region by the early centuries of
the 1st millennium ce. In Myanmar and Thailand, despite the presence of
Hindu, Mahayana, and Vajrayana elements, the more-conservative Hinayana
forms of Buddhism were especially prominent throughout the 1st
millennium ce. Farther to the east and south, in what is now Cambodia
and southern Vietnam, various combinations of Hinduism, Mahayana
Buddhism, and Vajrayana Buddhism became prevalent. Throughout much of
the history of Angkor, the great imperial centre that ruled Cambodia and
much of the surrounding areas for many centuries, Hinduism seems to have
been the preferred tradition, at least among the elite. In the late 12th
and early 13th centuries, however, the Buddhist King Jayavarman VII
built a new capital called Angkor Thom that was dominated by
Mahayana/Vajrayana monuments, which represent one of the high points of
Buddhist architecture.
In mainland Southeast Asia, as in Sri Lanka, a Theravada reform
movement emerged in the 11th century. Drawing heavily on the Theravada
heritage that had been preserved among the Mon in southern Myanmar, as
well as on the new reform tradition of Sri Lanka, this revival soon
established the Theravada tradition as the most dynamic in Myanmar,
where the Burmans had conquered the Mon. By the late 13th century, the
movement had spread to Thailand, where the Thai were gradually
displacing the Mon as the dominant population. During the next two
centuries, Theravada reforms penetrated as far as Cambodia and Laos.
The preeminence of Theravada Buddhism continued throughout the area
during the remainder of the premodern period. The arrival of the Western
powers in the 19th century brought important changes. In Thailand, which
retained its independence, a process of gradual reform and modernization
was led by a new Buddhist sect, the Thammayut Nikaya, which was
established and supported by the reigning Chakri dynasty. In the 20th
century reform and modernization became more diversified and affected
virtually all segments of the Thai Buddhist community.
Two new Buddhist groups, Santi Asoke (founded 1975) and Dhammakaya,
are especially interesting. Santi Asoke, a lay-oriented group that
advocates stringent discipline, moral rectitude, and political reform,
has been very much at odds with the established ecclesiastical
hierarchy. The Dhammakaya group has been much more successful at
gathering a large popular following but has also become very
controversial because of its distinctive meditational practices and
questions concerning its care of financial contributions from its
followers.
In the other Theravada countries in Southeast Asia, Buddhism has had
a much more difficult time. In Myanmar, which endured an extended period
of British rule, the sangha and the structures of Buddhist society have
been seriously disrupted. Under the military regime of General Ne Win,
established in 1962, reform and modernization were limited in all areas
of national life, including religion. Since the suppression of the
pro-democracy movement in the late 1980s, the country’s military rulers
have used their support of a very traditional form of Buddhism to
legitimize their highly repressive regime. In Laos and Cambodia, both of
which suffered an extended period of French rule followed by devastation
during the Vietnam War and the violent imposition of communist rule, the
Buddhist community has been severely crippled. Beginning in the 1980s,
however, it showed increasing signs of life and vitality. In Laos it was
recognized by the government as a part of the national heritage, and in
Cambodia it was even given the status of a state religion.
Historical Development » Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia » Southeast
Asia » Vietnam
There are indications that Vietnam was involved in the early sea trade
between India, Southeast Asia, and China, and it is quite probable that
Buddhism reached the country via this sea route near the beginning of
the 1st millennium ce. The northern part of what is now Vietnam had been
conquered by the Chinese empire in 111 bce and remained under Chinese
rule until 939 ce. Hinayana and Mahayana traditions spread into the two
Indianized states, Funan (founded during the 1st century ce) and Champa
(founded 192 ce). The long-term development of Buddhism in Vietnam,
however, was most affected by Zen and Pure Land traditions, which were
introduced from China into the northern and central sections of the
country beginning in the 6th century ce.
The first dhyana (Zen; Vietnamese: thien), or meditation, school was
introduced by Vinitaruci, an Indian monk who had gone to Vietnam from
China in the 6th century. In the 9th century a school of “wall
meditation” was introduced by the Chinese monk Vo Ngon Thong. A third
major Zen school was established in the 11th century by the Chinese monk
Thao Durong. From 1414 to 1428 Buddhism in Vietnam was persecuted by the
Chinese, who had again conquered the country. Tantrism, Daoism, and
Confucianism also filtered into Vietnam at this time. Even after the
Chinese had been driven back, a Chinese-like bureaucracy closely
supervised the Vietnamese monasteries. The clergy was divided between
those who were highborn and Sinicized and those in the lower ranks who
often were active in peasant uprisings.
During the modern period Mahayana traditions in northern and central
Vietnam have coexisted with Theravada traditions from Cambodia in the
south. Rather loosely joined together, Vietnamese Buddhists managed to
preserve their traditions through the period of French colonial rule in
the 19th and 20th centuries. During the struggle between North and South
Vietnam in the 1960s and early ’70s, many Buddhists worked to achieve
peace and reconciliation, though they met with little success; to
protest the South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, some Buddhist
monks turned to self-immolation. Under the communist regime that has
ruled the reunited country since 1975, conditions have been difficult,
but Buddhism has persisted. Reports in the late 1980s and 1990s
indicated signs of vitality, though there have also been reports of
serious government limitations on Buddhist activities.
Historical Development » Central Asia and China » Central Asia
The spread of Buddhism into Central Asia is still not completely
understood. However murky the details may be, it is clear that the trade
routes that ran from northwestern India to northern China facilitated
both the introduction of Buddhism to Central Asia and the maintenance,
for many centuries, of a flourishing Buddhist culture there.
By the beginning of the Common Era, Buddhism had probably been
introduced into Eastern Turkistan. According to tradition, a son of
Asoka founded the kingdom of Khotan around 240 bce. The grandson of this
king supposedly introduced Buddhism to Khotan, where it became the state
religion. Other accounts indicate that the Indo-Scythian king Kaniska of
the Kushan (Kusana) dynasty, which ruled in northern India, Afghanistan,
and parts of Central Asia in the 1st to 2nd century ce, encouraged the
spread of Buddhism into Central Asia. Kaniska purportedly called an
important Buddhist council and patronized the Gandhara school of
Buddhist art, which introduced Greek and Persian elements into Buddhist
iconography. In the northern part of Chinese Turkistan, Buddhism spread
from Kuqa (Kucha) to the kingdoms of Agnidesa (Karashahr), Gaochang
(Torpan), and Bharuka (Aksu). According to Chinese travelers who visited
Central Asia, the Hinayanists were strongest in Turpan, Shanshan, Kashi
(Kashgar), and Kuqa, while Mahayana strongholds were located in Yarkant
(Yarkand) and Hotan (Khotan).
In Central Asia there was a confusing welter of languages, religions,
and cultures, and, as Buddhism interacted with these various traditions,
it changed and developed. Shamanism, Zoroastrianism, Nestorian
Christianity, and Islam all penetrated these lands and coexisted with
Buddhism. Some of the Mahayana bodhisattvas, such as Amitabha, may have
been inspired in part by Zoroastrianism. There is also evidence of some
syncretism between Buddhism and Manichaeism, an Iranian dualistic
religion that was founded in the 3rd century ce.
Buddhism flourished in parts of Central Asia until the 11th century,
particularly under the patronage of the Uighur Turks. But with the
successful incursions of Islam (beginning in the 7th century ce) and the
decline of the Tang dynasty (618–907) in China, Central Asia ceased to
be the important crossroads of Indian and Chinese trade and culture that
it once had been. Buddhism in the area gradually became a thing of the
past.
Historical Development » Central Asia and China » China
Although there are reports of Buddhists in China as early as the 3rd
century bce, Buddhism was not actively propagated there until the early
centuries of the Common Era. According to tradition, Buddhism was
introduced into China after the Han emperor Mingdi (reigned 57/58–75/76
ce) dreamed of a flying golden deity in what was interpreted as a vision
of the Buddha. The emperor dispatched emissaries to India who returned
to China with the Sutra in Forty-two Sections, which was deposited in a
temple outside the capital of Louyang. However this may be, Buddhism
most likely entered China gradually, first primarily through Central
Asia and later by way of the trade routes around and through Southeast
Asia.
Historical Development » Central Asia and China » China » The early
centuries
Buddhism in China during the Han dynasty was deeply coloured with
magical practices, which made it compatible with popular Chinese Daoism,
an integral component of contemporary folk religion. Instead of the
doctrine of no-self, early Chinese Buddhists seem to have taught the
indestructibility of the soul. Nirvana became a kind of immortality.
They also taught the theory of karma, the values of charity and
compassion, and the need to suppress the passions. Until the end of the
Han dynasty, there was a virtual symbiosis between Daoism and Buddhism,
and both religions advocated similar ascetic practices as a means of
attaining immortality. It was widely believed that Laozi, the founder of
Daoism, had been reborn in India as the Buddha. Many Chinese emperors
worshiped Laozi and the Buddha on the same altar. The first translations
of Buddhist sutras into Chinese—namely, those dealing with topics such
as breath control and mystical concentration—utilized a Daoist
vocabulary to make them intelligible to the Chinese.
After the Han period, Buddhist monks were often used by non-Chinese
emperors in the north of China for their political-military counsel and
their skill in magic. At the same time, in the south Buddhism penetrated
the philosophical and literary circles of the gentry. One of the most
important contributions to the growth of Buddhism in China during this
period was the work of translation. The greatest of the early
translators was the learned monk Kumarajiva, who had studied the Hindu
Vedas, the occult sciences, and astronomy, as well as the Hinayana and
Mahayana sutras before he was taken to the Chinese court in 401 ce.
During the 5th and 6th centuries ce, Buddhist schools from India were
established in China, and new, specifically Chinese schools were formed.
Buddhism was a powerful intellectual force in China; monastic
establishments proliferated; and Buddhism became established among the
peasantry. Thus, it is not surprising that, when the Sui dynasty
(581–618) established its rule over a reunified China, Buddhism
flourished as a state religion.
Historical Development » Central Asia and China » China »
Developments during the Tang dynasty (618–907)
The golden age of Buddhism in China occurred during the Tang dynasty.
Although the Tang emperors were usually Daoists themselves, they
favoured Buddhism, which had become extremely popular. Under the Tang
the government extended its control over the monasteries and the
ordination and legal status of monks. From this time forward, the
Chinese monk styled himself simply chen (“subject”).
During this period several Chinese schools developed their own
distinctive approaches and systematized the vast body of Buddhist texts
and teachings. There was a great expansion in the number of Buddhist
monasteries and the amount of land they owned. It was also during this
period that many scholars made pilgrimages to India and returned with
texts and spiritual and intellectual inspiration that greatly enriched
Buddhism in China. Buddhism was never able to replace Daoism and
Confucianism, however, and in 845 the emperor Wuzong began a major
persecution. According to records, 4,600 Buddhist temples and 40,000
shrines were destroyed, and 260,500 monks and nuns were forced to return
to lay life.
Historical Development » Central Asia and China » China » Buddhism
after the Tang
Buddhism in China never recovered completely from the great persecution
of 845. It did maintain much of its heritage, however, and it continued
to play a significant role in the religious life of China. On one hand,
Buddhism retained its identity as Buddhism and generated new forms of
expression. These included texts such as the you lu (“recorded sayings”)
of famous teachers, which were oriented primarily toward monks, as well
as more literary creations such as the Journey to the West (written in
the 16th century) and Dream of the Red Chamber (18th century). On the
other hand, Buddhism coalesced with the Confucian, Neo-Confucian, and
Daoist traditions to form a complex multireligious ethos within which
all three traditions were more or less comfortably encompassed.
The various schools that retained the greatest vitality in China were
the Chan school (better known in the West by its Japanese name, Zen),
which was noted for its emphasis on meditation, and the Pure Land
tradition, which emphasized Buddhist devotion. The former school was
most influential among the cultured elite, especially through the arts.
Chan artists during the Song dynasty (960–1279) had a decisive impact on
Chinese landscape painting. Artists used images of flowers, rivers, and
trees, executed with sudden, deft strokes, to evoke an insight into the
flux and emptiness of all reality. The Pure Land tradition was most
influential among the population as a whole and was sometimes associated
with secret societies and peasant uprisings. But the two seemingly
disparate traditions were often very closely linked. In addition, they
were mixed with other Buddhist elements such as the so-called “masses
for the dead” that had originally been popularized by the practitioners
of Esoteric Buddhism.
A reform movement aimed at revitalizing the Chinese Buddhist
tradition and adapting its teachings and institutions to modern
conditions took shape during the early 20th century. However, the
disruptions caused by the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) and the subsequent
establishment of a communist government in China (1949) were not helpful
to the Buddhist cause. During the Cultural Revolution (especially
1966–69), Buddhist temples and monasteries suffered massive destruction,
and the Buddhist community was the victim of severe repression. After
1976 the Chinese government pursued a more tolerant policy, and Buddhism
began to show new life. The extent and depth of continuing Buddhist
vitality, however, is difficult to determine.
Historical Development » Korea and Japan » Korea
Buddhism was first introduced into the Korean peninsula from China in
the 4th century ce, when the country was divided into the three kingdoms
of Paekche, Koguryŏ, and Silla. Buddhism arrived first in the northern
kingdom of Koguryŏ and then gradually spread into the other two
kingdoms. As often happened, the new faith was first accepted by the
court and then extended to the people. After the unification of the
country by the kingdom of Silla in the 660s, Buddhism flourished
throughout Korea. The growth of Buddhism in Korea was facilitated by a
number of impressive scholars and reformers, including the monk Wonhyŏ
Daisa (617–686). He was married and taught an ecumenical version of
Buddhism that included all branches and sects. He tried to use music,
literature, and dance to express the meaning of Buddhism. Another
important scholar of the Silla era was Ui-sang (625–702), who went to
China and returned to spread the Hwaom (Huayan in Chinese) sect in
Korea. The Chinese Chan sect (Zen, Sŏn in Korea) was introduced in the
8th century and, by absorbing the Korean versions of Huayan, Tientai,
and Pure Land, gradually became the dominant school of Buddhism in
Korea, as it did in Vietnam.
Early Korean Buddhism was characterized by a worldly attitude. It
emphasized the pragmatic, nationalistic, and aristocratic aspects of the
faith. Still, an indigenous tradition of shamanism influenced the
development of popular Buddhism throughout the centuries. Buddhist monks
danced, sang, and performed the rituals of shamans.
Korean Buddhism reached its zenith during the Koryŏ period
(935–1392). In the first part of this period, the Korean Buddhist
community was active in the publication of the Tripitaka Koreana, one of
the most inclusive editions of Buddhist texts up to that time. After 25
years of research, a monk by the name of Ŭich’ŏn (Daigak Guksa;
1055–1101) published an outstanding three-volume bibliography of
Buddhist literature. Ŭich’ŏn also sponsored the growth of the Tientai
school in Korea and emphasized the need for cooperation between Chan and
the other “teaching” schools of Korean Buddhism.
Toward the end of the Koryŏ period, Buddhism suffered from internal
corruption and external persecution, especially by the Neo-Confucian
elite. The government limited the privileges of the monks, and
Confucianism replaced Buddhism as the religion of the state. Although
the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) continued these restrictions, Buddhist
monks and laymen fought bravely against invading Japanese armies under
Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–98) in 1592 and again in 1597. In the decade
before the annexation of Korea by Japan (1910), some effort was made to
unify Korean Buddhism. This effort, as well as subsequent efforts by
Buddhist missionaries from Japan, was largely in vain.
Since the end of World War II, Buddhism in Korea has been hampered by
communist rule in the north and by the great vitality of Christianity in
the south. Despite these challenges, Buddhists, particularly in South
Korea, have preserved the old traditions and initiated new movements.
Historical Development » Korea and Japan » Japan » Origins and
introduction
While Buddhism in China sent its roots down into the subsoil of the
family system, in Japan it found anchorage in the nation itself.
Buddhism, when it was initially introduced into Japan from Korea in the
6th century, was regarded as a talisman (charm) for the protection of
the country. The new religion was accepted by the powerful Soga clan but
was rejected by others, and this resulted in controversies that were
similar to those that accompanied the introduction of Buddhism into
Tibet. In both countries some believed that the introduction of Buddhist
statues had been an insult to the native deities and had thus been the
cause of plagues and natural disasters. Only gradually were such
feelings overcome. Although the Buddhism of the Soga clan was largely
magical, Prince Shōtoku—who became regent of the nation in 593—brought
other aspects of Buddhism to the fore. Shōtoku lectured on various
scriptures that emphasized the ideals of the layman and monarch, and he
composed a “Seventeen-Article Constitution” in which Buddhism was
adroitly mixed with Confucianism as the spiritual foundation of the
state. In later times he was widely regarded as an incarnation of the
bodhisattva Avalokitesvara.
Historical Development » Korea and Japan » Japan » Nara and Heian
periods
During the Nara period (710–784), Buddhism became the state religion of
Japan. Emperor Shōmu actively propagated the faith, making the imperial
capital, Nara—with its “Great Buddha” statue (Daibutsu)—the national
cult centre. Buddhist schools imported from China became established in
Nara, and state-subsidized provincial temples (kokubunji) made the
system effective at the local level as well.
After the capital was moved to Heian-kyō (modern Kyōto) in 794,
Buddhism continued to prosper. Chinese influence remained important,
particularly through the introduction of new Chinese schools that became
dominant at the royal court. Mount Hiei and Mount Kōya became the
centres for the new Tiantai (Tendai) and Esoteric (Shingon) schools of
Buddhism, which were characterized by highly sophisticated philosophies
and complex and refined liturgies. Moreover, Buddhism interacted with
the indigenous Shintō and local tradition, and various distinctively
Japanese patterns of Buddhist-oriented folk religion became very
popular.
Historical Development » Korea and Japan » Japan » New schools of the
Kamakura period
The 12th and 13th centuries marked a turning point in Japanese history
and in the history of Japanese Buddhism. Late in the 12th century, the
imperial regime centred at Heian collapsed, and a new hereditary
military dictatorship, the shogunate, established its headquarters at
Kamakura. As part of this process, a number of new Buddhist leaders
emerged and established schools of Japanese Buddhism. These reformers
included proponents of Zen traditions such as Eisai and Dōgen; Pure Land
advocates such as Hōnen, Shinran, and Ippen; and Nichiren, the founder
of a new school that gained considerable popularity. The distinctively
Japanese traditions that they established became—along with many very
diverse synthetic expressions of Shintō piety—integral components of a
Buddhist-oriented ethos that structured Japanese religious life into the
19th century. Also during this period, many Buddhist groups allowed
their clergy to marry, with the result that temples often fell under the
control of particular families.
Historical Development » Korea and Japan » Japan » The premodern
period to the present
Under the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1867), Buddhism became an arm of the
government. Temples were used for registering the populace, and this
inhibited the spread of Christianity, which the shogunate regarded as a
political menace. By the beginning of the Meiji period (1868–1912), this
association with the Tokugawa regime had made Buddhism quite unpopular.
At that time, in order to set up Shintō as the state religion, Japan’s
new ruling oligarchy decided to separate Shintō from Buddhism. This led
to the confiscation of temple lands and the defrocking of many Buddhist
priests.
During the period of ultranationalism (c. 1930–45), Buddhist thinkers
called for uniting Asia in one great “Buddhaland” under the tutelage of
Japan. After World War II, however, Buddhist groups, new and old alike,
emphasized that Buddhism is a religion of peace and brotherhood. During
the postwar period Buddhists were most active as members of the “new
religions,” such as Sōka-gakkai (“Value Creation Society”) and
Risshō-Kōsei-kai (“Society for Establishing Righteousness and Friendly
Relations”). During this period Sōka-gakkai entered politics with the
same vigour it had traditionally shown in the conversion of individuals.
Because of its highly ambiguous but conservative ideology, the
Sōka-gakkai-based political party (the Kōmeitō) was regarded with
suspicion and fear by many Japanese.
Historical Development » Tibet, Mongolia, and the Himalayan Kingdoms »
Tibet
Buddhism, according to Tibetan tradition, was introduced into Tibet
during the reign of King Srong-brtsan-sgam-po (c. 627–c. 650). His two
queens were early patrons of the religion and were later regarded in
popular tradition as incarnations of the Buddhist saviouress Tara. The
religion received active encouragement from Khri-srong-lde-btsan, in
whose reign (c. 755–797) the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet was built
at Bsam-yas (Samye), the first seven monks were ordained, and the
celebrated Tantric master Padmasambhava was invited to come from India.
Many legends surround Padmasambhava, who was a mahasiddha (“master of
miraculous powers”); he is credited with subduing the Bon spirits and
demons (the spirits and demons associated with the indigenous religion
of Tibet) and with subjugating them to the service of Buddhism. At the
time, Chinese Buddhist influences were strong, but it is recorded that a
council held at the Bsam-yas monastery (792–794) decided that the Indian
tradition should prevail.
Following a period of suppression that lasted almost two centuries
(from the early 800s to the early 1000s), Buddhism in Tibet enjoyed a
revival. During the 11th and 12th centuries, many Tibetans traveled to
India to acquire and translate Buddhist texts and to receive training in
Buddhist belief and practice. With the assistance of the renowned Indian
master Atisa, who arrived in Tibet in 1042, Buddhism was established as
the dominant religion. From this point forward Buddhism penetrated
deeply into all aspects of Tibetan life, and it became the primary
culture of the elite and a powerful force in affairs of state. One of
the great achievements of the Buddhist community in Tibet was the
translation into Tibetan of a vast corpus of Buddhist literature,
including the Bka’-’gyur (“Translation of the Buddha Word”) and
Bstan-’gyur (“Translation of Teachings”) collections. The Bka’-’gyur
contains six sections: (1) Tantra, (2) Prajnaparamita, (3) Ratnakuta, a
collection of small Mahayana texts, (4) Avatamsaka, (5) Sutras (mostly
Mahayana sutras, but some Hinayana texts are included), and (6) Vinaya.
The Bstan-’gyur contains 224 volumes with 3,626 texts, divided into
three major groups: (1) stotras (hymns of praise) in one volume,
including 64 texts, (2) commentaries on tantras in 86 volumes, including
3,055 texts, and (3) commentaries on sutras in 137 volumes, including
567 texts.
A major development in the history of Tibetan Buddhism occurred in
the late 14th or early 15th century, when a great Buddhist reformer
named Tsong-kha-pa established the Dge-lugs-pa school, known more
popularly as the Yellow Hats. In 1578 representatives of this school
converted the Mongol Altan Khan, and under the Khan’s sponsorship their
leader (the so-called third Dalai Lama) gained considerable monastic
power. In the middle of the 17th century, the Mongol overlords
established the fifth Dalai Lama as the theocratic ruler of Tibet. The
succeeding Dalai Lamas, who were regarded as successive incarnations of
the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, held this position during much of the
remainder of the premodern period, ruling from the capital, Lhasa.
The fifth Dalai Lama instituted the high office of Panchen Lama for
the abbot of the Tashilhunpo monastery, located to the west of Lhasa.
The Panchen Lamas were regarded as successive incarnations of the buddha
Amitabha. Unlike the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama has usually been
recognized only as a spiritual ruler.
Throughout much of Tibetan history, many of the great monasteries
were controlled by aristocratic abbots who were able to marry and pass
along their monastic possessions to their sons. Monks were often
warriors, and monasteries became armed fortresses. The Manchus in the
18th century and subsequently the British, the nationalist Chinese, and
the Chinese communists have all tried to exploit the division of power
between the Panchen and the Dalai lamas for their own ends. In 1959,
after the Dalai Lama fled to India, the Chinese communists took over his
temporal powers.
In the period since 1959, Tibetan refugees have set up a major centre
in Dharmsala in northern India and have been dispersed to many different
places, including India, Europe, Canada, and the United States. These
exiles have made great efforts to preserve as much of their Buddhist
tradition as possible and to spread Tibetan Buddhist teachings in the
lands where they have settled.
In their own country Tibetan Buddhists have suffered periods of
destructive attacks and severe persecution, especially but not
exclusively during the Cultural Revolution. In the late 20th century,
repression by Chinese authorities lessened somewhat, and a sense of
normalcy was restored. Nevertheless, many Tibetan Buddhists remained
strongly nationalistic, and their relationship with China continued to
be very tense.
Historical Development » Tibet, Mongolia, and the Himalayan Kingdoms »
Mongolia
Tibetan Buddhism has exerted a strong influence on neighbouring areas
and peoples. Most important in this regard was the conversion of the
Mongol tribes to the north and east of Tibet. There are some indications
that Buddhism was present among the Mongols as early as the 4th century,
but sources for this early period are scarce. It is clear, however, that
during the 13th century close relationships developed between the Mongol
court in China and some Tibetan Buddhist leaders. Kublai Khan became a
supporter of Tibetan Buddhism. Kublai Khan’s Tibetan advisers helped to
develop a block script for the Mongolian language, and many Buddhist
texts were translated from Tibetan into Mongolian. In general, however,
the religion failed to gain widespread popular support during this
period.
In 1578 a new situation developed when the Altan Khan accepted the
Dge-lugs-pa version of the Tibetan tradition and supported its spread
among his followers at all levels of Mongol society. Over the centuries
the Mongols developed their own very rich Buddhist traditions. Mongolian
scholars translated a large corpus of texts from Tibetan, and they
produced their own sophisticated original texts. The Mongols based their
Buddhist doctrine, practice, and communal organization on Tibetan
models, but they developed and adapted them in distinctive ways.
Between 1280 and 1368 China was part of the Mongol empire, and the
Mongols established their variant of Tibetan Buddhism in China. When
they no longer held power in China, they preserved their Buddhist
traditions in their homeland areas. During much of the 20th century,
Mongolian Buddhism was severely undermined by the communist regimes that
ruled in Mongol areas in the Soviet Union, in Mongolia itself, and in
China. In the late 20th century, pressures against the Buddhist Mongol
communities eased, and in some places a resurgence of Buddhist
institutions and practices had begun.
Historical Development » Tibet, Mongolia, and the Himalayan Kingdoms »
The Himalayan kingdoms
Tibetan Buddhism has exerted a considerable influence in the Himalayan
areas situated along Tibet’s southern border. In Nepal, Buddhism
interacted with both India and Tibet. Although there is evidence that
suggests that the Buddha was born in the southern part of the area that
is now Nepal—at Lumbini, about 15 miles (24 km) from Kapilavatthu
(Kapilavastu)—Buddhism seems to have been actively propagated only
later, probably under Asoka. By the 8th century Nepal had fallen into
the cultural orbit of Tibet. A few centuries later, as a result of the
Muslim invasions of India, both Hindus (such as the Brahmanic Gurkha
aristocracy) and Buddhists took refuge in the country. The Tibetan
influence on the Himalayan tradition is indicated by the presence of
Tibetan-style prayer wheels and flags. The Indian heritage is especially
evident in the caste system that embraces Buddhists and non-Buddhists
alike. In the late 20th century, a significant Theravada reform movement
took root among the Newari population. The adherents of this movement,
who have important connections with Theravada practitioners in Myanmar
and Sri Lanka, oppose the maintenance of traditional caste distinctions.
In Bhutan a Tibetan lama introduced Buddhism and a Tibetan style of
hierarchical theocracy in the 17th century. Buddhism practiced in Bhutan
has been influenced by the Tibetan Bka’-brgyud-pa sect, which has
stressed the magical benefits of living in caves and has not enforced on
its clergy the discipline of celibacy. Buddhism in Bhutan, like Buddhism
in Nepal, is coming into increasing contact with modernizing forces that
are beginning to undermine many of its traditional practices.
Historical Development » Buddhism in the West
During the long course of Buddhist history, Buddhist influences have
from time to time reached the Western world. Although the evidence is
weak, some scholars have suggested that Buddhist monks and teachings had
reached as far as Egypt by about the beginning of the Common Era. There
are occasional references to what seem to be Buddhist traditions in the
writing of the Christian Church Fathers. In addition, a version of the
biography of the Buddha known as the story of Barlaam and Josephat was
disseminated widely in medieval Europe. In fact, the Buddha figure in
the story came to be recognized as a Christian saint.
Not until the modern period, however, is there evidence of a serious
Buddhist presence in the Western world. Beginning in the mid-19th
century, Buddhism was introduced into the United States and other
Western countries by large numbers of immigrants, first from China and
Japan and later from other countries, especially those of Southeast
Asia. In addition, Buddhism gained a foothold among a significant number
of Western intellectuals and—particularly during the 1960s and early
’70s—among young people seeking new forms of religious experience and
expression. The interest of Westerners in Buddhism was greatly fostered
by the work of Buddhist missionaries such as the Japanese scholar D.T.
Suzuki (1870–1966) and a number of Tibetan Buddhist teachers who moved
to the West following the Chinese conquest of their homeland in 1959.
Historical Development » Sangha, society, and state
Buddhists have always recognized the importance of community life, and
over the centuries there has developed a distinctive symbiotic
relationship between monks (and in some cases nuns) and the lay
community. The relationship between the monastics and the laity has
differed from place to place and from time to time, but throughout most
of Buddhist history both groups have played an essential role in the
process of constituting and reconstituting the Buddhist world. Moreover,
both the monastics and the laity have engaged in a variety of common and
complementary religious practices that have expressed Buddhist
orientations and values, structured Buddhist societies, and addressed
the soteriological and practical concerns of individuals.
Historical Development » Sangha, society, and state » Monastic
institutions
The sangha is the assembly of Buddhist monks (and in some contexts nuns)
that has, from the origins of Buddhism, authoritatively studied, taught,
and preserved the teachings of the Buddha. In their communities
monastics have been responsible for providing an example of the ideal
mode of Buddhist life, for teaching Buddhist principles and practices to
the laity, for generating and participating in basic ritual activities,
for offering “fields of merit” that enable lay members of the community
to improve their spiritual condition, for providing protection against
evil forces (particularly though not exclusively supernatural forces),
and for maintaining a variety of other services that have varied over
time and place. In exchange for their contributions, the monastics have
received veneration and support from the laity, who thereby earn merit,
advance their own well-being, and contribute to the well-being of others
(including, in many cases, the ancestors of the living).
Besides serving as the centre of Buddhist learning, meditation,
ritual activity, and teaching, the monastery offers the monk or nun an
opportunity to live apart from worldly concerns, a situation that has
usually been believed necessary or at least advisable in order to follow
the path that leads most directly to release.
Historical Development » Sangha, society, and state » Sanghas
According to scholars of early Buddhism, at the time of the Buddha there
were numerous mendicants in northeastern India who wandered and begged
individually or in groups. They had forsaken the life of a householder
and the involvement with worldly affairs that this entails in order to
seek a pattern of belief and practice that would meaningfully explain
life and offer salvation. When such a seeker met someone who seemed to
offer such a salvific message, he would accept him as a teacher (guru)
and wander with him. The situation of these mendicants is summed up in
the greeting with which they met other religious wanderers. This
greeting asked, “Under whose guidance have you accepted religious
mendicancy? Who is your master (sattha)? Whose dhamma is agreeable to
you?”
According to early Buddhist texts, the Buddha established an order of
male monastics early on in his ministry and outlined the rules and
procedures for governing their common life. These texts also report that
later in his career he reluctantly agreed to a proposal made by his aunt
Mahapajapati and supported by his favourite disciple, Ananda, to
establish an order of nuns. The Buddha then set down rules and
procedures for the order of the nuns and for the relationship between
the order of nuns and the order of monks. (In the discussion that
follows, the emphasis will be on the order of monks.)
The various mendicant groups interrupted their wanderings during the
rainy season (vassa) from July through August. At this time they
gathered at various rain retreats (vassavasa), usually situated near
villages, where they would beg for their daily needs and continue their
spiritual quest. The Buddha and his followers may well have been the
first group to found such a yearly rain retreat.
After the Buddha’s death his followers did not separate but continued
to wander and enjoy the rain retreat together. In their retreats the
Buddha’s followers probably built their own huts and lived separately,
but their sense of community with other Buddhists led them to gather at
the time of the full and new moons to recite the patimokkha, a
declaration of their steadfastness in observing the monastic discipline.
This occasion, in which the laity also participated, was called the
uposatha.
Within several centuries of the Buddha’s death, the sangha came to
include two different monastic groups. One group, which retained the
wandering mode of existence, has been a very creative force in Buddhist
history and continues to play a role in contemporary Buddhism,
particularly in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. The other, much larger
group gave up the forest life and settled in permanent monastic
settlements (viharas); it is the earliest truly cenobitic monastic group
about which any knowledge exists.
There appear to be two major reasons for the change in the mode of
living of most Buddhist monks. First, the Buddha’s followers were able,
through their common loyalty to the Buddha and his teachings, to build
up a certain coherent organization. Second, as acts of piety, the laity
gave gifts of land and raised buildings in which the followers of the
Buddha might live permanently, assured of a supply of the staples of
life and also able to fulfill the Buddha’s directive to minister to the
laity. In this manner small viharas were established in northeastern
India and adjoining areas into which Buddhism spread.
Already in the period prior to the reign of King Asoka, the Buddhist
monastic community had become a strong, widely dispersed religious
force. The support of Asoka encouraged further expansion, and in the
post-Asokan period the number, wealth, and influence of the monasteries
increased. As Buddhism continued to develop, many kinds of monastic
centres were established throughout India, several of which received
lavish support from royal courts or from wealthy merchants, who were
among the strongest supporters of Buddhism. Among the most interesting
centres were the magnificent cave monasteries—for example, at Ajanta and
Ellora—which contain some of the greatest examples not only of Buddhist
art but of Indian art more generally. Perhaps the most influential
monasteries were the great university-like mahaviharas that developed
somewhat later in northeastern India.
In all Buddhist countries monasteries served as centres of teaching,
learning, and outreach. Different types of monastic establishments
developed in particular areas and in particular contexts. In several
regions there were at least two types of institutions. There were a few
large public monasteries that usually functioned in greater or lesser
accord with classical Buddhist norms. There were also many smaller
monasteries, often located in rural areas, that were much more loosely
regulated. Often these were hereditary institutions in which the rights
and privileges of the abbot were passed on to an adopted disciple. In
areas where clerical marriage was practiced—for example, in medieval Sri
Lanka, in certain Tibetan areas, and in post-Heian Japan—a tradition of
blood inheritance developed.
Historical Development » Sangha, society, and state » Internal
organization of the sangha
The transformation of the sangha from a group of wandering mendicants,
loosely bound together by their commitment to the Buddha and his
teachings, to monks living closely together in a permanent monastery
necessitated the development of rules and a degree of hierarchical
organization. It appears that the earliest organization within Indian
monasteries was democratic in nature. This democratic character arose
from two important historical factors. First, the Buddha did not, as was
the custom among the teachers of his time, designate a human successor.
Instead, the Buddha taught that each monk should strive to follow the
path that he had preached. This decision placed every monk on the same
footing. There could be no absolute authority vested in one person, for
the authority was the dhamma that the Buddha had taught. Second, the
region in which Buddhism arose was noted for a system of tribal
democracy, or republicanism, that had existed in the past and was
preserved by some groups during the Buddha’s lifetime. Within this
tradition each polity had an elected assembly that decided important
issues.
This tradition, which was consonant with the antiauthoritarian nature
of the Buddha’s teaching, was adopted by the early sangha. When an issue
arose, all the monks of the monastery assembled. The issue was put
before the body of monks and discussed. If any solution was forthcoming,
it had to be read three times, with silence signifying acceptance. If
there was debate, a vote might be taken or the issue referred to
committee or to arbitration by the elders of a neighbouring monastery.
As the sangha developed, a certain division of labour and hierarchical
administration was adopted. The abbot became the head of this
administrative hierarchy and was vested with power over monastic
affairs. In many countries there developed state-controlled hierarchies,
which enabled kings and other political authorities to exert a
significant amount of control over the monks and their activities.
The antiauthoritarian character of Buddhism, however, continued to
assert itself. In China, for instance, the abbot referred all important
questions to the assembled monks, who had elected him their leader.
Similarly, in Southeast Asian countries there has traditionally been a
popular distaste for hierarchy, which makes it difficult to enforce
rules in the numerous almost-independent monasteries.
As the Buddhist sangha developed, specific rules and rites were
enacted that differ very little in Buddhist monasteries even today. The
rules by which the monks are judged and the punishments that should be
assessed are found in the vinaya texts (vinaya literally means “that
which leads”). The Vinaya Pitaka of the Theravada canon contains
precepts that were supposedly given by the Buddha as he judged a
particular situation. While in many cases the Buddha’s authorship may be
doubted, the attempt is made to refer all authority to the Buddha and
not to one of his disciples. The heart of the vinaya texts is the
patimokkha, which became a list of monastic rules.
Ideally, the patimokkha is recited by the assembled monks every
fortnight, with a pause after each one so that any monk who has
transgressed this rule may confess and receive his punishment. While the
number of rules in the patimokkha differs in the various schools, with
227, 250, and 253, respectively, in the Pali, Chinese, and Tibetan
canons, the rules are essentially the same. The first part of the
patimokkha deals with the four gravest sins, which necessarily lead to
expulsion from the monastery. They are sexual intercourse, theft,
murder, and exaggeration of one’s miraculous powers. The other rules, in
seven sections, deal with transgressions of a lesser nature, such as
drinking or lying.
In the Theravada countries—Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia,
and Laos—the Buddhist monastic community is composed primarily of male
monks and novices (the order of nuns died out in the Theravada world
more than a millennium ago, and contemporary efforts to reestablish it
have met with only minimal success), white-robed ascetics (including
various types of male and female practitioners who remain outside the
sangha but follow a more or less renunciatory mode of life), and laymen
and laywomen. In some Theravada countries, notably in mainland Southeast
Asia, boys or young men were traditionally expected to join the
monastery for a period of instruction and meditation. Thus, the majority
of men in these areas were (and to a lesser extent still are, especially
in Myanmar) directly involved with the monastic ethos. This practice has
fostered a high degree of lay participation in monastic affairs.
In the Mahayana and Vajrayana countries of China and Tibet, there was
traditionally a stage of one year before the aspirant could become a
novice. This was a year of probation, during which the aspirant did not
receive tonsure and remained subject to governmental taxation and
service while receiving instructions and performing menial tasks within
the monastery. At the end of this period, the aspirant had to pass a
test, which included the recitation of part of a well-known sutra—the
length depending upon whether the applicant was male or female—and a
discussion of various doctrinal questions. In China usually only those
who were of exceptional character or who were affiliated with the
government progressed beyond the novice stage.
According to vinaya rules, entry into the sangha is an individual
affair that depends on the wishes of the individual and his family. In
some Buddhist countries, however, ordination was often under the control
of the state, which conducted the examinations to determine entry or
advancement in the sangha. In certain situations ordination could be
obtained through the favour of high officials or through the purchase of
an ordination certificate from the government. At times the government
engaged in the selling of ordination certificates in order to fill its
treasury.
The life of a Buddhist monk originally involved wandering, poverty,
begging, and strict sexual abstinence. The monks were supposed to live
only on alms, to wear clothes made from cloth taken from rubbish heaps,
and to possess only three robes, one girdle, an alms bowl, a razor, a
needle, and a water strainer for filtering insects from drinking water
(so as not to kill or imbibe them). Most Buddhist schools still stress
celibacy, though some groups, particularly in Tibet and Japan, have
relaxed the monastic discipline, and some Vajrayana schools have allowed
sexual intercourse as an esoteric ritual that contributes to the
attainment of release. In all schools, however, begging has become
merely a symbolic gesture used to teach humility or compassion or to
raise funds for special purposes. Also, the growth of large monasteries
has often led to compromises on the rule of poverty. While the monk
might technically give up his property before entering the
monastery—though even this rule is sometimes relaxed—the community of
monks might inherit wealth and receive lavish gifts of land. The
acquisition of wealth has often led to the attainment of temporal power.
This factor, in addition to the self-governing nature of Buddhist
monasteries and the early Buddhist connection with Indian kingship, has
influenced the interaction of the sangha and the state.
Historical Development » Sangha, society, and state » Society and state
Buddhism is sometimes inaccurately described as a purely monastic,
otherworldly religion. In the earliest phases of the tradition, the
Buddha was pictured as a teacher who addressed not only renouncers but
lay householders. Moreover, although he is not depicted in the early
texts as a social reformer, the Buddha does address issues of social
order and responsibility. Perhaps the most famous early text on this
topic is the Sigalovada Sutta, which has been called the “householder’s
vinaya.”
Throughout their history Buddhists have put forth varying forms of
social ethics based on notions of karmic justice (the “law” that good
deeds will be rewarded with happy results while evil deeds will entail
suffering for the one who does them); the cultivation of virtues such as
self-giving, compassion, and evenhandedness; and the fulfillment of
responsibilities to parents, teachers, rulers, and so on. Moreover,
Buddhists have formulated various notions of cosmogony, cosmology, and
soteriology that have provided legitimacy for the social hierarchies and
political orders with which they have been associated. For the most
part, Buddhism has played a conservative, moderating role in the social
and political organization of various Asian societies, but the tradition
has also given rise to more radical and revolutionary movements.
Over the course of Buddhism’s long history, the relationship between
the Buddhist community and state authority has taken many forms. The
early Buddhist sangha in India appears to have been treated by Indian
rulers as a self-governing unit not subject to their power unless it
proved subversive or was threatened by internal or external disruption.
Asoka, the king whose personal interest in Buddhism contributed to the
religion’s dramatic growth, appears to have been applying this policy of
protection from disruption when he intervened in Buddhist monastic
affairs to expel schismatics. He came to be remembered, however, as the
Dharmaraja, the great king who protected and propagated the teachings of
the Buddha.
In Theravada countries Asoka’s image as a supporter and sponsor of
the faith has traditionally been used to judge political authority. In
general, Buddhism in Theravada countries has been either heavily
favoured or officially recognized by the government. The sangha’s role
in this interaction, at least ideally, has been to preserve the dhamma
and to act as spiritual guide and model, revealing to the secular power
the need for furthering the welfare of the people. While the sangha and
the government are two separate structures, there has been some
intertwining; monks (often from elite families) have commonly acted as
governmental advisers, and kings—at least in Thailand—have occasionally
spent some time in the monastery. Moreover, Buddhist monastic
institutions have often served as a link between the rural peoples and
the urban elites, helping to unify the various Theravada countries.
In China, Buddhism has been seen as a foreign religion, as a
potential competitor with the state, and as a drain on national
resources of men and wealth. These perceptions have led to sharp
persecutions of Buddhism and to rules curbing its influence. Some of the
rules attempted to limit the number of monks and to guarantee
governmental influence in ordination through state examinations and the
granting of ordination certificates. At other times, such as during the
early centuries of the Tang dynasty (618–907), Buddhism was virtually a
state religion. The government created a commissioner of religion to
earn merit for the state by erecting temples, monasteries, and images in
honour of the Buddha.
In Japan, Buddhism experienced similar fluctuations. From the 10th to
the 13th century, monasteries gained great landed wealth and temporal
power. They formed large armies of monks and mercenaries that took part
in wars with rival religious groups and in struggles for temporal power.
By the 14th century, however, their power had begun to wane. Under the
Tokugawa regime in the 17th century, Buddhist institutions were
virtually instruments of state power and administration.
Only in Tibet did Buddhists establish a theocratic polity that lasted
for an extended period of time. Beginning in the 12th century, Tibetan
monastic groups forged relationships with the powerful Mongol khans that
often gave them control of governmental affairs. In the 17th century the
Dge-lugs-pa school, working with the Mongols, established a monastic
regime that was able to maintain almost continual control until the
Chinese occupation in the 1950s.
During the premodern period the various Buddhist communities in Asia
developed working relationships of one kind or another with the
sociopolitical systems in their particular areas. As a result of Western
colonial incursions, and especially after the establishment of new
political ideologies and political systems during the 19th and 20th
centuries, these older patterns of accommodation between Buddhism and
state authority were seriously disrupted. In many cases bitter conflicts
resulted—for example, between Buddhists and colonial regimes in Sri
Lanka and Myanmar, between Buddhists and the Meiji reformers in Japan,
and between Buddhists and many different communist regimes. In some
cases, as in Japan, these conflicts were resolved and new modes of
accommodation established. In other cases, as in Tibet, strong tensions
remained.
The major systems and their literature » Theravada (Sanskrit:
Sthaviravada)
Theravada (Pali: “Way of the Elders”) emerged as one of the Hinayana
(Sanskrit: “Lesser Vehicle”) schools, traditionally numbered at 18, of
early Buddhism. The Theravadins trace their lineage to the Sthaviravada
school, one of two major schools (the Mahasanghika was the other) that
supposedly formed in the wake of the Council of Vaishali (now in Bihar
state) held some 100 years after the Buddha’s death. Employing Pali as
their sacred language, the Theravadins preserved their version of the
Buddha’s teaching in the Tipitika (“Three Baskets”).
During the reign of the emperor Asoka (3rd century bce), the
Theravada school was established in Sri Lanka, where it subsequently
divided into three subgroups, known after their respective monastic
centres. The cosmopolitan Abhayagiriviharavasi maintained open relations
with Mahayana and later Vajrayana monks and welcomed new ideas from
India. The Mahaviharavasi—with whom the third group, the
Jetavanaviharavasi, was loosely associated—established the first
monastery in Sri Lanka and preserved intact the original Theravadin
teachings.
The Mahavihara (“Great Monastery”) school became dominant in Sri
Lanka at the beginning of the 2nd millennium ce and gradually spread
through mainland Southeast Asia. It was established in Myanmar in the
late 11th century, in Thailand in the 13th and early 14th centuries, and
in Cambodia and Laos by the end of the 14th century. Although Mahavihara
never completely replaced other schools in Southeast Asia, it received
special favour at most royal courts and, as a result of the support it
received from local elites, exerted a very strong religious and social
influence.
The major systems and their literature » Theravada (Sanskrit:
Sthaviravada) » Beliefs, doctrines, and practices » Cosmology
Like other Buddhists, Theravadins believe that the number of cosmos is
infinite. Moreover, they share the near-universal Buddhist view that the
cosmos inhabited by humankind, like all cosmos, has three planes of
existence: the realm of desire (Pali and Sanskrit: kama-loka), the
lowest of the planes; the realm of material form (Pali and Sanskrit:
rupa-loka), which is associated with meditational states in which
sensuous desire is reduced to a minimum; and the realm of immateriality
or formlessness (Pali and Sanskrit: arupa-loka), which is associated
with meditational states that are even more exalted.
The three planes are divided into various levels. The realm of desire
is divided into heavens, hells, and the earth. It is inhabited by those
suffering in the various hells—a species of wandering, famished ghosts
(Sanskrit: pretas), animals, hell beings, human beings, gods, and a
sixth group that is not universally acknowledged, the asuras (Sanskrit:
demigods). The entire cosmos is enclosed by a great Chakkavala wall, a
ring of iron mountains that serves as a kind of container for the realm
of desire. Mount Meru, the great cosmic mountain topped by the heaven of
the 33 gods over which Indra (Sakka) presides, is surrounded by a great
ocean where people live on four island continents, each inhabited by a
different type of human being. (The southern continent, loosely
correlated with South—and sometimes Southeast—Asia, is called
Jambudvipa.) The material aspect of the realm of desire is made up of
four elements: earth, water, fire, and air, held together in various
combinations.
In this cosmos, as in all others, time moves in cycles of great
duration involving a period of involution (destruction of the cosmos by
fire, water, air), a period of reformation of the cosmic structure, a
series of cycles of decline and renewal, and, finally, another period of
involution from which the process is initiated once again. Five buddhas
are destined to appear in the cosmos in which humans live, including
Gotama (Sanskrit: Gautama), who is to be the fourth, and Metteyya
(Sanskrit: Maitreya), who is to be the fifth.
Human existence is a privileged state, because only as a human being
can a bodhisattva become a buddha. Moreover, according to Theravada,
human beings can choose to do good works (which will result in a good
rebirth) or bad works (which result in a bad rebirth); above all, they
have the capacity to become perfected saints. All these capacities are
accounted for in terms of a carefully enumerated series of dhammas
(Sanskrit: dharmas), the elements’ impermanent existence. In continual
motion, these changing states appear, age, and disappear.
The major systems and their literature » Theravada (Sanskrit:
Sthaviravada) » Beliefs, doctrines, and practices » Classification of
dhammas
Dhammas are divided and subdivided into many groups. Those that are
essential to psychophysical existence are the 5 components (Sanskrit:
skandhas; Pali: khandhas), the 12 bases (Pali and Sanskrit: ayatanas),
and the 18 sensory elements (Pali and Sanskrit: dhatus). The 5 skandhas
are rupa (Pali and Sanskrit), materiality, or form; vedana, feelings of
pleasure or pain or the absence of either; sanna (Pali), cognitive
perception; sankhara (Pali and Sanskrit), the forces that condition the
psychic activity of an individual; and vinnana (Sanskrit: vijnana),
consciousness. The 12 ayatanas comprise the five sense organs (eyes,
ears, nose, tongue, and body) and the mind (manas), as well as the five
related sense fields (sights, sounds, odours, tastes, and tangibles) and
objects of cognition—that is, objects as they are reflected in mental
perception. The 18 elements, or dhatus, include the five sense organs
and the mano-dhatu (Pali and Sanskrit: “mind element”), their six
correlated objects, and the consciousnesses (Pali: vinnana) of the sense
organs and manas.
The Theravada system of dhammas (Pali) is not only an analysis of
empirical reality but a delineation of the psychosomatic components of
the human personality. Moreover, Theravadins believe that an awareness
of the interrelation and operation of these components, as well as the
ability to manipulate them, is necessary for an individual to attain the
exalted state of an arhat (Pali: arahant, “worthy one”). Through the
classification of dhammas, a person is defined as an aggregate of many
interrelated elements governed by the law of karma—thus destined to
suffer good or bad consequences. All of this presupposes that there is
no eternal metaphysical entity such as an “I,” or atman (Pali: attan),
but that there is a psychosomatic aggregate situated in time. This
aggregate has freedom of choice and can perform acts that may generate
consequences.
Such classifications are not purely doctrinal but also are intended
to guide those who seek to follow the Buddha’s teachings and to overcome
the cycle of rebirths. Further guidance is found in the seven factors of
enlightenment: clear memory, energy, sympathy, tranquility,
impartiality, the exact investigation of the nature of things, and a
disposition for concentration. Moreover, “four sublime states”—love for
all living creatures, compassion, delight in that which is good or well
done, and, again, impartiality—provide the necessary preconditions for
liberation from karma and samsara (the perpetual cycle of death and
rebirth).
The major systems and their literature » Theravada (Sanskrit:
Sthaviravada) » Beliefs, doctrines, and practices » Meditation
Two basic forms of meditation (Pali: jhana; Sanskrit: dhyana) have been
practiced in the Theravada tradition. Closely related to a Hindu
tradition of yoga, the first of these involves a process of moral and
intellectual purification. Initially, the Theravadin meditator seeks to
achieve detachment from sensual desires and impure states of mind
through reflection and to enter a state of satisfaction and joy. In the
second stage of this form of meditation, intellectual activity gives way
to a complete inner serenity; the mind is in a state of
“one-pointedness” (concentration), joy, and pleasantness. In the third
stage, every emotion, including joy, has disappeared, and the meditator
is left indifferent to everything. In the fourth stage, satisfaction,
any inclination to a good or bad state of mind, pain, and serenity are
left behind, and the meditator enters a state of supreme purity,
indifference, and pure consciousness.
According to Theravada belief, at this point the meditator begins
pursuit of the samapattis (or the higher jhanic attainments). Beyond all
awareness of form, withdrawn from the influence of perception,
especially the perception of plurality, the meditator concentrates on
and reposes in infinite space. Transcending this stage, the meditator
focuses on the limitlessness of consciousness and attains it. Proceeding
still further by concentrating on the nonexistence of everything, the
mediator achieves a state of nothingness. Finally, the meditator reaches
the highest level of attainment, in which there is neither perception
nor nonperception.
The second form of Theravada meditation is called vipassana (Pali:
“inner vision” or “insight meditation”). This practice requires intense
concentration, which is thought to lead to a one-pointedness of mind
that allows the meditator to gain insight into the saving truth that all
reality is impermanent, permeated by suffering, and devoid of self. This
insight, from the Buddhist perspective, allows the meditator to progress
toward the attainment of nirvana itself.
In Theravada texts both jhanic and vipassana forms of meditation are
recommended and are often combined in various ways. In the 20th century,
there was an increasing emphasis on vipassana practices, and vipassana
meditation movements became extremely important in Asia and among
Buddhist groups in the West.
The major systems and their literature » Theravada (Sanskrit:
Sthaviravada) » Beliefs, doctrines, and practices » The stages leading
to arhatship
Theravadins maintain that the ideal Buddhist is the “one who is worthy”
(Sanskrit: arhat; Pali: arahant), the perfected person who attains
nirvana through his own efforts. Although the Theravadin arhat “takes
refuge in the Buddha,” his focus is on the practice of the Buddha’s
dhamma (Pali).
According to the Theravadins, true insight is achieved by passing
through four stages. The first stage is that of the “stream winner” or
“stream enterer,” the individual who has seen the truth, has experienced
the first real intimations of nirvana, and will undergo no more than
seven additional rebirths. Next is the stage of the “once-returner,” who
will endure no more than one additional rebirth before achieving
nirvana. The third stage is that of the “nonreturner,” who will achieve
release in the present life or, at the very least, before another
rebirth occurs. One who has reached this stage has broken free from the
lower bonds of doubt, belief in a permanent self, faith in the results
generated by rituals, sensual passion, and malice. The fourth and final
stage is that of the arhat, who has attained complete freedom. The arhat
is free from the bonds of ignorance, excitability, ambition, and the
desire for existence in either the formed or formless worlds.
The major systems and their literature » Theravada (Sanskrit:
Sthaviravada) » Beliefs, doctrines, and practices » The Buddha
The state of the Buddha, the perfectly Enlightened One, is nirvana
(Pali: nibbana). Beyond death—neither caused, born, nor produced—nirvana
transcends all becoming and is devoid of all that makes up a human
being. Three kinds of nirvana are particularly associated with
Buddhahood. The first, the nibbana of the kilesas (Pali: “defilements”),
is achieved by the Buddha when he attains enlightenment and leaves
behind all defilements. The second kind, the nibbana of the khandas
(Pali: “aggregate”), is achieved when the Buddha “dies” and leaves
behind the aggregates that have constituted his identity as a person.
Finally, at the time when the Buddha’s religion becomes extinct, his
relics return to Bodh Gaya (the place of his enlightenment) or, in some
texts, to Anarudhapura (the ancient capital of Sri Lanka), where they
will reassemble into the body of the Buddha, who then preaches one last
sermon before completely disappearing. At this point the Buddha attains
his final nibbana, the dhatu (Pali) or relic nibbana.
The Buddha has been given many other names, the most common of which
are Arahant and Tathagata (“He Who Has Thus Attained”). According to
Theravada scriptures, previous buddhas (mostly those who met Gotama in
one of his past lives) are recognized by name, and there is a single
mention of the future buddha Metteyya (Sanskrit: Maitreya). The
Theravadins came to believe that Metteyya is presently in the Tusita
heaven and will come into the world in the distant future to reestablish
the religion.
The major systems and their literature » Theravada (Sanskrit:
Sthaviravada) » The Pali canon (Tipitaka)
The earliest systematic and most complete collection of early Buddhist
sacred literature is the Pali Tipitaka (“Three Baskets”; Sanskrit:
Tripitaka). Its arrangement reflects the importance that the early
followers attached to the monastic life (Pali and Sanskrit: Vinaya), to
the discourses of the Buddha (Pali: Sutta), and subsequently to the
interest in scholasticism (Pali: Abhidhamma).
The Pali Vinaya Pitaka (“Basket of Discipline”) is still in theory
the rule in Theravada monasteries, even though some sections have fallen
into disuse. It is divided into five major parts grouped into three
divisions—Sutta-vibhanga (“Division of Rules”), Khandhakas (“Sections”),
and Parivara (“Accessory”).
The largest of the three “baskets” is the Sutta Pitaka (“Basket of
Discourse”), which consists of five collections (Pali and Sanskrit:
nikayas) of the Buddha’s discourses. From a literary viewpoint, many of
the discourses can appear to be drawn out and repetitive; however, they
are characterized by sublimity of thought and employ rich, beautiful
illustrative similes.
The third “basket,” the Abhidhamma Pitaka (“Basket of Special
(Further) Doctrine”), comprises seven works. Although based on the
contents of the Buddha’s discourses, they deal with topics that were
central to Theravada scholastic thought. The Pali version is a strictly
Theravada collection and has little in common with the Abhidhamma works
recognized by other Buddhist schools.
The major systems and their literature » Theravada (Sanskrit:
Sthaviravada) » Early noncanonical texts in Pali
The noncanonical literature of Theravada Buddhism consists, to a large
extent, of commentaries on the Tipitaka texts but also includes other
works. Prominent among the exponents of Buddhism who attempted to
harmonize its apparently conflicting teachings and grasp the inner
meaning of its doctrine were Nagasena, Buddhaghosa, Buddhadatta, and
Dhammapala.
The Milinda-panha (“Questions of King Menander”), traditionally
attributed to Nagasena, is one of the great achievements of Indian prose
and was probably written at the time of Menander (160–35 bce) or shortly
after. The author begins with an account of his own past lives and those
of King Menander because events in those lives will cause the two to
meet again in this life. Menander, a well-informed scholar and keen
debater, is disheartened when no one is able to resolve problems he
raises regarding Buddhist teachings. Impressed by the serenity of the
monk Nagasena, the king visits him in his monastery. Their conversation
at the monastery and later at the king’s palace is the subject matter of
the Milinda-panha, which presents a profound and comprehensive
exposition of Buddhist doctrine, ethics, and psychology. This work, like
several other noncanonical texts, contains a chariot analogy: although
the parts of a chariot put together in a specific way constitute the
chariot, there is no chariot as such over and above its parts;
similarly, the various components of an individual human being make up
the individual, but there is no entity that actually holds the
components together.
Buddhaghosa (flourished early 5th century ce) is undoubtedly the most
prolific and important writer in the Pali language. There is little
agreement about his birthplace, but it is known that he stayed at Bodh
Gaya, in eastern India, for a long time. There he most likely met
Sinhalese monks, because the vihara (Pali and Sanskrit: monastery) at
Bodh Gaya had been built with the permission of Emperor Samudra Gupta
(c. 330–380 ce) for Sinhalese pilgrims. Relocating to Sri Lanka,
Buddhaghosa stayed at the Mahavihara (“Great Monastery”) in
Anuradhapura, which possessed a rich collection of commentarial
literature, most likely in Old Sinhalese. Buddhaghosa’s first work
probably was the Visuddhimagga (Pali: “The Path of Purification”), a
greatly revered compendium of Theravada teaching. He also wrote
commentaries on the Vinaya (Pali), the first four nikayas (Pali and
Sanskrit), and the seven books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, though the
exact chronology of their composition cannot be determined.
Although a number of other works traditionally have been attributed
to Buddhaghosa—including the Suttanipata (Pali: “Group of Suttas”), the
Khuddaka-patha (Pali: “Collection on Little Readings”), the Dhammapada
(Pali: “Verses on the Dhamma”), and the Jatakas (Pali and Sanskrit:
“Births”)—modern scholarship indicates that he was not their author. The
introduction to commentary on the Jatakas includes the most famous
“biography” of the Buddha in Pali; it begins with the hero’s vow, made
in a previous life, to become a buddha and concludes with his purported
stay at the Jetavana monastery, where he told the 547 stories that
follow. These stories, ranging from very brief narratives to full-scale
romances, recount events in the Buddha’s previous lives (for example,
the story of the Buddha’s last life before his birth as Siddhartha,
during which he perfected the virtue of sacrificial giving). In
countries where the Theravada school is prominent, these narratives and
romances have exerted a tremendous influence on everything from the fine
arts to law.
Buddhadatta, a contemporary of Buddhaghosa, was a native of
Uragapura, near modern Tiruchirappalli, in southern India. Like
Buddhaghosa, he went to Sri Lanka to study at the Mahavihara in
Anuradhapura, and upon his return he wrote his works in a monastery on
the banks of the Kaveri River. His Abhidhammavatara (Pali: “The Coming
of the Abhidhamma”), though a summary of the older works on the
Abhidhamma Pitaka, is one of the most important commentaries on the
“basket.” While Buddhadatta’s ideas were similar to those of
Buddhaghosa, he did not follow Buddhaghosa blindly. Instead, he reduced
Buddhaghosa’s five metaphysical ultimates (form, feeling, sensations,
motivations, and perception) to four (mind, mental events, forms, and
nirvana). This creative classification, similar to that of the
Sarvastivadins (a Buddhist sectarian group that emerged in the mid-3rd
century bce and that affirmed ontological realism), makes Buddhadatta a
philosopher in his own right rather than a commentator who merely
restates matters in new terms.
Dhammapala, who probably came from southern India, is credited with
the writing of numerous commentaries, including the Paramattha dipani
(Pali: “Elucidation of the True Meaning”), a commentary on several books
of the Khuddaka nikaya. In the Paramattha manjusa (Pali: “Jewel Box of
the True Meaning”), a commentary on Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga,
Dhammapala quotes a verse from the Hindu scripture Bhagavadgita and
frequently mentions the views of other schools and teachers. As a
result, this work provides valuable information about intellectual
activity in traditional circles.
At the close of the 4th century ce, an even older work existed in Sri
Lanka. This chronicle of the history of the island from its legendary
beginning onward probably was part of the Maha-atthakatha, the
commentarial literature that formed the basis of the works by
Buddhaghosa and others. The accounts it contains are reflected in the
Dipavamsa (Pali: “History of the Island”), which appears to be a poor
redaction in Pali of an earlier Old Sinhalese version. The Mahavamsa
(Pali: “Great Chronicle”), compiled by Mahanama in the 5th or 6th
century, and its continuation in the Culavamsa (“Little Chronicle”),
compiled from the 13th to the 18th century, show much greater skill in
the use of the Pali language and make liberal use of other material.
These artistic compositions contain rich mythic, legendary, and
historical material. The vamsa tradition continued in Sri Lanka (where
it remains alive) and other countries where the Theravada school was
prominent.
The major systems and their literature » Theravada (Sanskrit:
Sthaviravada) » Later Theravada literature
During and after the “revival” and spread of the Theravada in the early
centuries of the 2nd millennium ce, a new corpus of Theravada literature
came into being. This corpus includes commentaries and other works
written in Pali in Sri Lanka and the Theravada countries of Southeast
Asia, as well as many important texts written in Sinhalese, Burmese,
Thai, Laotian, and Khmer. One of the important Pali texts is the Mangala
dipani, a highly respected commentary on the Mangala sutta that was
written in northern Thailand in the 16th century. Important vernacular
texts include the 14th-century Traibhumikatha (“Three Worlds According
to King Ruang”), which is the oldest-known full-length text written in
Thai, and the Buddhadhamma, a 20th-century work by the Thai monk Prayudh
Payutto.
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana
Mahayana Buddhism is both a system of metaphysics dealing with the basic
structure and principles of reality and, primarily, a theoretical
propaedeutic to the achievement of a desired state. Arising in India in
the 1st century ce, it spread to Central Asia, China, Japan, mainland
Southeast Asia, Java, Sumatra, and even Sri Lanka. Its teachings
involved basic shifts in doctrine and approach, though there were
precedents in earlier schools. It taught that neither the self nor the
dharmas exist. Moreover, for the elite arhat ideal, it substituted the
bodhisattva, one who vows to become a buddha and delays entry into
nirvana to help others. In Mahayana, love for creatures is exalted to
the highest; a bodhisattva is encouraged to offer the merit he derives
from good deeds for the good of others. The tension between morality and
mysticism that agitated India also influenced the Mahayana.
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana » Basic teachings »
The Buddha: divinization and multiplicity
In the Mahayana tradition the Buddha is viewed as a supramundane being.
He multiplies himself and is often reflected in a pentad of
buddhas—Vairocana, Aksobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and
Amoghasiddhi—who reveal various doctrines and elaborate liturgies and
sometimes take the place of Shakyamuni.
As the tradition developed, there emerged new texts that were
considered by Mahayana adherents to be Buddhavacana (“the word or words
of the Buddha”). This new literature went far beyond the ancient canons
and was believed to be the highest revelation, superseding earlier
texts. In this literature the teaching is thought to operate on various
levels, each adapted to the intellectual capacity and karmic
propensities of those who hear it.
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana » Basic teachings »
The bodhisattva ideal
The purpose of the bodhisattva is to achieve enlightenment and to
fulfill the vow to become a buddha. The bodhisattva also foregoes
entrance into nirvana in order to remain in the world as long as there
are creatures to be saved from suffering.
Beginning with the vow to become a buddha, the career of a
bodhisattva, according to some texts, traverses 10 stages or spiritual
levels (bhumi) and achieves purification through the practice of the 10
perfections (paramitas). These levels elevate the bodhisattva to
Buddhahood. The first six levels are preliminary, representing the true
practice of the six perfections (generosity, morality, patience, vigour,
concentration, and wisdom). Even though further purification and
fortification must be achieved in the following stages, irreversibility
occurs as soon as the seventh stage has been reached and the bodhisattva
has assumed the true buddha nature. This is the moment when he engages
in activity aimed at fulfilling the obligations of a bodhisattva. The
difference between this and the preceding six stages is that now the
activity is explained as an innate and spontaneous impulse manifested
with conscious constraint and therefore not subject to doubt. Everything
is now uncreated, ungenerated; thus, the body of the bodhisattva becomes
identified more and more completely with the essential body
(dharma-kaya), with Buddhahood, and with omniscience.
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana » Basic teachings »
The three Buddha bodies
The three bodies (tri-kaya; i.e., modes of being) of the Buddha are
rooted in Hinayana teachings concerning the physical body, the mental
body, and the body of the law. The theory of the three bodies was a
subject of major discussion for the Mahayana, becoming part of the
salvation process and assuming central significance in doctrine. The
emanation body (nirmana-kaya) is the form of the Buddha that appears in
the world to teach people the path to liberation. The enjoyment (or
bliss) body (sambhoga-kaya) is the celestial body of the Buddha to which
contemplation can ascend. In the heavenly regions, or Pure Lands, the
enjoyment body teaches the bodhisattva doctrines that are unintelligible
to those who are unenlightened. The unmanifested body of the law
(dharma-kaya) already appears in the Saddharmapundarika, or Lotus Sutra,
a transitional text of great importance to Mahayana devotional schools.
In many Mahayana texts buddhas are infinite and share an identical
nature—the dharma-kaya.
As anticipated in ancient schools, the Buddha is the law (dharma) and
is identified with an eternal dharma, enlightenment (bodhi), and
nirvana. In later schools real existence is opposed to the mere
appearance of existence, and voidness, the “thingness of things,” an
undefinable condition, present and immutable within the Buddhas, is
stressed. All is in the dharma-kaya, the third body and expression of
ultimate reality; nothing is outside it, just as nothing is outside
space; transcendence and immanence come together. Other schools posit a
presence that is innate within all human beings, even if it is not
perceived. It is like a gem hidden in dross, which shines in its purity
as soon as the veil of ignorance has been removed.
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana » Basic teachings »
New revelations
New revelations are made on earth and in heavenly paradises by
Shakyamuni and other buddhas. The teaching is expounded uninterruptedly
in the universe because worlds and paradises are infinite and all
buddhas are consubstantial with the essential body. They speak to
assemblies of shravakas (disciples), bodhisattvas, gods, and demons. The
authors of the new doctrines revealed their religious enthusiasm in
various highly expressive ways, filling their works with phantasmagoria
of celestial choruses, fabulous visions in which shine flashes of new
speculations, and trains of thought influenced by Indian speculative and
mystical traditions. The texts, from which new trends spring, overflow
with repetitions and modulate the same arguments with a variety of
readings.
Mahayana thinkers faced the daunting challenge of producing a
completely logical arrangement of this prolix literature, some of which
had legendary origins. The Prajnaparamita (“Perfection of Wisdom”) and
the Avatamsaka-sutras (“Flower Ornament Sutra”), for instance, are said
to have been concealed by the nagas, demigods that live in miraculous
palaces in an underground kingdom. There are various Prajnaparamita
texts, ranging from 100,000 verses (the Shatasahasrika) to only a few
lines (the Prajnaparamitahrdaya-sutra, famous in English as the Heart
Sutra). The fundamental assumption of the Prajnaparamita is expounded in
a famous verse: “like light, a mirage, a lamp, an illusion, a drop of
water, a dream, a lightning flash; thus must all compounded things be
considered.” Not only is there no “self,” but all things lack a real
nature (svabhava) of their own. The Prajnaparamita-sutras announce that
the world as it appears to us does not exist, that reality is the
indefinable “thingness of things” (tathata; dharmanam dharmata), that
voidness (shunyata) is an absolute “without signs or characteristics”
(animitta).
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana » The Mahayana schools
and their texts
The Mahayana tradition encompasses a great many different schools,
including the Madhyamika; the Yogacara or Vijnanavada (Vijnaptamatrata);
the Avatamsaka school, which recognized the special importance of the
Avatamsaka Sutra; a number of different schools that recognized the
special authority of the Saddharmapundarika (Lotus Sutra); various Pure
Land devotional schools; and several Dhyana (“Meditation”) schools.
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana » The Mahayana
schools and their texts » Madhyamika (Sanlun/Sanron)
The Madhyamika (“Doctrine of the Middle Way”) system, also known as
Shunyavada (“Theory of Negativity or Relativity”), held both subject and
object to be unreal and systematized the doctrine of shunyata (“cosmic
emptiness”) contained in the Prajnaparamita literature.
Along with his disciple Aryadeva, the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna
(c. 150–250 ce) is recognized as the founder and principal exponent of
the Madhyamika system. Nagarjuna is the presumed author of the
voluminous Mahaprajnaparamita-shastra (“The Great Treatise on the
Perfection of Wisdom”), preserved in its Chinese translation (402–405)
by Kumarajia, and the Mulamadhyamakakarika (more commonly known as
Madhyamika Karika; “Fundamentals of the Middle Way”), which is
considered by many to be the Madhyamika work par excellence. The main
work of Aryadeva, the Catuhshataka, criticizes other forms of Buddhism
and the classical Sanskrit philosophical systems.
Nagarjuna and his followers sought a middle position, devoid of name
and character and beyond all thought and words. They used rigorous logic
to demonstrate the absurdity of various philosophical positions,
including those of Hindus and other Buddhists. Assuming that
contradiction is proof of error, Nagarjuna took any point of view that
would reveal the error of his opponents. He did not, however, accept the
opposing point of view but used it only as a means to expose the
relativity of the system he was attacking. Because he was willing to
refute his first position, he could claim adherence to no doctrine.
Moreover, Nagarjuna attempted to prove that all worldly thought is empty
(shunya) or relative and that the true path is that of the middle, the
path that is between or, more correctly, above extremes. This belief has
been called the doctrine of emptiness of all things, which posits that
all things lack essential characteristics and exist only in relation to
conditions surrounding them.
Nagarjuna presented this middle path above extremes in his statement
of the Eightfold Path of Buddhism:
Nothing comes into being, nor does anything
disappear. Nothing is eternal, nor has anything an end.
Nothing is identical, nor is anything differentiated.
Nothing moves here, nor does anything move there.
In presenting these pairs of opposites, Nagarjuna taught that
anything that can be conceptualized or put into words is relative. This
led to the Madhyamika identification of nirvana and samsara, which are
empty concepts with the truth lying somewhere beyond.
After the world’s emptiness or relativity has been proved, the
question arises of how one is to go beyond this position. Nagarjuna
answered with the doctrine of the two truths, explaining that humans can
gain salvation and are not irreconcilably caught in this world, which
can be used as a ladder leading to the absolute. In his doctrine the
relative truth is of this existence. This leads first to the realization
that all things are empty of subhava (“own being”) and then to the
intuition of an absolute truth beyond all conceptions. The link between
these two truths—the relative and the absolute—is the Buddha. He
experienced the absolute truth, which is nisprapanca—i.e., inexplicable
in speech and unrealizable in ordinary thought—and yet he returned to
point to this truth in the phenomenal world. By following this path, one
can be saved. Thus, Nagarjuna taught that through the middle path of
Madhyamika, which is identified as the Buddha’s true teachings, one is
guided to an experience beyond affirmation and negation, being and
nonbeing. Madhyamika is a philosophy that can rightly be called a
doctrine of salvation, for it claims to present humans with a system
that leads to rescue from their situation.
The Madhyamika school divided into two subtraditions in the 5th and
6th centuries. The Prasangika school, which emphasized a more negative
form of argumentation, was founded by Buddhapalita (c. 470–540), who
wrote many works, including a commentary on Nagarjuna’s Madhyamika
Karika. The school was continued by Candrakirti, a famous logician of
the 7th century and author of a commentary on the Madhyamika Karika, and
by Shantideva (c. 650–750), whose Shiksa-samuccaya (“Summary of
Training”) and Bodhicaryavatara (“The Coming of the Bodhisattva Way of
Life”) are among the most popular Mahayana literary works.
The Svatantrika school, which utilized a syllogistic mode of
argumentation, was founded by Bhavaviveka, a contemporary of
Buddhapalita and author of a commentary on the Madhyamika Karika.
Santiraksita, a great scholar who wrote the Tattvasamgraha (“Summary of
Essentials”) and the Madhyamikalankara Karika (“Verses on the Ornament
of the Madhyamika Teaching”), continued the school. Both the Svatantrika
tradition and the Prasangika tradition strongly influenced Buddhist
philosophy in Tibet.
The missionary translator Kumarajiva took the Madhyamika school to
China from India in the 5th century. Three of the texts that he
translated from Sanskrit into Chinese—the Madhyamika Karika and the
Dvadashamukha-shastra or Dvadasha-dvara-shastra (“The Twelve Topics or
Gates Treatise”) of Nagarjuna and the Shata-shastra (“One Hundred Verses
Treatise”) of Aryadeva—became the basic texts of the Chinese Sanlun
(Japanese: Sanron), or “Three Treatise,” school of Madhyamika. Although
this school was challenged by the Silun, or “Four Treatise,” school,
which also accepted the Mahaprajnaparamita-shastra as a basic text,
Sanlun regained preeminence as a result of the teachings of Sengzhao,
Kumarajiva’s disciple, and later of Jizang. Both of these Chinese
Madhyamika masters commented on Nagarjuna’s thesis in numerous
influential works.
A Korean disciple of Jizang, Ekwan (Huiguan), then spread Sanlun
(Korean: Samnon) to Japan in 625. This school was never popular among
the masses and rarely formed an independent sect, though it remained the
basis of logical and philosophical thought among the learned.
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana » The Mahayana
schools and their texts » Yogacara/Vijnanavada (Faxiang/Hossō)
The Yogacara (or Vijnanavada) school was founded, according to
tradition, by the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu (4th/5th century ce)
and by Sthiramati (6th century), who systematized doctrines found in the
Lankavatara-sutra and the Mahayana-shraddhotpada-shastra (attributed to
Ashvaghosa but probably written in Central Asia or in China). Later
Mahayana and Esoteric Buddhism include doctrines that were to be
influenced by Yogacara teaching.
The special characteristics of Yogacara are its emphasis on
meditation and a broadly psychological analysis, which contrasts with
the other great Mahayana system, Madhyamika, where the emphasis is on
logical analysis and dialectic. Its central doctrine, however, is that
only consciousness (vijnanamatra; hence the name Vijnanavada) is real
and that eternal things do not exist. Thought or mind is the ultimate
reality, and nothing exists outside the mind, according to this school.
The common view that external things exist is due to an error that can
be removed by a meditative or yogic process that brings an inner
concentration and tranquility and a complete withdrawal or “revulsion”
from fictitious externalities.
Alaya-vijnana (“store” or “storehouse consciousness”) is postulated
as the receptacle of the imprint of thoughts and deeds, the vasana
(literally, “dwelling”) of various karmic seeds (bijas). The “seeds”
develop into touch, mental activity, feeling, perception, and will,
corresponding to the five skandhas (“aggregates”; parts of an individual
personality). This is followed first by the emergence of ideation
(manas), which sets off the self or mind from the world, and then by the
realization that objects exist only through the sense perceptions and
thought of subject. The store consciousness must be purged of its
subject-object duality and restored to its pure state. This pure state
is equivalent to the absolute “suchness” (tathata), to Buddhahood, to
the undifferentiated.
Corresponding to false imagination (vikalpa), right knowledge, and
suchness are the three modes of being: the mere fictions of false
imagination; the relative existence of things, under certain conditions
or aspects; and the perfect mode of being. Corresponding to this
threefold version of the modes of being and awareness is the tri-kaya
doctrine of the Buddha (the apparitional body, the enjoyment body, and
the dharma body), a doctrine that was systematized by Yogacara thinkers.
The Yogacara school was represented in China primarily by the Faxiang
(or Dharmalaksana; also Weishi) school, called Hossō in Japan.
Paramartha, an Indian missionary-teacher, introduced the basic Yogacara
teachings to China in the 6th century, and his translation of the
Mahayana-samparigraha-shastra provided the foundation for the Silun
school. Silun was succeeded as the major vehicle of Yogacara thought in
China by the Faxiang school, which was founded by Xuanzang, the
7th-century Chinese pilgrim-translator, and his main disciple, Kuiji.
Xuanzang went to India, where he studied the works of Dharmapala (died
561) and taught at the Vijnanavada centre at Valabhi. When he returned
to China, he translated Dharmapala’s Vijnapti-matrata-siddhi and many
other works and taught doctrines that were based on those of Dharmapala
and other Indian teachers. Xuanzang’s teachings were expressed
systematically in Fayuanyilinzhang and Weishishuji, the basic texts of
the Faxiang school.
Faxiang, the Chinese translation of dharmalaksana (Sanskrit:
“characteristic of dharma”), refers to the school’s basic emphasis on
the peculiar characteristics (dharmalaksana) of the dharmas that make up
the world that appears in human ideation. According to Faxiang teaching,
there are five categories of dharmas: 8 mental dharmas (cittadharma),
comprising the 5 sense consciousnesses, cognition, the cognitive
faculty, and the store consciousness; 51 mental functions or capacities,
dispositions, and activities (caitashikadharma); 11 elements concerned
with material forms or appearances (rupa-dharma); 24 things, situations,
and processes not associated with the mind—e.g., time, becoming
(cittaviprayuktasamskara); and 6 noncreated or nonconditioned elements
(asamskrtadharma)—e.g., space or suchness (tathata).
In Chengweishilun (“Treatise on the Establishment of the Doctrine
Consciousness Only”), Xuanzang explained how there can be a common
empirical world for different individuals who construct or ideate
particular objects and who possess distinct bodies and sensory systems.
According to Xuanzang, the universal “seeds” in the store consciousness
account for the common appearance of things, and particular “seeds”
account for the differences.
According to traditional accounts, Faxiang was first taken to Japan
by Dōshō, a Japanese priest who visited China, studied under Xuanzang,
and established the teaching (now called Hossō) at Gangō Monastery. It
was also taken there by other priests, Japanese and Korean, who studied
in China under Xuanzang, Kuiji, or their disciples. Thus, the Japanese
claim to have received the Hossō teaching in a direct line from its
originators, and it continues to have a living and significant role in
Japanese Buddhism.
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana » The Mahayana
schools and their texts » Avatamsaka (Huayan/Kegon)
Unlike the Faxiang (Hossō) school, which concentrated on the
differentiating characteristics of things and the separation of facts
and principles, the Avatamsaka school (called Huayan in China, Kegon in
Japan) stressed the sameness of things, the presence of absolute reality
in them, and the identity of facts and ultimate principles. It took its
name from the Mahavaipulya-Buddhavatamsaka-sutra (“The Great and Vast
Buddha Garland Sutra”), often called simply the Avatamsaka-sutra
(“Wreath Sutra” or “Garland Sutra”).
According to legend, the Avatamsaka-sutra was first preached by the
buddha Vairocana shortly after his enlightenment but was replaced with
simpler doctrines because it proved incomprehensible to his hearers. The
sutra tells of the pilgrimage of a young man in a quest to realize
dharma-dhatu (“totality” or “universal principle”). Three Chinese
versions and one Sanskrit original (the Gandavyuha), which contains the
last section only, are extant. There is no trace of an Indian sectarian
development, and the school is known only in its Chinese and Japanese
forms.
The forerunner of the Avatamsaka or Huayan school in China was the
Dilun school, which was based on the Shiyidijinglun or Dilun, an early
6th-century translation of the Dashabhumika-sutra (“Sutra on the Ten
Stages”). Since this work, which concerns the path of a bodhisattva to
Buddhahood, was part of the Avatamsaka-sutra (which came to circulate
independently), Dilun adherents readily joined the Huayan school that
was established in the late 6th century (?) by Dushun (Fashun), the
first patriarch (died 640). The real founder of the school, however, was
the third patriarch, Fazang (also called Xianshou; died 712), who
systematized its teachings; hence, it is sometimes called the Xianshou
school. The school developed further under Fazang’s student Chengguan
(died c. 820 or c. 838), who wrote important commentaries on the
Avatamsaka-sutra. After the death of the fifth and final patriarch,
Zongmi, in 841, Huayan declined because of the general suppression of
Buddhism in China in 845. Despite its decline, the school greatly
influenced the development of Neo-Confucianism (a significant movement
in Chinese thought beginning in the 11th century) and is regarded by
many as the most highly developed form of Chinese Buddhist thought.
The Avatamsaka school was introduced into Japan by pupils of Fazang
and by an Avatamsaka missionary from central India during the period
from about 725 to 740. Known in Japan as the Kegon school, it has
exerted an important influence in Japanese Buddhism that has continued
to the present day.
The school’s most significant doctrine is the theory of causation by
dharma-dhatu (“totality” or “universal principle”), according to which
all elements arise simultaneously, the whole of things creates itself,
ultimate principles and concrete manifestations are interfused, and the
manifestations are mutually identical. Thus, in Fazang’s Essay on the
Golden Lion, written for the empress Wu Hou, gold is the essential
nature or principle (Chinese: li), and lion is the particular
manifestation or form (Chinese: shi). Moreover, as gold, each part or
particle expresses the whole lion and is identical with every other part
or particle. This model suggests that all phenomena in the universe are
expressions of the ultimate suchness or voidness while at the same time
retaining their phenomenal character; each phenomenon is both “all” and
“one.” All the constituents of the world (the dharmas) are
interdependent and possess a sixfold nature: universality, speciality,
similarity, diversity, integration, and differentiation.
The ideal expressed in this doctrine is a harmonious totality of
things leading to the perfectly enlightened buddha. The buddha nature is
present potentially in all things. There are an infinite number of
buddhas and buddha realms. There are myriads of buddhas in every grain
of sand and a buddha realm at the tip of a hair.
The universe is fourfold: a world of factual, practical reality; a
world of principle or theory; a world of principle and facts harmonized;
and a world of factual realities interwoven and mutually identified. The
first three aspects are the particular emphases of other Buddhist
schools. The fourth aspect—emphasizing the harmonious whole—is the
distinctive doctrine that represents the perfect knowledge that was
attained by the buddha Vairocana and is communicated in the
Avatamsaka-sutra.
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana » The Mahayana
schools and their texts » Tiantai/Tendai
The school known as Tiantai in China and Tendai in Japan is one of the
most important schools in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. It is
significant for its doctrines, which in many respects are similar to
those of the Huayan/Kegon school, and for its influence on devotion. The
school’s doctrines and practices are focused on the Indian or Central
Asian Saddharmapundarika-sutra (“Lotus of the True Law Sutra”) as well
as on the Mahaparinirvana and Mahaprajnaparamita-sutras.
Sometimes called Lotus (Fahua in Chinese; Hokke in Japanese), this
school, which apparently had no separate development in India, took its
name from the mountain in southeastern China where the basic
interpretation of the Lotus Sutra was first propounded in the 6th
century. The origins of the school, however, are to be found in the
early 5th century when the original text of the Sanskrit sutra was
translated into Chinese by Kumarajiva and was then taught in North China
by the monks and first patriarchs, Huiwen and Huisi. The latter’s
student Zhiyi, who established a famous monastery on Mount Tiantai
(“Heavenly Terrace”), is regarded as the true founder of the school
because he propounded the systematic interpretation of Lotus doctrines
that came to be widely accepted. His interpretation spread to Japan in
the early 9th century, where Saichō (known posthumously as Dengyō
Daishi), a Buddhist priest who studied the teachings first in Japan and
then on Mount Tiantai, founded a Japanese Tendai school. He also founded
a monastery on Mount Hiei that became one of Japan’s greatest centres of
Buddhist learning.
Along with the Esoteric Buddhist school of Shingon, with which it was
closely connected, Tendai became one of the most important influences on
Japanese religious culture. Tendai has been markedly syncretistic,
incorporating the teachings of various Buddhist schools and those of
Shintō, the indigenous Japanese religion, into its traditions.
The Lotus Sutra, which is recognized by Tiantai and Tendai as the
locus of the most exalted Buddhist teaching, emphasizes the notion of
the one way (or “vehicle” or “career”) for attaining salvation
(Buddhahood). It claims to be the definitive and complete teaching of
the Buddha, who is depicted as a transcendent eternal being, preaching
to arhats, gods, bodhisattvas, and other figures, using all sorts of
sermons, lectures, imaginative parables, and miracles. The Lotus is an
object of devotion in this school, and those who preach, recite, or hear
it are believed to accrue religious merit.
In the Lotus the three ways of salvation supposedly preached by the
Buddha are adjusted to the level and situation of the hearers:
shravakayana, the way of the disciples (shravakas), appropriate for
becoming an arhat; pratyeka-buddhayana, the way of those who aim at
salvation for themselves alone; and bodhisattvayana, the way of those
(the bodhisattvas) who, on the point of attaining salvation, give it up
to work for the salvation of all other beings. All are forms of the one
way, the buddhayana, and the aim for all is to become a buddha.
The Tiantai/Tendai tradition divides the Buddha’s teachings into five
periods. The first immediately followed the Buddha’s enlightenment,
when, without success, he preached the Avatamsaka-sutra (or Huayan/Kegon
Sutra). The second is the so-called Deer Park period, when he preached
the Agamas (Hinayana scriptures) to those with ordinary human
capacities. In the third or Fangdeng (“broad and equal”) period, he
preached the Vaipulya or early Mahayana teachings, which were intended
for all persons. During the fourth period he preached the
Mahaprajnaparamita, or Ta-pan-jo-po-lo-mi-to, doctrines concerning
absolute voidness and the falsity of all distinctions. Finally, in the
Saddharmapundarika and Mahaparinirvana (“Wisdom”) period, he taught the
identity of contrasts, the unity of the three “vehicles,” and the
ultimate authority of the Lotus Sutra.
Central to Tiantai/Tendai doctrine is the threefold truth principle
(following Nagarjuna’s [?] commentary on the Mahaprajnaparamita),
according to which all things are void, without substantial reality; all
things have temporary existence; and all things are in the mean or
middle state, synthesizing voidness and temporary existence, being both
at once. The three truths are a harmonious unity, mutually including one
another, and the mean or middle truth is equivalent to the absolute
suchness. The world of temporary appearances is thus the same as
absolute reality.
Tiantai/Tendai propounds an elaborate cosmology of 3,000 realms.
There are 10 basic realms, respectively, of buddhas, bodhisattvas,
pratyeka buddhas, shravakas, heavenly beings, fighting spirits (asuras),
human beings, hungry spirits or ghosts (pretas), beasts, and depraved
hellish beings. Each realm, however, includes the other 9 and their
characteristics, and counting these together thus yields 100 realms.
Each of these in turn is characterized by the 10 features of suchness
manifested through phenomena—form, nature, substance, power, action,
cause, condition, effect, compensation, and ultimacy—which thus brings
the total to 1,000 realms. Finally, each of these realms is divided into
living beings, space, and the aggregates (skandhas); hence, the whole of
things consists of 3,000 realms.
These realms interpenetrate one another and are immanent in one
moment of thought: “one thought is the three thousand worlds.” The
universe is not produced by thought or consciousness but is manifest in
it, as is the absolute suchness: hence, the central importance of
concentration (chih) and insight (kuan) that leads to a realization of
the unity of things and their manifestation of the ultimate.
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana » The Mahayana
schools and their texts » Pure Land
The main text of the Pure Land schools is the Sukhavativyuha-sutra
(“Pure Land Sutra”). Written in northwestern India probably before the
beginning of the 2nd century ce, the Sukhavativyuha exists in two
original versions, a longer one that emphasizes good works and a shorter
version that emphasizes faith and devotion alone. This sutra tells of a
monk, Dharmakara, who heard the preaching of Lokeshvararaja Buddha aeons
ago and asked to become a buddha. After millions of years of study,
Dharmakara vowed, among other things, to establish a Pure or Happy Land
(Sanskrit: Sukhavati; Chinese: Qingtu; Japanese: Jōdo), also known as
the Western Paradise, if he achieved Buddhahood. In this Pure Land no
evil would exist, the people would be long-lived, they would receive
whatever they desired, and from there they might attain nirvana.
Dharmakara then revealed in a series of 48 vows the means by which this
Pure Land can be reached. Several vows emphasize meditation and good
works on earth as a prerequisite, but the 18th one (a famous vow in the
later development of Pure Land schools) states that, if one merely calls
the name of the Buddha at the moment of death, then one will be reborn
in the Pure Land.
Dharmakara, it is believed, attained Buddhahood and is known as the
buddha Amitabha (Sanskrit: “Infinite Light”; Chinese: Emituofo;
Japanese: Amida) or the buddha Amitayus (Sanskrit: “Infinite Lifespan”).
He is flanked in the Pure Land he created in fulfillment of his vows by
Avalokitesvara (Chinese: Guanyin; Japanese: Kannon) on his left and
Mahasthamaprapta on his right, who assist Amitabha in bringing the
faithful to salvation.
By the 3rd century ce, the Amitabhist doctrine had spread from India
to China, where a school based on it gradually became the most popular
form of Buddhism. Followers of the Tendai school took Amitabhist
teachings to Japan, where they attempted to weld the many sects of
Buddhism into one system. By the 13th century ce, the Pure Land sect had
separated from the Tendai school and spread among the common people of
Japan through the work of two outstanding figures, Hōnen and Shinran.
The basic doctrines of the Pure Land schools emphasize the importance
of devotion. Pure Land leaders teach that a person reaches salvation not
by individual effort or the accumulation of merit but through faith in
the grace of the buddha Amitabha. The main practice of those who follow
the Pure Land teachings is not the study of the texts or meditation on
the Buddha but rather the constant invocation of the name Amitabha, a
practice based on the 18th vow of Dharmakara. Furthermore, in Pure Land
Buddhism the attainment of nirvana is not the most prominent goal; it is
rather to become reborn in the Pure Land of Amitabha.
These doctrines and the practice of invoking the name Amitabha—called
nembutsu in Japanese and nianfo in Chinese—became popular in China and
Japan, where it was believed that the world had reached the decadent
age, the so-called “latter days of the law” in which Buddhist doctrines
were unclear and humans lacked the purity of heart or determination to
attain salvation by their efforts. Therefore, the only hope was to be
saved by the grace of Amitabha. This doctrine of grace became more and
more radical, until individual actions were said by some to play no part
in the attainment of salvation.
Tanluan and the other 6th–7th-century Chinese Pure Land patriarchs,
Daochuo and Shandao, were among those who rejected the role of works in
salvation. Originally a follower of Daoism, Tanluan, while searching for
the elixir of immortality, was converted to the Pure Land doctrine by an
Indian monk. Dedicating his life to the spread of this doctrine, Tanluan
preached the invocation of the name Amitabha and declared that even evil
persons were eligible for the Pure Land if they sincerely uttered the
nembutsu. He warned, however, that the lowest hell awaited those who
reviled the Buddhist dharma.
Tanluan was followed by Daochuo, who argued that, because his was the
age of the final decline predicted in Buddhist scriptures, people must
take the “easy path” to salvation. They must trust Amitabha completely,
for they are no longer able to follow the more difficult path of the
saints. His disciple Shandao, believed by some Japanese Pure Land
adherents to be the incarnation of Amida, shaped the doctrines of the
later forms of Pure Land Buddhism. He distributed many copies of the
Pure Land Sutra and wrote a commentary in which he taught that rebirth
in the Western Paradise is made possible by invoking Amida. The nembutsu
must be supplemented, however, by the chanting of sutras, meditation on
the Buddha, worshiping of buddha images, and singing his praises.
The work of Shandao inspired Hōnen, the founder of the Pure Land sect
(Jōdo-shu) in Japan, to declare that in this evil period people must put
complete faith in the saving grace of Amida and constantly invoke his
name. Hōnen expressed his beliefs in the treatise Senchaku hongan
nembutsu-shu (1198), which was popular among the common people, as were
his teachings generally. The treatise was burned by the monks of Mount
Hiei, and his teachings were vigorously opposed by the established
Buddhist priesthood. Indeed, opposition to Hōnen was so great that his
rivals forced him into exile from 1206 to 1211.
Hōnen’s disciple Shinran, who was exiled at the same time, was the
founder of True Pure Land (Jōdo Shinshu or Shin), a more radical Amida
school. Shinran married with Hōnen’s consent, which thus suggests that
one need not be a monk to attain the Pure Land. In Shinran’s teachings,
which he popularized by preaching in Japanese villages, he rejected all
sutras except the Pure Land Sutra, as well as the vows of Dharmakara in
that sutra that stress individual merit. Basing his doctrines on the
18th vow, Shinran discouraged any attempt to accumulate merit, for he
felt that this stood in the way of absolute faith and dependence on
Amida. Furthermore, he rejected Hōnen’s practice of continual invocation
of Amida, believing that the nembutsu need be said only once in order to
attain salvation and that repetition of it should be regarded as praise
of Amida and not as affecting one’s salvation. Thus, Shinran established
the total ascendancy of the doctrine of grace. He also founded what
would become the Shin school, the largest single Buddhist school in
contemporary Japan. Throughout its history the Shin school has actively
promoted music, dance, and drama and, since the late 19th century, has
engaged in extensive educational and social welfare programs.
A third Pure Land sect grew up around the itinerant teacher Ippen. He
traveled throughout Japan, advocating the chanting of Amida’s name at
set intervals throughout the day; hence, his school was called the Ji
(“Times”) school, or Jishū.
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana » The Mahayana
schools and their texts » Nichiren
Like the Lotus Sutra and Pure Land schools, the indigenous Japanese
Nichiren school focuses on the “Lotus of the True Law Sutra” and
emphasizes fervent faith and the repetition of a key phrase. Unlike
other schools that were named after a book or doctrine, the Nichiren
school is unique in that it is named after its founder, Nichiren
(1222–82). The son of a poor fisherman, Nichiren became a monk at an
early age and studied at Mount Hiei, the centre of the Tendai school. He
was frustrated by the many paths of Buddhism promising salvation and
left Mount Hiei to search for the true path. When he emerged from his
independent studies, he taught that the Lotus Sutra
(Saddharmapundarika-sutra) contains the final and supreme teaching of
the Buddha Shakyamuni and offers the only true way to salvation.
According to Nichiren, the three forms of the Buddha—the universal or
law body (dharma-kaya), the enjoyment body (sambhoga-kaya), and the
phenomenal body (nirmana-kaya)—are important aspects of the Buddha
Shakyamuni and should be granted equal respect. Following the teaching
of Zhiyi, the Chinese founder of Tiantai/Tendai, that the Lotus Sutra is
the essence of Buddhism, Nichiren held that this same buddha nature was
possessed by all people and could be realized only by proper worship of
the Lotus Sutra. Furthermore, like the Pure Land Buddhists, Nichiren
felt that his time, which was marked by political upheaval and unrest,
was the period of degeneration known in the Lotus Sutra as the time of
the latter-day dharma (mappō), when the purity of Buddhist doctrines
could be kept only by the bodhisattvas. Nichiren identified himself as
an incarnation of several of them, especially Vishistacaritra (Japanese:
Jōgyō), the bodhisattva of supreme conduct. Nichiren believed that his
distinctive bodhisattva mission was to propagate the true teachings of
the Lotus Sutra in Japan, where he believed the regeneration of the
Buddhist dharma would occur.
In attempting to guide Japan to the Buddhist dharma as he interpreted
it, Nichiren drew great criticism for his strong-willed and
uncompromising attitude. In one treatise Nichiren wrote that the unrest
in Japan was caused by the chaotic state of religious belief, a
condition that could be corrected only by adopting the teachings of the
Lotus Sutra. He taught that if people turned to this sutra, they would
realize their true buddha nature, perceive that suffering is illusion,
and see that this world is a paradise. If human beings—i.e., the
Japanese—did not follow the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, however,
natural disasters and invasions would result. Moreover, Nichiren,
confident of the righteousness of his cause, attacked the Shingon and
Amida Buddhist groups for neglecting Shakyamuni, the true Buddha of the
Lotus Sutra; and he attacked Zen for placing stress only upon
Shakyamuni’s historical form. He went so far as to declare that “the
Nembutsu is hell, Zen is a devil, Shingon is the nation’s ruin.” These
sharp criticisms led Nichiren to be exiled twice and almost brought his
execution, from which he was—according to his own account and the belief
of his adherents—miraculously saved.
Nichiren advocated two main religious practices. The first is the
worship of the honzon (or gohonzon), a mandala (symbolic diagram)
designed by Nichiren, which represents both the buddha nature that is in
all humans and the three forms of the Buddha Shakyamuni. The second is
the daimoku (Japanese: “sacred title”), the repetition—both orally and
in every action of the believer—of the phrase “Namu Myōhō renge kyō"
(Japanese: “Salvation to the Lotus Sutra”) to affirm belief in the
teaching and efficacy of the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren also taught that
there should be a sacred place of ordination (Japanese: kaidan) where
the believer could receive training in the doctrines of the Lotus Sutra.
This sacred place might be seen as wherever the believer in the Lotus
Sutra lives, for there is the Buddhist truth. The honzon, daimoku, and
kaidan, “the three great secret laws” (or “mysteries”), are regarded as
the essential teaching of Nichiren.
Nichiren’s fervent faith brought him wide fame and many devotees, and
at his death he chose six disciples to continue his work. They developed
the Nichiren-shu (Japanese: “School of Nichiren”), which still controls
the main temple founded by Nichiren at Mount Minobu. One of his
disciples, Nikkō, established the Nichiren shō-shū (Japanese: “True
School of Nichiren”), which taught that Nichiren, not Shakyamuni, was
the saviour and that the mandala painted by Nichiren was alone
efficacious in saving mankind. In the 20th century these schools gained
many devotees.
Within the Nichiren-shū the Reiyū-kai (Japanese: “Association of the
Friend of the Spirit”) arose in 1925. This group, which preaches a
combination of ancestor worship and Nichiren’s doctrines, places faith
not in the Buddha or in bodhisattvas but in the mandala, in which all
saving power is concentrated. The Risshō-Kōsei-kai (Japanese: “Society
for Establishing Righteousness and Friendly Relations”), which split
from Reiyū-kai in 1938, teaches the recitation of the daimoku as an
affirmation of faith in the teaching of the Lotus Sutra and the worship
of the Buddha Shakyamuni. Like Reiyū-kai, it also allows the veneration
of ancestral spirits.
Risshō-Kōsei-kai gained many converts after World War II, but its
success was soon eclipsed by Sōka-gakkai (Japanese: “Value Creation
Society”), the lay movement of Nichiren Shōshū. Founded by Makiguchi
Tsunesaburō (1871–1944) in 1930, Sōka-gakkai was dedicated to
educational research and the extension of Nichiren Shōshū. Its founder
insisted on the practical values of worldly gain and happiness as well
as the attainment of goodness, beauty, and world peace; he taught that
Nichiren was to be worshiped as the True Buddha predicted in the Lotus
Sutra. The members also fervently practice daimoku and worship the
honzon as the repository of the power of all buddhas and bodhisattvas.
After World War II, Sōka-gakkai, under the leadership of Toda Jōsei
(1900–58), grew rapidly through a technique of evangelism called
shakubuku (Japanese: “break and subdue”), in which the resistance of the
other person is destroyed by forceful argument. Although its practice of
shakubuku was curtailed by Ikeda Daisaku, the society’s third president,
Sōka-gakkai continued to grow throughout the second half of the 20th
century and expanded into other countries, including the United States.
Thus, Nichiren’s teaching and personality are still strong influences
today.
The major systems and their literature » Mahayana » The Mahayana
schools and their texts » Dhyana (Chan/Zen)
The Dhyana (Sanskrit: “Meditation”; Chinese: Chan; Japanese: Zen) school
of Buddhism emphasizes meditation as the way to awareness of ultimate
reality, an important practice of Buddhism from its origin in India and
one found in other Indian schools, such as Yogacara. Chan, which was
also influenced by Daoism, promotes special meditation training
techniques and doctrines. Despite Indian influences, Chan is generally
considered a specifically Chinese product, a view reinforced by the fact
that 4th–5th-century Chinese Buddhist monks, such as Huiyuan and
Sengzhao, taught beliefs and practices similar to those of the Chan
school before the traditional date of its arrival in China.
Most Chinese texts name a South Indian monk, Bodhidharma, who arrived
in China about 520 ce, as the founder of the Chan school. Bodhidharma is
regarded as the first Chan patriarch and the 28th patriarch of the
Indian meditation school. The Indian school began with the monk
Kashyapa, who received Buddha Shakyamuni’s supreme teaching, which is
found in the Lankavatara-sutra (“Descent to the Island of Lanka”). The
sutra teaches that all beings possess a buddha nature, often equated
with shunya (Sanskrit: “the void”) in Chan, and that realization of this
fact is enlightenment (Chinese: Wu; Japanese: satori). The truly
enlightened one cannot explain this ultimate truth or reality, nor can
books, words, concepts, or teachers, for it is beyond the ordinary
duality of subject and object and must be realized in direct personal
experience.
Bodhidharma was succeeded as patriarch of the Chan school by Huike,
and this line of transmission continued to the fifth patriarch, Hengren,
in the 7th century. After Hengren’s death a schism occurred between the
adherents of the Northern school of Shenxiu, which held that
enlightenment must be attained gradually, and the Southern school of
Huineng, which taught that true wisdom, as undifferentiated, must be
attained suddenly and spontaneously. Huineng’s Southern school claimed
to de-emphasize rituals and the study of texts and to rely on teaching
passed from master to pupil. Some proponents of the Southern school also
adopted an iconoclastic attitude toward the Buddha, maintaining that if
all things contain the buddha nature, then the Buddha could rightfully
be equated with a dung heap. The Southern school overcame its rival, and
standard Chinese Chan texts therefore name Huineng as the true and only
sixth patriarch. Huineng’s Liuzu Tanching (Chinese: “Platform Scripture
of the Sixth Patriarch”) became a key text of the Chan school.
In the 9th century, the Linzi (Japanese: Rinzai) and Caodong
(Japanese: Sōtō) branches of the Southern school emerged. The former
relied heavily on the gong’an (Japanese: koan), a paradoxical question
or aphorism that was intended to reveal that all conceptualization is
wrong and thus leads to enlightenment. The gong’an was often accompanied
by shouts and slaps from the master to provoke anxiety in the student
and, from this, an instant realization of the truth. The Caodong/Sōtō
school emphasized the practice of “silent illumination” or “just
sitting” (Chinese: zuochan; Japanese: zazen), which involved sitting in
silent meditation under the direction of a master and purging the mind
of all notions and concepts.
Both schools followed the doctrine of Huaihai, who taught that a monk
who would not work should not eat and that work (as well as everything
else) should be done spontaneously and naturally. The emphasis on work
made the Chan schools self-sufficient and saved them from the worst
effects of the government purge of supposedly parasitic Buddhist monks
in 845. The emphasis on spontaneity and naturalness stimulated the
development of a Chan aesthetic that profoundly influenced later Chinese
painting and writing. The relative success of the Chan tradition in
subsequent Chinese history is demonstrated by the fact that virtually
all Chinese monks eventually came to belong to one of the two Chan
lineages.
Chan (Zen) Buddhism was introduced into Japan as early as the 7th
century but flowered only in the 12th and 13th centuries, most notably
in the work of the monks Eisai and Dōgen. Eisai, founder of the Rinzai
school in the 12th century and a Tendai monk, wished to restore pure
Buddhism to Japan and with that aim visited China. When he returned, he
taught a system of meditation based on the use of the koan phrases.
Unlike the Chan schools, Eisai taught that Zen should defend the state
and could observe ceremonial rules and offer prayers and incantations.
These teachings influenced the warrior class and led to a Zen influence
on the martial arts of archery and swordsmanship. Zen influence can also
be seen in the Noh theatre, poetry, flower arrangement, and the tea
ceremony, all of which stress grace and spontaneity.
Dōgen, who established the Sōtō school in Japan in the 13th century,
joined the Tendai monastery of Mount Hiei at an early age, after the
death of his mother and father taught him the transitoriness of life.
Unfulfilled by his experience at Mount Tendai, Dōgen sought the true
path of Buddhism and may have studied with Eisai for a time. Like Eisai,
whom he held in high esteem, Dōgen went to China, where he fell under
the influence of a Chinese Chan master. Upon his return to Japan, he
taught the discipline of “sitting straight” (Japanese: zazen), the
practice of meditation in the cross-legged (lotus) position. For Dōgen,
practice and enlightenment were intertwined; in zazen the buddha nature
in each person is discovered. Unlike many of his Chinese counterparts,
however, Dōgen studied scriptures and criticized those who did not.
The Zen sects of Eisai and Dōgen have deeply influenced Japanese
culture and continue to play a significant role in contemporary Japan.
By the mid-20th century, Zen had become one of the best-known of the
Buddhist schools in the Western world.
The major systems and their literature » Esoteric Buddhism
Mystical practices and esoteric sects are found in all forms of
Buddhism. The mystical tendency that Buddhism inherited from Indian
religion became increasingly pronounced. Following the codification of
the Theravada canon—which according to tradition emerged orally shortly
after the Buddha’s death and was written down by the late 1st century
bce—and the subsequent emergence of Mahayana (1st century ce), this
mystical element slowly developed into discrete schools of thought.
Buddhist mysticism (including the philosophical school of Chan), like
other forms of mysticism, insists on the ineffability of the mystical
experience, because it is not intelligible to anyone who has not had a
similar experience. Mystical knowledge is not intellectual but is “felt
knowledge” that views things in a different perspective and gives them
new significance. The experience is both ineffable and timeless, which
means that the mystic seems to be outside time and space, oblivious to
his surroundings and the passage of time.
Early Buddhist mysticism was concerned with the emptying of
subjective being, considered to be the greatest obstacle to the
individual’s spiritual growth. This passing into a new dimension of
reality is described in terms of a flame going out. In this emptying
process the limits of the individual’s being are supposedly transcended.
The experience of this new dimension of reality is a vision that goes
far beyond the reach of “mere logic” and normal perception.
While Theravada Buddhism was analytic in its attempt to free reality
from the imposition of subjectivity, Mahayana extended the analytic
process to objective reality. In its rejection of subjectivism and
objectivism, it emphasized the nature of reality-as-such, which was
experienced in enlightenment (Pali and Sanskrit: bodhi). While the
various philosophical trends associated with Mahayana dealt with the
intellectual problem of reality, the tantras (Sanskrit: “treatises”),
which form the distinctive literature of Esoteric Buddhism, dealt with
the existential problem of what it is like or how it feels to attain the
highest goal.
The major systems and their literature » Esoteric Buddhism » Vajrayana
Buddhism in India » Origins
Vajrayana (Sanskrit: “Diamond Vehicle” or “Thunderbolt Vehicle”) or
Mantrayana (Sanskrit: “Path of the Sacred Formulas”), also known as
Tantric Buddhism, first emerged in various parts of India and Sri Lanka.
The esoteric nature of Tantric doctrine and practice makes identifying
the origins of the Vajrayana school difficult, but some Buddhist
traditions associate them with Nagarjuna and Asanga and therefore
suggest that Vajrayana began to develop quietly in the 2nd or 4th
century ce. Vajrayana was prominent in India and Tibet, and a form of
it, which does not seem to have emphasized sexoyogic practices, spread
to China and then to Japan, where it became associated with the Tendai
and Shingon schools.
Although Vajrayana texts describe numerous yogic or contemplative
stages that must be experienced before enlightenment can be achieved,
they preserve the Mahayana identification of nirvana and samsara as a
basic truth. Moreover, Vajrayana teaches that nirvana as shunyata
(“voidness”) is one side of a polarity that must be complemented by
karuna (“compassion of the bodhisattva”). Shunyata, according to the
Vajrayana tradition, is the passive wisdom (prajna) that possesses an
absolutely indestructible or diamond-like (vajra) nature beyond all
duality, and karuna is the means (upaya) or dynamic aspect of the world.
Enlightenment arises when these seeming opposites are understood to be
one. This realization, which is known experientially and not
cognitively, is portrayed in Vajrayana imagery and practice as the union
of the passive female deity, which signifies wisdom or voidness, with
the dynamic male, signifying compassion without attachment. Such a
union, yab-yum (Tibetan: “father-mother”), is a symbol of the unity of
opposites that brings the “great bliss,” or enlightenment.
Vajrayana Buddhists believe that, as all things are in truth of one
nature—the void—physical-mental processes can be used as a vehicle for
enlightenment. According to the Kalacakra Tantra, the Buddha taught
that, in this age of degeneration, enlightenment must be achieved
through the body, which contains the whole cosmos. Vajrayana specialists
warn, however, that the first step toward enlightenment is taken by
undergoing instruction by a master who has been initiated into the
mysteries and can teach the correct use of the body’s process. The
master directs every step so that the pupil learns to control mental and
physical processes instead of being dominated by them.
The master, it is believed, leads the student to compassion through
meditation on the transitoriness of life, the relation of cause and
effect of one’s actions, and the suffering of humanity. After sympathy
for human suffering has been aroused, the student is taught yogic, or
contemplative, exercises that help to produce inner experiences
corresponding to the various stages of spiritual growth. Advancement
toward enlightenment involves the identification of the initiate with
deities that represent various cosmic forces. These gods are first
visualized with the help of mudras (meditative gestures and postures),
mantras (sacred syllables and phrases), and icons portrayed in a
mandala, all of which are believed to possess the essence of the
divinities to be invoked. After this visualization the initiate
identifies with the divinities and finds that each in turn is shunyata
(“voidness”).
According to Vajrayana traditions, the culmination of this process,
called vajrasattva yoga, gives the initiate a diamond-like body beyond
all duality. The four stages in the process are described in four
different groups of tantras (the Kriya-tantra, Carya-tantra,
Yoga-tantra, and Anuttarayoga-tantra) that are compared with the
fourfold phases of courtship (the exchange of glances, a pleasing or
encouraging smile, the holding of hands, and consummation in the sexual
act). The first stage involves external ritual acts, and the second
combines these outward acts with contemplation. The third stage involves
only contemplation, and the fourth is the unification of all dualities
in the sexual act, symbolically or effectively. The last stage is
divided into two phases. In the first the initiate uses controlled
imagination to experience the union on an ideational level. The second
phase is the maithuna, or sexual coupling. Unlike the ordinary sexual
act, which gives only momentary pleasure, the maithuna is considered a
technique to attain enlightenment and eternal bliss because the initiate
has already realized the voidness of all things, allowing perfect
control over emotions and a complete absence of attachment.
These Vajrayana practices have been condemned by some Buddhists and
some modern scholars as degenerate, a view ostensibly borne out by the
Guhyasamaja-tantra, which states that adultery and eating of human flesh
are actions of the bodhisattva. Vajrayana practices and the imagery of
its texts, however, were designed to shock the complacency and
self-righteousness of more traditional Buddhists. Moreover, the imagery
of the texts was based on the belief that voidness alone exists and that
it is beyond good or evil in the usual sense. The imagery is also based
on the belief that any acts that bring about this realization are acts
that benefit the practitioner and all sentient beings.
The major systems and their literature » Esoteric Buddhism »
Vajrayana Buddhism in India » Vajrayana literature
The tantras, the genre of texts unique to the Vajrayana tradition, are
written in a highly figurative and symbolic language to enable
individual spiritual development. Because of this symbolic character,
the tantras have usually been kept secret, and a literalist
interpretation of such texts has usually failed to make any sense out of
them.
The Guhyasamaja-tantra (“Treatise on the Sum Total of Mysteries”),
also called the Tathagataguhyaka (“The Mystery of Tathagatahood
[Buddhahood]”), is the earliest-known tantra and is traditionally
ascribed to Asanga (c. 4th century ce), the renowned Indian scholar and
propounder of the Yogacara philosophy. Unlike most tantras, which do not
explain the technical or symbolic terms that they employ, the
Guhyasamaja-tantra devotes a very long chapter to the elucidation of
these terms.
An important feature of all tantras is a polarity symbolism, which
appears on the physical level as the union of male and female, on the
ethical level as the union of beneficial activity and an appreciation of
what there is as it is, and on the philosophical level as the synthesis
of absolute reality and absolute compassion. The richness of this
symbolism is apparent in the opening of the Guhyasamaja, where the
absolute, which is depicted as a polarity, manifests itself in various
mandalas (circular diagrams that have both a psychological and a cosmic
reference), each related to one of the celestial buddhas—Aksobhya,
Vairocana, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddhi. Each of these
buddhas again represents a polarity that is often portrayed in
iconographic works through their union with female consorts.
The tantras may emphasize either “beneficial activity” or
“appreciative awareness” or their “unity,” and, therefore, Tantric
literature has been divided into the so-called Father Tantra
(emphasizing activity), the Mother Tantra (emphasizing appreciation),
and the Nondual Tantra (dealing with both aspects unitively). The
original Sanskrit versions of most of these works have been lost, but
their influence is noticeable in works such as Jnanasiddhi (“Attainment
of Knowledge”) by the great Vajrayana teacher Indrabhuti (c. 687–717),
Prajnopayavinishcayasiddhi (“The Realization of the Certitude of
Appreciative Awareness and Ethical Action”) by the 8th-century writer
Anangavajra, and the songs of the 84 mahasiddhas (“masters of miraculous
powers,” who were considered to have attained the Vajrayana goal). One
of the last Sanskrit works to have been written in Central Asia was the
Kalacakra-tantra (“Wheel of Time”), which probably entered India in 966
ce. It taught that the Adi-Buddha—primeval Buddhahood—manifested itself
as a continuum of time (kala) and space (cakra).
The major systems and their literature » Esoteric Buddhism » Vajrayana
Schools in Tibet
When Tibet was converted to Buddhism (7th to 11th century), the most
dynamic form in India was Vajrayana; thus, it was this tradition that
became established in Tibet. Little is known about the early stages of
the conversion (7th to 9th century), however, and the role of Vajrayana
in the conversion before the 11th century, when several identifiable
schools emerged, remains unclear.
The major systems and their literature » Esoteric Buddhism »
Vajrayana Schools in Tibet » Rnying-ma-pa
Among the Vajrayana schools of Tibet and neighbouring regions, the
Rnying-ma-pa claims to preserve most purely the teachings of
Padmasambhava, the 8th-century Indian miracle worker who helped convert
Tibet by using his magical prowess, it is believed, to quell the local
demons. The Rnying-ma-pa makes fuller use than any other school of the
“discovered” texts of Padmasambhava. These texts are believed to have
been hidden since the early 9th century, when persecution began in
Tibet, and their discovery began in the 11th century and continued until
the late 20th century. Their importance to this school is reinforced by
the Rnying-ma-pa notion that “hidden treasure” has strong spiritual and
historical overtones.
The Rnying-ma-pa order divides Buddhist teaching into nine
progressively superior groups and subdivides the tantras in a manner
different from that of other Vajrayana schools. The six groups of
tantras are: Kriya, or ritual; Upayoga, which involves the convergence
of the two truths and meditation on the pentad of buddhas; Yoga, which
involves the evocation of the god, the identification of the self with
the god, and meditation on the mandala; Mahayoga, which involves
meditation on the factors of human consciousness (skandhas) as divine
forms; Anuyoga, which involves secret initiation into the presence of
the god and his consort and meditation on “voidness” in order to destroy
the illusory nature of things; and Atiyoga, which involves meditation on
the union of the god and his consort, leading to the experience of
bliss. Members of the order believe that those initiated into the Kriya
can attain Buddhahood after seven lives, the Upayoga after five lives,
the Yoga after three lives, the Mahayoga in the next existence, the
Anuyoga at death, and the Atiyoga in the present existence.
One of the most profound thinkers of the Rnying-ma-pa tradition,
Klong-chen rab-’byams-pa (1308–63), is the author of the
Klong-chen-mdzod-bdun (Tibetan: “Seven Treasures of Klong-chen”). In
modern times Mi-’pham of Khams (1846–1914) wrote important Vajrayana
commentaries on the canonical texts.
The major systems and their literature » Esoteric Buddhism »
Vajrayana Schools in Tibet » Sa-skya-pa, Bka’-brgyud-pa, and related
schools
Several Tibetan schools that developed during the 11th and 12th
centuries traced their lineage back several centuries to particular
Indian Vajrayana saints. The Sa-skya-pa and the Bka’-brgyud-pa orders
were the most prominent, and they gave rise to many others, including
the descendant of Bka’-brgyud-pa, the Karma-pa (Tibetan: “Black Hat”),
which has its major centre at the monastery of Mtshur-phu.
Although the Sa-skya-pa order traces its lineage back to Virupa, its
founder was the Tibetan ’Brog-mi (992–1072), who went to India and
received training in the Vajrayana. The order places great emphasis on
the Hevajra-tantra, which ’Brog-mi translated into Tibetan.
The Sa-skya-pa order had an important impact on the society around
it. The order produced many great translators, and its scholars also
contributed original works on Vajrayana philosophy and linguistics. On
the ecclesiastical and political level, the order sometimes exerted
considerable power. During the 13th century, for example, the Sa-skya-pa
abbot ’Phags-pa (1235–80?) initiated Kublai Khan (founder of the Yüan,
or Mongol, dynasty in China) into the tradition of the Hevajra-tantra.
’Phags-pa was then appointed dishi (Chinese: “imperial preceptor”) and
invested with the authority to govern Tibet, though under the control of
the Mongol court.
The Bka’-brgyud-pa school developed from the teachings of the Indian
master Tilopa, who transmitted them to the Indian yogi Naropa, the
master of Mar-pa, the 11th-century householder-teacher, who was in turn
the master of Mi-la-ras-pa (1040–1123). The school preserved a
collection of songs attributed to the founder and a hagiographic account
of his life. Sgam-po-pa (1079–1153), who was Mi-la-ras-pa’s greatest
disciple, systematized the school’s teaching and established the basis
for its further development. His most famous work, Thar-rgyan (Tibetan:
“The Jewel Ornament of Liberation”), is one of the earliest examples of
the Tibetan and Mongolian Vajrayana literary tradition Lam Rim (Tibetan:
“Stages on the Path”), which presents Buddhist teachings in terms of
gradations in a soteriological process leading to the attainment of
Buddhahood.
Bka’-brgyud-pa teachers stressed the exercises of hatha yoga and
posited as the supreme goal the mahamudra (“the great seal”), or the
overcoming of dichotomous thought in the emptiness of Buddhahood. The
Bka’-brgyud-pa made frequent reference to the “Six Teachings of Naropa,”
which set forth techniques for attaining enlightenment, either in this
life or at the moment of death. These techniques are associated with
self-produced heat (the voluntary raising of the body temperature), the
illusory body, dreams, the experience of light, the state of existence
intermediate between death and rebirth (Tibetan: Bardo), and the
movement from one existence to another.
The major systems and their literature » Esoteric Buddhism »
Vajrayana Schools in Tibet » The Bka’-gdams-pa and Dge-lugs-pa
The Bka’-gdams-pa school was founded by ’Brom-ston (c. 1008–c. 1064),
who based his school’s teachings on those of Atisha (an Indian monk who
went to Tibet in the 11th century). The school produced the Bka’-gdams
gces-bsdus (Tibetan: “Collection of the Sayings of the Bka’-gdams-pa
Saints”), which preserves the poetic utterances of the founder’s
disciples. The central practice of the school was the purification of
the mind, which required the elimination of intellectual and moral
blemishes in order to obtain a clear vision of emptiness (Sanskrit:
shunyata). The school relied on the Prajnaparamita and made use of
mantras. It was absorbed in the 15th century by the reform movement that
became the Dge-lugs-pa school.
Members of the Dge-lugs-pa (Gelugpa; the “Virtuous”) are commonly
known as Yellow Hats, in reference to the colour of their head cover.
Their founder, Tsong-kha-pa, attended the important Sa-skya-pa,
Bka’-brgyud-pa, and Bka’-gdams-pa schools, and his own school is
considered the continuation of the Bka’-gdams-pa. Tsong-kha-pa initiated
monastic reforms in response to what he deemed a general laxity of
morals, increasingly less-rigorous observance of monastic rules, and
deviations in the interpretation of the tantras. He imposed respect for
the traditional rules of the Vinaya and reemphasized dogmatics and logic
as aids to salvation. His treatise, the Lam-rim chen-mo (Tibetan: “The
Great Gradual Path”), based on the Bodhipathapradipa by Atisha, presents
a process of mental purification ascending through 10 spiritual levels
(bhumi) that lead to Buddhahood. The essential points of such a process
are the state of quiescence and the state of enhanced vision.
Tsong-kha-pa instituted regular debates at monasteries. Competing
monks sought to reach, by means of formal logic and in the presence of
an abbot of great learning, an unassailable conclusion on a chosen
topic. Various ranks of monks were established on the basis of
examinations, the highest being that of dge-bshes (Tibetan:
“philosopher”).
The attention to doctrinal and logical problems did not exclude
interest in the tantras, and Tsong-kha-pa’s Sngags-rim chen-mo (Tibetan:
“The Great Gradual Tantric Path”) deals with Tantric ritual. Tantric
initiation, however, was open only to students who had already acquired
extensive learning. The literature of the Dge-lugs-pa is enormous,
including the gigantic collections of the Dalai and Panchen lamas, both
of whom are members of this school.
The Dge-lugs-pa assert that the nature of the mind element is light,
which constitutes the cognitive capacity. The continuum of each person,
therefore, is a thinking and luminous energy, which is in either a
coarse or a subtle state, the latter state being achieved only after
purification through meditation and contemplation.
The major systems and their literature » Esoteric Buddhism » Esoteric
traditions in China and Japan
During the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries, Indian Esoteric Buddhism spread
to Southeast Asia and East Asia. In East Asia, Esoteric Buddhism became
established in the Zhenyan (“True Word”) school in China and in the
Tendai and Shingon schools in Japan.
The major systems and their literature » Esoteric Buddhism » Esoteric
traditions in China and Japan » Zhenyan
According to the Zhenyan tradition, Esoteric Buddhism was taken from
India to China by three missionary monks who translated the basic
Zhenyan texts. The first monk, Shubhakarasimha, arrived in China in 716,
and he translated the Mahavairocana-sutra and a closely related ritual
compendium, the Susiddhikara, into Chinese. The other two monks,
Vajrabodhi and his disciple Amoghavajra, arrived in 720 and produced two
abridged translations of the Sarvatathagatatattvasamgraha (“Symposium of
Truth of All the Buddhas”), also known as the Tattvasamgraha.
Between the arrival of Shubhakarasimha and the great persecution of
845, the Zhenyan school enjoyed amazing success. The tradition of
Shubhakarasimha and the Mahavairocana-sutra merged with that of
Vajrabodhi and the Tattvasamgraha. The Chinese disciples of this new
tradition, such as Huiguo, contributed to an emerging Zhenyan synthesis.
The combination of sophisticated doctrinal instruction and
miracle-working powers supposedly conferred by the Esoteric rituals
enabled Zhenyan leaders to gain the confidence of the court, especially
of Emperor Tai-tsung (762–779/780), who rejected Daoism in favour of
Zhenyan Buddhism.
Although Zhenyan lost its position of prominence in China after the
persecution of 845, it maintained spiritual vitality and communal
visibility through the Song dynasty (960–1279). Moreover, the Zhenyan
school contributed a great deal that has endured in the larger fabric of
Chinese religion.
The major systems and their literature » Esoteric Buddhism » Esoteric
traditions in China and Japan » Shingon
Although Esoteric Buddhism played a much greater role in China than is
usually recognized, it was in Japan that it became most influential.
Esoteric elements, called taimitsu in Japanese, have been an important
element in the Japanese Tendai school, which was founded by the monk
Saichō (764–822), who studied with Zhenyan and Tiantai masters in China.
The most systematized and elaborated expressions of the Esoteric
tradition, however, were developed in the Shingon school, the Japanese
version of Zhenyan.
The founder of the Shingon school in Japan was Kūkai, better known by
his posthumous name, Kōbō Daishi (Japanese: “Great Master Who Understood
the Dharma”). An exceptional scholar, poet, painter, and calligrapher,
he wrote a treatise comparing Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist thought
and naming the latter as superior. Although trained for government
service, he experienced a change of heart and became a Buddhist monk.
Like many monks in pursuit of the pure Buddhist doctrine, he journeyed
to China, where he met the master Huiguo, who recognized Kūkai’s
potential and taught him Zhenyan Buddhism. After the death of Huiguo,
Kūkai returned to Japan, where he received many governmental honours and
established a monastery on Mount Kōya as the centre of Shingon Buddhism.
In propagating the teachings of his school, Kūkai wrote many
important texts, including the Jūjū shinron (Japanese: “The Ten Stages
of Consciousness”). In this work Kūkai presented a model of the
development of the spiritual life that arranged Buddhist teachings and
those of other religions into a hierarchical system. He taught that the
first stage of human spiritual development was one in which humans are
controlled by their instincts. In the second stage, which Kūkai
identifies with Confucian teachings, human beings attempt to live a
proper moral existence. The third stage, in which the individual strives
for supernatural powers and heavenly rewards, is that of Brahmanism and
Daoism. The fourth and fifth stages of spiritual development are taught
by the Hinayana schools and are characterized by the striving for
self-enlightenment. Stages six to nine, identified with the Mahayanist
teachings of Hossō, Sanron, Tendai, and Kegon, lead the individual to
compassion for others. The zenith of spiritual development is identified
by Kūkai with the esoteric teachings of Shingon.
The Shingon school claimed that its doctrine was the purest because
it was not based on the teachings of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni,
who expounded his doctrine with the limitations of his audience in mind,
but on the timeless and immutable teachings of the Buddha in his
dharma-kaya, or cosmic body. This buddha, named Mahavairocana, was felt
to be beyond all earthly dualism and impurity but at the same instant to
be within all things as their buddha nature.
In Shingon the realization that one’s own buddha nature is identical
with Mahavairocana is enlightenment. This enlightenment, as depicted in
Kūkai’s treatise Sokushin-jōbutsugi (Japanese: “The Doctrine of Becoming
a Buddha with One’s Body During One’s Earthly Existence”), can be
achieved in this world while possessing a human body. To achieve this
enlightened state, however, the aspirant must receive the secret
doctrine of Shingon orally and directly from a Shingon master. The truth
that the master reveals is founded on the ritual mysteries of the body,
speech, and mind; these mysteries invoke cosmic forces embodied in the
buddhas and bodhisattvas with which the aspirant identifies before
becoming one with Mahavairocana. The experience of the mystery of the
body involves the use of mudras: devotional gestures of the hands and
fingers, postures of meditation, and the handling of such sacred
instruments as the vajra (“thunderbolt” or “diamond”) and the lotus. The
mystery of speech involves the recitation of dharanis or mantras,
mystical verses and sounds believed to be the essence of the cosmic
forces with which one wishes to commune. Attaining the mystery of the
mind involves yogic contemplation of and absorption in the buddha
Mahavairocana and his attendants.
The aspirant is further helped in his quest to identify his buddha
nature with the Cosmic Buddha by means of two mandalas, often placed on
the Shingon altar. The mandalas, believed to contain all the power of
the cosmos, were drawn in accordance with the teaching of Huiguo, who
maintained that the buddha Mahavairocana’s doctrines were so profound
that their meanings could be conveyed only in art. One mandala, called
the “Diamond Mandala” (based on the Tattvasamgraha and known in Japanese
as kongō-kai), portrays the buddha Mahavairocana sitting upon a white
lotus in deep contemplation, surrounded by the buddhas of the four
regions. This symbolizes Mahavairocana’s indestructible, immutable, or
potential aspect. The second mandala, called the “Womb Mandala of Great
Compassion” (based on the Mahavairocana-sutra and known in Japanese as
taizō-kai), reveals Mahavairocana sitting on a red lotus surrounded by
innumerable buddhas, bodhisattvas, and Indian gods, with consorts. This
represents the Cosmic Buddha’s dynamic manifestation in which he is
immanent in everything. It was believed that, by meditating correctly on
these two mandalas, the aspirant would realize the unity beyond the
diversity of the world.
The emphasis of Shingon upon ritual, symbolism, and iconography,
coupled with the government’s praise of Kūkai and the bestowal upon him
of the shrine for the protection of the country, made Shingon very
popular in Japan. Shingon’s popularity was a cause of the growth of
Ryōbu Shintō (Japanese: “Two Aspects Shintō”), which identified Shintō
kami (object of worship or sacred power) with bodhisattvas. Moreover,
believing that Shingon rites controlled the forces of the cosmos, many
people used them to ward off evil and bring supernatural help in
everyday life. While this combination of Esoteric Buddhism with more
this-worldly concerns caused schisms, Shingon maintains its position as
one of Japan’s strongest Buddhist schools.
Mythology
Myth in Buddhism is used at various intellectual levels in order to give
symbolic and sometimes quasi-historical expression to religious
teachings. Accepted on its own terms, Buddhism is a supernatural
religion in the sense that, without a buddha to reveal them, the truths
remain unknown. Only after human beings have received the Buddha’s
revelation can they proceed apparently by their own efforts. This
teaching was explicit in the early schools, in which the revelation was
still thought of as historically related to Shakyamuni’s mission in the
world. Gradually some Buddhists developed the idea of the Buddha’s
continuous revelation and gracious assistance, deriving from his
glorified state of time-transcending enlightenment. Thus, the
comparatively simple mythology of the great Buddha myth developed into
the far more elaborate tradition of Mahayana.
The acceptance of the mythology, whether early or fully developed,
has been a crucial factor in the development of Buddhism. Without the
rich mythology associated with the Buddha, the religion collapses, and
nothing is left but a demythologized, supposedly historical figure in
whom it makes little sense to “take refuge.” He becomes a wandering
ascetic of ancient India, like many others, and the appeal and growth of
his religion has no adequate explanation. It was therefore the
extraordinary combination of the historical Shakyamuni and the mythology
that became associated with him that set the great religion known as
Buddhism on its historical course.
In Buddhism myth is continually used at second or even third remove
to bolster the primary Buddha myth. These subsidiary forms include, for
example, stories about the recitation of the Buddhist canon soon after
Shakyamuni’s decease, details of his previous lives, and descriptions of
the six spheres of rebirth. Some Buddhist traditions take these
subsidiary myths more seriously than others, and in each tradition there
are also variations among individual adherents. But, even for those
Buddhists who are most skeptical, the myths associated with the Buddha
and his saving activity remain central and useful.
Mythology » Shakyamuni in literature and art » Traditional literary
accounts
The traditional biographies of the Buddha Shakyamuni all derive
ultimately from early Indian extracanonical rearrangements of the
still-earlier scattered canonical accounts of his great acts. The
best-known of the Indian “biographies” are the Sanskrit works the
Mahavastu (“Great Story”), the Buddhacarita (“Poetic Discourse on the
Acts of the Buddha”), and the Lalitavistara (“Detailed Narration on the
Sport [of the Buddha]”); the Chinese Abhiniskramana-sutra (“Discourse on
the Going Forth”), translated from an Indian original; and the Pali
introduction to the Jatakas, the Nidanakantha (“Account of the
Origins”), as well as the commentary on the Buddhavamsa (“Chronicle of
the Buddhas”). These early works grew out of earlier traditions, and
ascertaining the dates of their final versions helps in no way to
estimate the actual age or reliability of much of the material they
contain. All that can be said is that this material agrees substantially
with the earliest-known fragmentary canonical accounts and that, once
presented in biographical form, there are only minor variations in the
“national” versions of the story. The later Sinhalese, Thai, Myanmar
(Burmese), and Cambodian stories are all firmly based on the earlier
Pali versions. The Koreans and Japanese derived their accounts directly
from the Chinese, who in turn derived their traditions, via Central
Asia, from Indian sources. The Tibetans developed their versions from
the same earlier Indian versions. The biography of Shakyamuni included
by the Tibetan historian Bu-ston (1290–1364) in his Chos ’byung
(“History of Buddhism”) differs from other traditional accounts only by
its listing of the later Mahayana doctrines as part of Shakyamuni’s
teachings on earth. All in all, the unity of the mythological and
quasi-historical interpretations of the life and death of the
“historical” Buddha, in whatever Buddhist country they have been retold,
remains impressive.
The kernel of truth in the claim of the Theravadin Buddhists of Sri
Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia to represent unadulterated “original
Buddhism” derives from the fact that they have remained faithful to the
early enthusiastic acclamation of Shakyamuni as the one and only Buddha
of the present dispensation. Although other buddhas were recognized from
a very early date, the attention of the early community was focused
almost exclusively on the person and activities of Shakyamuni.
All the early canonical accounts agree in describing Shakyamuni’s
experience of enlightenment as a definitive victory over Mara, the Evil
One, and as resulting in a threefold knowledge: that of his own previous
births, that of the births and deaths of all other sentient beings, and
that of the saving insight that brings final release from the whole
unhappy process. Moreover, Shakyamuni was acclaimed Mahamuni (“Great
Sage”) and Bhagavat (“Lord”) in the texts not because he achieved a
state of spiritual equilibrium in the context of ordinary existence but
because he attained the supramundane state of nirvana. There are no
textual indications that he was ever regarded by his followers as a kind
of Socratic sage; on the contrary, he was thought to be a perfected yogi
who possessed miraculous powers and divine insight, combined with an
extraordinary concern for the spiritual advancement of others. Thus,
from the first his state of enlightenment, or Buddhahood, was recognized
as lokottara (“transcendent”) and as the transient embodiment of
supramundane knowledge. Shakyamuni was identified with the pre-Buddhist
Indian myth of the Mahapurusa (“Great Man”). As a Great Man he could
have become a universal monarch, but he chose instead the even higher
career for which a Great Man was also prepared—the career of a universal
religious teacher.
According to one very important early text, Shakyamuni was accepted
as the seventh in a series of previous buddhas. His contemporary
Mahavira, leader of the Jains, was linked to a similar series of 24
great religious figures. The essential mythical idea consists not in the
numbers but in the notion of a necessary soteriological lineage. The
title Tathagata, probably meaning “he who has thus attained,” was
regularly used by Shakyamuni to refer to himself. Had it not been for
his utter confidence in his achievement, his religious movement would
doubtless have died with him.
Not only do buddhas appear at more or less regular intervals, but the
final appearance of any buddha is the culmination of a whole series of
previous lives, during which he gradually advances toward enlightenment.
The belief accords well with the worldview of the region in which
Buddhism originated, and it may be supposed that Shakyamuni believed
this of himself. In any case, the earliest-known Buddhist tradition most
certainly presented him as so believing. Building on this basis, many
stories of events in his previous lives became very popular, some drawn
from various folk traditions, others having a more distinctively
Buddhist flavour. These stories have played an extraordinarily important
role in Buddhist teaching and art.
The fundamental myth, however, was sometimes supplemented by later
additions. One such addition concerns Mara, the Evil One, who
represented the force of spiritual evil that Shakyamuni was conscious of
having confronted and overcome. Mara is explicitly identified as
Concupiscence and as Death, the twin foes of all those who strive toward
the tranquil and immortal state of nirvana. At the same time, Mara is
identified with various demons and evil spirits, and the texts usually
describe him in these terms. The definitive victory over Mara, on
whatever spiritual or popular level it may be understood, remains an
inalienable element of the myth. It is just as important as the belief,
universally attested in the earliest traditions of all Buddhists, in the
omniscience and the miraculous powers of Shakyamuni.
Since Shakyamuni’s followers were interested in him as a marvelous
being and as a transcendent Buddha, historical reminiscences that were
preserved in the story are incidental to the recounting of such things
as the great acts of his previous lives, his miraculous birth in his
last life, the drama of his final enlightenment while sitting under the
pipal tree, his stupendous decision to convert and save others (as
symbolized by his first sermon in the Deer Park near Varanasi
[Benares]), and his final decease at Kusinara.
Mythology » Shakyamuni in literature and art » Shakyamuni in art and
archaeology
The primary Buddhist monument, both in early and present-day Buddhism,
is the stupa, originally a reliquary mound or tumulus. Although the cult
of the stupa is attested archaeologically only from the 3rd century bce
onward, the canonical tradition links this cult to the great events
associated with Shakyamuni’s decease. Mythologically, the stupa is the
supreme symbol of the Buddha in his fully realized state beyond the
bonds of mortality. Carved stonework preserved from the 2nd century bce
onward, especially from the ancient stupas of Bharhut and Sanchi in
India, reveals the great Buddha myth in visual form. The scenes on these
stupas depict not only the great events of the Buddha’s last life but
also those of his previous births as well.
In the earliest period symbols were used to represent the figure of
the Buddha in scenes from his life as Shakyamuni—a tree indicating his
enlightenment, a wheel his first preaching, and a miniature stupa his
final nirvana—because the sanctity of his being was thought to be too
great to be portrayed physically. The tree cult involved ancient
pre-Buddhist traditions that coalesced with the act of the enlightenment
as performed beneath the pipal or bodhi tree. The wheel was the symbol
both of the universal monarch and of the Buddha as universal guide and
teacher. The stupa cult, with its extraordinary preoccupation with human
relics, may have been a special Buddhist development related to the
belief in nirvana as a supramundane state. It is in marked contrast to
the usual Hindu (Brahmanic) horror of mortal remains as unclean.
Sculptural representations of the Buddha appeared in northwestern
India from about the 1st century bce, and stereotyped images of him soon
became the model for use throughout Asia. Common types of Buddha image
are those that represent his calling the earth to witness against Mara
by touching it with the fingertips of the right hand, the meditating
Buddha protected by a cobra’s hood, and the Buddha lying on his right
side as he enters final nirvana. The Buddha protected by a cobra’s hood
represents a coalescing of the Buddha myth with the pre-Buddhist cult of
snakes as protecting divinities (the naga cult) and derives from a
legend in which the Buddha was protected from a rainstorm by a great
naga king named Mucilinda.
The Buddha image was adapted to all the main scenes of Shakyamuni’s
life. While the later stupas in India and Southeast Asia achieved
ever-greater artistic splendour, they remained the symbols of
Shakyamuni’s transcendence and preserved the iconographic traditions
concerning scenes from his previous lives as well as his last life.
Famous examples are Amaravati in South India, dating from about the 3rd
century ce (some of its stone carvings are preserved in the British
Museum), and Borobudur, which was built in Java between 778 and 850 ce
and embodies Mahayanist (and perhaps Esoteric) components in its
symbolic structure. It also displays the close association between later
developments and the great Buddha myth of Shakyamuni.
Temples and monasteries hewn out of rock were used by Buddhists at
least from the 2nd century bce until the 8th century ce and probably
later. Early cave monasteries, famous for their temples with internal
stupas set in a kind of sanctuary, are Bhaja, Bhedsa, and Karli, all
within reach of Mumbai (Bombay). Other cave monasteries famous for the
development of the iconography of the Buddha are Kanheri (near Mumbai),
Nasik, Ellora, and, especially, Ajanta, which contains fine murals
dating from the 1st century bce to the 9th century ce. These mainly
represent Shakyamuni in his last life and in his previous lives as a
compassionate bodhisattva. Magnificent cave temples and monasteries were
established in many other Buddhist areas, especially in China.
The iconographic traditions of Shakyamuni thrive to this day chiefly
in Sri Lanka and the Southeast Asian countries where Theravada Buddhism
prevails. In the Mahayana countries of Nepal, Tibet, China, Japan,
Mongolia, and Korea, the same iconographic traditions are observed
whenever an image or painting of Shakyamuni is required. So long as
Buddhism remains, the visual representations of Shakyamuni will continue
to be meaningful.
Mythology » Celestial buddhas and bodhisattvas » Literary references
The starting point of all the later-developed traditions of the Buddha
was the great Buddha myth. The early idea of a series of buddhas in
time, first 7 and later 24, soon allowed for the idea of a future buddha
Maitreya, whose cult became popular throughout the Buddhist world. Next
came the tendency to focus attention on other buddhas in buddha lands
distributed through endless space.
In the Indian context the most important of the new buddhas that came
to be recognized were gradually systematized into a set of five
Celestial or Dhyani Buddhas. The buddha who was usually placed at the
centre of the group was Vairocana, the Illuminator, the universal sage
or chakravartin buddha. He is often depicted using the gesture of
preaching or by the symbol of the wheel of dharma. The buddha of the
east, Aksobhya (the Imperturbable), is iconographically associated with
Shakyamuni in the “earth-witness” posture. The cult of the
“Imperturbable” buddha probably derives from the cult at Bodh Gaya, the
historical place of the Buddha’s enlightenment. The buddha of the south
was Ratnasambhava, the Jewel-Born, who represents the Buddha’s selfless
giving, indicated by the gesture of giving gifts—right hand open,
pointing outward and downward. Amitabha was the buddha of the western
paradise, around whom an important devotional cult developed. The buddha
of the north was Amoghasiddhi, “Infallible Success,” who represents the
Buddha’s miraculous power to save, indicated by the hand gesture of
giving protection—right hand raised, palm outward and pointing upward.
These five celestial buddhas seem—in the early stages of their
development—to have been celestial manifestations of various aspects of
Shakyamuni.
Two of these buddhas developed an important mythology and cult of
their own quite apart from their role in the group of five Dhyani
Buddhas. The first of these was Amitabha, the great buddha who presided
over the western paradise and became the central figure in the
traditions of Pure Land Buddhism. The Pure Land tradition, which
probably began in northwestern India about the beginning of the Common
Era, was most successful in China and Japan, where it became the
dominant Buddhist tradition. The second of the five great buddha figures
with a very important independent history was Vairocana. This “central”
buddha developed an important role throughout the Buddhist world and
emerged as the central buddha figure in the Esoteric traditions of
Japan.
The Dhyani Buddhas prepared the way for the psychophysical theories
of the tantras. The five were associated with the centre and four
compass points, namely, the macrocosm, conceived as a unity of the Five
Great Elements. They were also identified with the microcosm of the
human personality understood in terms of the Five Components
(skandhas)—rupa (materiality or form), vedana (feelings of pleasure or
pain or the absence of either), samjna (cognitive perception), samskara
(the forces that condition the psychic activity of an individual), and
vijnana (consciousness)—and with the Five Great Evils (ignorance, wrath,
desire, malignity, and envy), typifying normal phenomenal existence. At
this stage mythology and psychological symbolization are inextricably
bound together.
In the tantras Buddhist mythology also overlapped with Hindu
mythology. Aksobhya, for example, acquires a fierce Tantric form that is
reminiscent of the fierce form of the Hindu god Shiva; in this form he
became known by the Buddhist names Heruka, Hevajra, or Samvara. He is
known in Japan in this guise as Fudō (“Imperturbable”). The Indian god
Bhairava, a fierce bull-headed divinity, was adopted by Tantric
Buddhists as Vajrabhairava. Also known as Yamāntaka (“Slayer of Death”)
and identified as the fierce expression of the gentle Manjushri, he was
accorded quasi-buddha rank.
The bodhisattvas also developed manifold forms. Maitreya, the
buddha-yet-to-come, was already known prior to the beginning of the
Common Era and became the focus of a major devotional cult that spread
across Asia. This early cult seems to have prepared the way for the Pure
Land traditions involving Amitabha, which gradually superseded it. From
the 1st century ce onward, a number of other celestial bodhisattvas were
recognized, and cults of various kinds developed around them.
Bodhisattvas who became popular included Manjughosa (“Gentle Voice”) or
Manjusri (“Glorious Gentle One”), the representative of divine wisdom,
and Vajrapani, “the one who wields the ritual thunderbolt [vajra]” and
who, as lord of yakshas (a class of local Indian divinities), entered
the pantheon as a great protector.
Avalokitesvara, the lord of compassion, first appeared in India and
subsequently became an important figure in virtually every Mahayana and
Esoteric Buddhist tradition. He was recognized as the great patron of
Tibet, who is believed to reincarnate in each of the Dalai Lamas. As
Guanyin in China, Kannon in Japan, and Kwanseium in Korea, this
bodhisattva coalesced with his feminine counterpart, Tara, and became a
kindly madonna.
The bodhisattva Ksitigarbha (“Womb of the Earth”), who had hardly any
significance in India, Nepal, or Tibet, attracted a cult as lord of the
underworld in Central Asia. Ksitigarbha and his cult spread to China and
other areas of eastern Asia. Known as Dizang in Chinese and Jizō in
Japanese, he is lord of hell and therefore became the central figure in
important and popular after-death liturgies.
Mythology » Celestial buddhas and bodhisattvas » Art and archaeology
It is mainly from artistic and archaeological remains that scholars have
been able to trace the remarkable spread of Mahayana Buddhist mythology
throughout Asia from the 1st century ce onward. The main points of
departure for this mythology were northwestern India and the Bay of
Bengal, especially the port of Tamralipti. Early Mahayana developments
also affected South India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia.
In India itself Bihar and Bengal remained Buddhist, largely late
Mahayana and Tantric, until the 13th century. In Java and Sumatra there
is iconographic evidence of the popularity of the buddhas, bodhisattvas,
and fierce quasi-buddha figures mentioned above. There are even traces
in Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia of images and paintings of late
Mahayana and Tantric divinities. In Southeast Asia the island of Bali
retains a living but mixed Hindu-Tantric Buddhist culture.
Paintings and figures unearthed during the 20th century in Central
Asia (Chinese Turkistan) have revealed the manner in which Buddhist
architecture, iconography, and painting passed from northwestern India
to China and East Asia. Especially important are the paintings of
buddhas and bodhisattvas in the caves of Dunhuang (4th to 10th century
ce). These paintings reveal the popularity in China, Japan, and Korea of
Amitabha-Amitayus, Vairocana, Maitreya, Manjusri, Ksitigarbha, and
Avalokitesvara (as the goddess Guanyin).
The main repository of Indian Mahayana and Vajrayana iconographic
traditions is Tibet, where Buddhism was introduced from the 8th to the
13th century. Until the communist takeover of 1959, the Tibetans
preserved and developed Indian (Pala) styles of iconography. They also
preserved ancient techniques and styles of Indian Buddhist painting that
were modified and enriched in some schools by much later influence from
China.
Mythology » Recurrent mythic themes » Mythic figures in the Three Worlds
cosmology
In the early Buddhist tradition, Gautama is represented as denying the
importance of questions concerning the nature of the universe. It was
enough to realize that normal existence consists of a process of
continual birth, death, and rebirth, a process from which, by following
the path the Buddha discovered, one might achieve release. If the early
texts are correct, however, such an ordinance did not prevent the
Buddha, and certainly did not prevent his followers, from accepting the
general cosmological beliefs of the time, modified by conclusions drawn
from the Buddha’s own teachings.
The cosmology, as it was systematized in the Buddhist tradition,
included an infinite number of cosmos, all of which have the same
structure. Each cosmos has three different realms, each of which is
within the confines of samsara (the ongoing cycle of birth, death, and
rebirth) and is regulated more or less strictly by the law of karma,
according to which good and pious deeds are rewarded while evil and
impious deeds are punished.
At the top of the cosmos is the arupa-loka (Pali and Sanskrit: “realm
of formlessness”), in which the most exalted brahma deities live and in
which there are neither material qualities nor mythological activity.
The brahma deities who are associated with the next-lower level, called
rupa-loka (Pali and Sanskrit: “realm of material form”), do have a role
in Buddhist mythology, particularly in the cosmogony through which the
lower strata of the cosmos are restored after the eschatological
cataclysms that periodically destroy them. According to an influential
version of the primary creation myth, found in the Agganna Sutta,
certain brahma deities whose abode was above the destruction begin—as
the waters that are left from the old cataclysm start to coagulate below
them—to savour the taste of the matter that constitutes these lower
strata. As the strata take form, these brahma deities gradually descend
into the lower realms and eventually become the first inhabitants of the
new earth, from whom all humans descend.
Below the realms of the brahma deities is the kama-loka (Pali and
Sanskrit: “the realm of desire”). This realm includes a set of six gatis
(“destinies”) that have played an important role as a setting for
mythology in virtually all Buddhist traditions in Asia. The highest of
these six destinies is that of the devatas (though both gods and
goddesses are included among the devatas, the goddesses generally have a
secondary role). Within this destiny there are many heavens, each
inhabited by many deities. Mythologically, the most important are the
Tushita Heaven, where the future buddha Maitreya awaits the time for his
coming to earth; the Heaven of the Thirty-three Gods, which is presided
over by Inda (Sanskrit: Indra; sometimes called Sakka [Sanskrit:
Shakra], a deity who plays a significant mythological role); and the
Heaven of the Four Guardian Kings, protective deities who are found in
many Buddhist myths.
The second of the gatis is the destiny occupied by human beings. The
Agganna Sutta continues the story of creation by recounting the process
through which the primal people devolved from their original idyllic
earthly situation. Human vices and human conflicts emerge until a king
called Mahasammata (“Great Elect”) is chosen to keep the peace and slow
the pace of decline. Beyond this story of the beginnings of social life,
the human realm is the locus for a myriad of widely diversified mythic
stories about pious monks, nuns, kings, and other laypersons.
The third gati is the destiny of the asuras (“demons”), who in Indian
mythology are the traditional enemies of the devas or devatas, though in
the Buddhist mythology they generally play a limited role. (In fact, in
some contexts the gati of the asuras is omitted from the system.) The
fourth gati—the destiny of the animals—provides the setting for stories
about many fabulous creatures, including nagas (mythical snakes), Garuda
(a mythical bird), lions, and elephants.
The two remaining gatis, those of the pretas (“hungry ghosts”) and
the hell beings, are mythically important in two respects. The
descriptions provided of the punishments that are inflicted in these
realms are very vivid indeed. In addition, there are widely distributed
and well-known mythic stories of compassionate bodhisattvas and Buddhist
saints who make journeys to these gatis to assuage the torment of those
who suffer and to secure their release.
In different areas of Asia, new gods, goddesses, and demons were
incorporated into the cosmology (for example, in Southeast Asia the
great Hindu gods Vishnu [Visnu] and Shiva were often depicted as devas).
Despite these new mythic contents, however, the classic cosmological
structure was kept remarkably intact.
Mythology » Recurrent mythic themes » Local gods and demons
Although the contemplative elite may deny the real existence of gods and
demons together with the rest of phenomenal existence, the majority of
Buddhists have preserved indigenous religious beliefs and practices. It
has already been noted how Mara, the manifestation of spiritual evil,
was presented in the earliest literature in terms of local demonological
beliefs. It is also the case that the early stupas and entrances to cave
temples were decorated with local male and female deities (usually
referred to as yakshas and yakshinis) who were seen as converted
defenders of the new faith. This proved to be a satisfying way of
justifying the continuance of the cult of local deities, and it has been
employed in varying degrees in every Buddhist land. Thus, there
developed a pantheon of minor deities that continued to take in new
members wherever Buddhism was established.
The Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions welcomed these local deities
and have admitted some of their cults into the liturgies in honour of
buddhas and bodhisattvas. Such favoured deities include Mahakala, the
great black divinity; the mother goddess Hariti; Kuvera, the god of
wealth; and especially Hayagriva, a fierce horse-faced god who is
powerful in driving off unconverted demonic forces. The Mahayana and
Vajrayana traditions have also identified local deities as
manifestations of various buddhas and bodhisattvas. This process is
particularly prominent in Japan, where the identification of buddhas and
bodhisattvas with indigenous kami (Japanese: “god” or “spirit”) has
included both the great gods (for example, in the identification of the
buddha Mahavairocana with the great ancestral Sun goddess, Amaterasu)
and the kami of local territories.
In other cases that are equally widespread, local gods and demons
have been conquered, converted, and taken into the pantheon or relegated
to the periphery (where they may still require propitiation). Perhaps
the most interesting example is found in Tibet, where it is commonly
believed that Buddhism became established in the 8th century only as the
result of the wholesale subjugation of local deities—a subjugation that
must, from time to time, be repeated through the performance of rituals
marked by their dynamism and ferocity.
In Theravada, Buddhism has had to come to terms with local beliefs.
In some cases well-organized pantheons have been built. In Sri Lanka,
for example, various local, Hindu, and Buddhist deities hold places
within a hierarchy headed by the Buddha himself. In Myanmar the
traditional hierarchy of local nats is headed by Thagya Min nat.
Identified with Indra, he becomes a divine protector of Buddhism, who
reigns in the Heaven of the Thirty-three Gods.
These neatly organized systems, even where they exist, are, however,
only a small part of the story. Throughout the various Theravada
countries, a wide variety of deities and spirits have been incorporated
into the Buddhist world as the inhabitants of particular realms within
the Buddhist cosmos or as the guardians of various images, stupas, and
temples. At the same time, there are others who, like the demons of
Tibet, remain only partially encompassed within the Buddhist domain.
Mythology » Recurrent mythic themes » Female deities
In many Buddhist traditions female deities and spirits have been
relegated to minor and secondary positions in the pantheon. Among the
Theravadins, for example, it is rare for female deities to play a major
role. An important exception is the goddess Pattini, who is a
significant figure in the Theravada pantheon in Sri Lanka.
In the Mahayana tradition several female deities became major
figures. Notably, Supreme Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) is often personified
as the Mother of All Buddhas, who is manifest especially in Maha Maya,
the virgin mother of Shakyamuni. Tara, the saviouress, is a much more
popular figure who has often been seen as the female counterpart of the
bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. In China and Japan, Avalokitesvara himself
gradually assumed a female form. As Guanyin (Japanese: Kannon), he/she
became probably the most popular figure in the entire panoply of buddhas
and bodhisattvas.
It was, however, in the Vajrayana and Esoteric traditions that female
deities became ubiquitous at the highest levels of the pantheon. From
the 7th century onward, a riot of female divinities found their way into
certain circles of Buddhist yogis, where they were actually represented
by women partners in a special kind of sexual yoga (physical and mental
discipline). The process was gradually interpreted as an internal form
of celibate yoga, for, in accordance with Vajrayana and Esoteric theory,
enlightenment is achieved by the union of Wisdom and Method, now
conceived of symbolically as female and male. Thus, it became possible
to present supreme Buddhahood as the union of a male and female pair and
then to represent every celestial buddha or quasi-buddha by a pair of
male and female forms. The actual sexual ritual was certainly performed
at one time in India and Nepal, seemingly to a very limited extent in
Tibet, and perhaps not at all in China and Japan. Nonetheless, this form
of Tantric symbolism, with its plethora of female buddhas and
quasi-buddhas, has been taken for granted as part of the received
tradition of virtually all Vajrayana and Esoteric Buddhists.
Mythology » Recurrent mythic themes » Kings and yogis
The great Buddha myth is a combination of the ideals of universal
kingship and universal religious preeminence. This is clearly expressed
in the myth of the prophetic utterance of future greatness by the sage
Asita, who examined auspicious signs on the infant Gautama and
determined that he was a Mahapurusha (a Great Man capable of attaining
universal rulership or Buddhahood) who was destined to become a buddha.
According to the Jataka tradition, Gautama, in his penultimate life
as Vessantara (Sanskrit: Vishantara), had already realized the
perfection of the extraordinary combination of kingship and
all-abandoning asceticism. As crown prince, Vessantara was famous for
his vast generosity, and, to the despair of his more practical-minded
father, he accepted banishment to the forest. There he attained ultimate
self-abnegation by giving away his children and his wife, and in some
accounts even his own eyes. In the end all the things Vessantara had
given up were miraculously restored to him, and, responding to the
demands of his countrymen, he returned home to become the best of kings.
Similarly, the last life of Gautama, up to the time of his great
renunciation, is told entirely as a royal story.
Although the practice of Buddhist religion strictly required
withdrawal from the world, or at least renunciation of its pleasures,
the Buddha and his followers were eager to win royal support. They
needed benefactors, and what better benefactor than a king. Any
suggestion of royal benefaction thus resulted in the revival of the
“myth” of the vastly generous monarch. Even within the Theravada
tradition, the notion of the beneficent king as a bodhisattva has been
prominent.
The most famous example of the mythologized kings is the Indian
emperor Asoka, who helped spread Buddhism and became the protagonist in
many Buddhist legends. He is credited with having built 84,000 stupas as
well as having disseminated Buddhism to neighbouring countries. On a
smaller scale, legends embellish the life of King Tissa of Sri Lanka
(3rd century bce), who presided over the arrival of Buddhism. Similar
legends developed around other royal supporters of Buddhism, including
Prince Shōtoku of Japan (died 622 ce)—whose enthusiasm for Buddhism is
genuinely historical—Srong-brtsan-sgam-po of Tibet (died 650 ce), and
Tibet’s two other great “kings of religion”: Khri-srong-lde-btsan
(reigned 755–797 ce) and Ral-pa-can, who was assassinated in 838 ce.
The great 8th/9th-century stupa of Borobudur in central Java
deliberately represents the ruling monarch of Java as a king who
exhibited aspirations toward Buddhahood. The king presents himself as
the bodhisattva par excellence. The Tibetans developed a similar idea
when they identified their reincarnating Dalai Lama as a manifestation
of their great patron, the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. The Manchu
emperors of China were regarded as manifestations of the bodhisattva
Manjusri.
From early in the history of Buddhism, the Buddha was recognized as a
fully perfected yogi who possessed great religious insight and
miraculous powers. Among the Buddha’s disciples, Maha Moggallana was
especially known for his yogic attainments and magical powers. Notably,
he traveled through various cosmic realms, bringing back to the Buddha
reports of things that were transpiring in those worlds. In later
Theravada accounts Maha Moggallana’s successor, the monk Phra Malai,
visited the Tushita Heaven to question the future buddha Maitreya
concerning the time when he was to be reborn on earth in order to
complete his buddha mission.
At a more general level, the early disciples of Shakyamuni, known as
arhats when they achieved perfection, were conceived of as
miracle-working yogis and were presented in the early canonical
literature in this way. This same ideal was acknowledged in the
Theravada tradition, and all Theravada areas have claimed their share of
arhats. But it was in Tibet, which drew on the more developed Indian
myth of the mahasiddha (Sanskrit: “great yogi”) of the Tantric period
(8th to 12th century ce), that this theme was most effusively developed.
Especially famous are Padmasambhava (also called Guru Rimpoche), an
8th-century Indian yogi credited with having quelled the evil spirits of
Tibet, and Pha-dam-pa Sangs-rgyas (died 1117), a Brahman of South India
who became a Buddhist and visited Tibet and possibly China in the 11th
century. Doubtless historical, Pha-dam-pa Sangs-rgyas passed out of
history into myth with his fantastic powers and equally fantastic
longevity. Better known in Europe is the story of the great Tibetan yogi
Mi-la-ras-pa (1040–1123).
Early in the history of Chinese Buddhism, the same mythical
tendencies appeared. Bodhidharma (6th century), the founder of Chan
(Zen) Buddhism, was considered to be an Indian yogi. Subsequently, the
ideal of the Buddhist sage, as typified by the arhats, coalesced in
Chinese thought with the Daoist immortals in mythical figures known as
lohans. In Japan new mythicized stories developed, some associated with
the founders of Japanese schools such as Kūkai and Shinran, others with
popular holy men who were the Buddhist counterparts of indigenous
shamans and ascetics. Through the continued generation of such new myths
and stories, Buddhism was able to move from culture to culture, taking
root in each one along the way.
David Llewelyn Snellgrove
Popular religious practices
Like other great religions, Buddhism has generated a wide range of
popular practices. Among these, two simple practices are deeply rooted
in the experience of the earliest Buddhist community and have remained
basic to all Buddhist traditions.
The first is the veneration of the Buddha or other buddhas,
bodhisattvas, or saints, which involves showing respect, meditating on
the qualities of the Buddha, or giving gifts. Such gifts are often given
to the relics of the Buddha, to images made to represent him, and to
other traces of his presence, such as places where his footprint can
supposedly be seen. After the Buddha’s death the first foci for this
sort of veneration seem to have been his relics and the stupas that held
them. By the beginning of the Common Era, anthropomorphic images of the
Buddha were being produced, and they took their place alongside relics
and stupas as focal points for venerating him. Still later, in the
context of the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions, the veneration of
other buddhas and bodhisattvas came to supplement or replace the
veneration of the Buddha Gautama. In the course of Buddhist history, the
forms have become diverse, but the practice of honouring and even
worshiping the Buddha or Buddha figure has remained a central component
in all Buddhist traditions.
The second basic practice is the exchange that takes place between
monks and laypersons. Like the Buddha himself, the monks embody or
represent the higher levels of spiritual achievement, which they make
available in various ways to the laity. The laity improve their
soteriological condition by giving the monks material gifts that
function as sacrificial offerings. Although the exchange is structured
differently in each Buddhist tradition, it has remained until recently a
component in virtually all forms of Buddhist community life.
Both of these practices appear independently within the tradition.
The veneration of the Buddha or Buddha figure is a common ritual often
practiced independently of other rituals. Moreover, the dana (Pali:
“gift-giving”) ritual of the Theravada tradition and similar exchanges
between monks and laypersons are performed independently of other
rituals. Both of these practices, however, are embedded in one way or
another in virtually all other Buddhist rituals, including calendric
rituals, pilgrimage rituals, rites of passage, and protective rites.
Popular religious practices » Calendric rites and pilgrimage » Uposatha
The four monthly holy days of ancient Buddhism, called uposatha,
continue to be observed in the Theravada countries of Southeast Asia.
The days—the new moon and full moon days of each lunar month and the
eighth day following the new and full moons—originated, according to
some scholars, in the fast days that preceded the Vedic soma sacrifices.
Buddhist laypersons and monks are expected to perform religious duties
during the uposatha days.
The uposatha service typically includes the repetition of the
precepts, the offering of flowers to the Buddha image, the recitation of
Pali suttas, meditation practices, and a sermon by one of the monks for
the benefit of those in attendance. The more pious laymen may vow to
observe the eight precepts for the duration of the uposatha. These
include the five precepts normally observed by all Buddhists—not to
kill, steal, lie, take intoxicants, or commit sexual offenses, which
came to entail complete sexual continence—as well as injunctions against
eating food after noon, attending entertainments or wearing bodily
adornments, and sleeping on a luxurious bed. The monks observe the
uposatha days by listening to the recitation by one of their members of
the patimokkha, or rules of conduct, contained in the Vinaya Pitaka and
by confessing any infractions of the rules they have committed.
Popular religious practices » Calendric rites and pilgrimage »
Anniversaries
The three major events of the Buddha’s life—his birth, enlightenment,
and entrance into final nirvana—are commemorated in all Buddhist
countries but not everywhere on the same day. In Theravada countries the
three events are all observed together on Vesak, the full moon day of
the sixth lunar month (Vesakha), which usually occurs in May. In Japan
and other Mahayana countries, however, the three anniversaries of the
Buddha are observed on separate days (in some countries the birth date
is April 8, the enlightenment date is December 8, and the death date is
February 15). Festival days honouring other buddhas and bodhisattvas of
the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions are also observed, and
considerable emphasis is placed on anniversaries connected with the
patriarchs of certain schools. Padmasambhava’s anniversary, for example,
is especially observed by the Rnying-ma-pa sect in Tibet, and the
birthday of Nichiren is celebrated by his followers in Japan.
Popular religious practices » Calendric rites and pilgrimage » Vassa
The beginning and end of vassa, the three-month rainy-season retreat
from July to October, are two of the major festivals of the year among
Theravada Buddhists, particularly in Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, and
Laos. The retreat has largely been given up by Mahayana Buddhists. It is
an accepted practice in countries such as Thailand for a layman to take
monastic vows for the vassa period and then to return to lay life.
Commonly, the number of years a monk has spent in monastic life is
expressed by counting up the number of vassas he has observed.
The end of vassa is marked by joyous celebration, and the following
month is a major occasion for presenting gifts to monks and acquiring
the consequent merit. The kathina, or robe-offering ceremony, is a
public event during this period and usually involves a collective effort
by a village, a group of villages, or a company to bestow gifts on an
entire monastery. A public feast and display of the robes and other
presents on a “wishing tree” are the usual components of the ceremony.
The kathina celebration culminates in the making and presentation of the
mahakathina (“great robe”), a particularly meritorious gift that
requires the cooperation of a number of people who, theoretically at
least, must produce it—from spinning the thread to stitching the
cloth—in a single day and night. The robe commemorates the act of the
Buddha’s mother, who, on hearing that he was about to renounce worldly
life, wove his first mendicant robes in one night.
Popular religious practices » Calendric rites and pilgrimage » All Souls
festival
The importance of the virtues of filial piety and the reverence of
ancestors in China and Japan have established Ullambana, or All Souls
Day, as one of the major Buddhist festivals in those countries. In China
worshipers in Buddhist temples make fachuan (“boats of the law”) out of
paper, some very large, which are then burned in the evening. The
purpose of the celebration is twofold: to remember the dead and to free
those who are suffering as pretas, or hell beings, so that they may
ascend to heaven. Under the guidance of Buddhist temples, societies
(hui, Youlanhui) are formed to carry out the necessary
ceremonies—lanterns are lit, monks are invited to recite sacred verses,
and offerings of fruit are made. An 8th-century Indian monk,
Amoghavajra, is said to have introduced the ceremony into China, from
where it was transmitted to Japan. During the Japanese festival of Bon,
two altars are constructed, one to make offerings to the spirits of dead
ancestors and the other to make offerings to the souls of those dead who
have no peace. Odorinembutsu (the chanting of invocations accompanied by
dancing and singing) and invocations to Amida are features of the Bon
celebrations.
Popular religious practices » Calendric rites and pilgrimage » New
Year’s and harvest festivals
New Year’s festivals demonstrate Buddhism’s ability to co-opt
preexisting local traditions. On the occasion of the New Year, images of
the Buddha in some countries are taken in procession through the
streets. Worshipers visit Buddhist sanctuaries and circumambulate a
stupa or a sacred image, and monks are given food and other gifts. One
of the most remarkable examples of the absorption of a local New Year’s
celebration in Buddhist practice was the Smonlam festival in Tibet,
celebrated on a large scale in Lhasa until the beginning of Chinese
communist rule in 1959. The festival was instituted in 1408 by
Tsong-kha-pa, the founder of the Dge-lugs-pa sect, who transformed an
old custom into a Buddhist festivity. Smonlam took place at the
beginning of the winter thaw, when caravans began to set out once again
and the hunting season was resumed. The observances included exorcistic
ceremonies performed privately within each family to remove evil forces
lying in wait for individuals as well as for the community as a whole.
They also included propitiatory rites performed to ward off evil such as
droughts, epidemics, or hail during the coming year. During the more
public propitiatory rites, the sangha cooperated with the laity by
invoking the merciful forces that watch over good order, and
processions, fireworks, and various amusements created an atmosphere of
hopefulness. Through the collaboration of the monastic community and the
laity, a general reserve of good karma was accumulated to see everyone
through the dangerous moment of passage from the old year to the new.
Harvest festivals also provide Buddhism an opportunity to adopt local
customs and adapt them to the Buddhist calendar. The harvest festival
celebrated in the Tibetan villages during the eighth lunar month was
quite different from the New Year ceremonies. Most commonly, offerings
of thanks were made to local deities in rites that were only externally
Buddhist. The same interplay between Buddhism and folk tradition is
observable elsewhere. At harvest time in Sri Lanka, for example, there
is a “first fruits” ceremony that entails offering the Buddha a large
bowl of milk and rice. Moreover, an integral part of the harvest
celebrations in many Buddhist countries is the sacred performance of an
episode in the life of a buddha or a bodhisattva. In Tibet troupes of
actors specialize in performances of Buddhist legends. In Thailand the
recitation of the story of Phra Wes (Pali: Vessantara) constitutes one
of the most important festival events of the agricultural calendar.
Popular religious practices » Calendric rites and pilgrimage » Buddhist
pilgrimage
Within the first two centuries of the Buddha’s death, pilgrimage had
already become an important component in the life of the Buddhist
community. Throughout early Buddhist history there were at least four
major pilgrimage centres—the place of the Buddha’s birth at Lumbini, the
place of his enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, the Deer Park in Varanasi
(Benares), where he supposedly preached his first sermon, and the
village of Kusinara, which was recognized as the place of his
Parinirvana (final nirvana or final death).
During this period the place of the Buddha’s enlightenment at Bodh
Gaya was the most important pilgrimage centre, and it remained so
throughout much of Buddhist history. After the collapse of Buddhism in
India, however, Bodh Gaya was taken over by Hindu groups and served as a
Hindu shrine. In the late 20th century, Buddhist control was partially
restored, and Bodh Gaya once again became the major Buddhist pilgrimage
site.
During the post-Asokan period, four other sites in northeastern India
became preeminent pilgrimage sites. In addition to these eight primary
sites in the Buddhist “homeland,” major pilgrimage centres have emerged
in every region or country where Buddhism has been established. Many
local temples have their own festivals associated with a relic enshrined
there or an event in the life of a sacred figure. Some of these, such as
the display of the tooth relic at Kandy, Sri Lanka, are occasions for
great celebrations attracting many pilgrims. In many Buddhist countries
famous mountains have become sacred sites that draw pilgrims from both
near and far. In China, for example, four such mountain sites are
especially important: Emei, Wutai, Putuo, and Jiuhua. Each is devoted to
a different bodhisattva whose temples and monasteries are located on the
mountainside. In many Buddhist regions there are pilgrimages that
include stops at a whole series of sacred places. One of the most
interesting of these is the Shikoku pilgrimage in Japan, which involves
visits to 88 temples located along a route that extends for more than
700 miles (1,130 km).
Buddhist pilgrimages, like those in other religions, are undertaken
for a wide range of reasons. For some Buddhists pilgrimage is a
discipline that fosters spiritual development; for others it is the
fulfillment of a vow made, for example, to facilitate recovery from an
illness; and for others it is simply an occasion for travel and
enjoyment. Whatever its motivations, pilgrimage remains one of the most
important Buddhist practices.
Popular religious practices » Rites of passage and protective rites »
Initiation » Ordination
Admission to the sangha involves two distinct acts: pabbajja (lower
ordination), which consists of renunciation of secular life and
acceptance of monastic life as a novice, and upasampada (higher
ordination), official consecration as a monk. The evolution of the
procedure is not entirely clear; in early times the two acts probably
occurred at the same time. Subsequently, the Vinaya established that
upasampada, or full acceptance into the monastic community, should not
occur before the age of 20, which, if the pabbajja ceremony took place
as early as the age of 8, would mean after 12 years of training.
Ordination could not occur without the permission of the aspirant’s
parents. The initial Pali formula was “Ehi bhikkhu,” “Come, O monk!”
The rite established in ancient Buddhism remains essentially the same
in the Theravada tradition. To be accepted the postulant shaves his hair
and beard and dons the yellow robes of the monk. He bows to the abbot or
senior monk, to whom he makes his petition for admittance, and then
seats himself with legs crossed and hands folded, pronouncing three
times the formula of the Triple Refuge—“I take refuge in the Buddha, I
take refuge in the dhamma, I take refuge in the sangha.” He repeats
after the officiating monk the Ten Precepts and vows to observe them.
Thereafter, in the presence of at least 10 monks (fewer in some cases),
the postulant is questioned in detail by the abbot—as to the name of the
master under whom he studied, whether he is free of faults and defects
that would prevent his admission, and whether he has committed any
infamous sins, is diseased, is mutilated, or is in debt. The abbot, when
satisfied, thrice proposes acceptance of the petition; the chapter’s
silence signifies consent. Nuns were once ordained in basically the same
way, though the ordination of a nun required the presence of monks in
order to be recognized as valid.
Popular religious practices » Rites of passage and protective rites »
Initiation » Bodhisattva vows
In Mahayana Buddhism new rituals were added to the ceremony of
ordination prescribed by the Pali Vinaya. The declaration of the Triple
Refuge is as central an assertion as ever, but special emphasis is
placed on the candidate’s intention to achieve enlightenment and his
undertaking of the vow to become a bodhisattva. Five monks are required
for the ordination: the head monk, one who guards the ceremony, a master
of secrets (the esoteric teachings, such as mantras), and two assisting
officiants.
Popular religious practices » Rites of passage and protective rites »
Initiation » Abhiseka
The esoteric content of Vajrayana tradition requires a more complex
consecration ceremony. Along with other ordination rites, preparatory
study, and training in yoga, the Tantric neophyte receives abhiseka
(Sanskrit: “sprinkling” of water). This initiation takes several forms,
each of which has its own corresponding vidya (Sanskrit: “wisdom”),
rituals, and esoteric formulas and is associated with one of the five
Celestial or Dhyani Buddhas. The initiate meditates on the vajra
(Sanskrit: “thunderbolt”) as a symbol of Vajrasattva Buddha (the
Adamantine Being), on the bell as a symbol of the void, and on the mudra
(ritual gesture) as “seal.” The intent of the initiation ceremony is to
produce an experience that anticipates the moment of death. The
candidate emerges reborn as a new being, a state marked by his receipt
of a new name.
Popular religious practices » Rites of passage and protective rites »
Funeral rites
The origin of Buddhist funeral observances can be traced back to Indian
customs. The cremation of the body of the Buddha and the subsequent
distribution of his ashes are told in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (“Sutta
on the Great Final Deliverance”). Early Chinese travelers such as Faxian
described cremations of venerable monks. After cremation the ashes and
bones of the monk were collected and a stupa built over them. That this
custom was widely observed is evident from the large number of stupas
found near monasteries.
With less pomp, cremation is also used for ordinary monks and laymen,
though not universally. In Sri Lanka, for example, burial is also
common, and in Tibet, because of the scarcity of wood, cremation is
rare. The bodies of great lamas, such as the Dalai and Panchen lamas,
are placed in rich stupas in attitudes of meditation, while lay corpses
are exposed in remote places to be devoured by vultures and wild
animals.
Buddhists generally agree that the thoughts held by a person at the
moment of death are of essential significance. For this reason sacred
texts are sometimes read to the dying person to prepare the mind for the
moment of death; similarly, sacred texts may be read to the newly dead,
since the conscious principle is thought to remain in the body for about
three days following death. In Tibetan, Mongolian, and Chinese
lamaseries, a lama sometimes recites the famous Bardo Thödrol (commonly
referred to in English as “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”).
Popular religious practices » Rites of passage and protective rites »
Protective rites
From a very early period in its development, Buddhism has included
within its repertoire of religious practices specific rituals that are
intended to protect against various kinds of danger and to exorcise evil
influences. In the Theravada tradition, these rituals are closely
associated with texts called parittas, many of which are attributed
directly to the Buddha. In Sri Lanka and the Theravada countries of
Southeast Asia, parittas are traditionally chanted during large public
rituals designed to avert collective, public danger. They are also very
widely used in private rituals intended to protect the sponsor against
illness and various other misfortunes.
In the Mahayana and Esoteric traditions, the role taken by protective
and exorcistic rituals is even greater. For example, dharanis (short
statements of doctrine that supposedly encapsulate its power) and
mantras (a further reduction of the dharani, often to a single word)
were widely used for this purpose. Protective and exorcistic rituals
that used such dharanis and mantras were extremely important in the
process through which the populations of Tibet and East Asia were
converted to Buddhism. They have remained an integral part of the
Buddhist traditions in these areas, reaching what was perhaps their
fullest development in Tibet.
Giuseppe Tucci
Buddhism in the contemporary world » Modern trends
During the 19th and 20th centuries, Buddhism responded to new challenges
and opportunities that cut across the regional religious and cultural
patterns that characterized the Buddhist world in the premodern period.
A number of Buddhist countries were subjected to Western rule, and even
those that avoided direct conquest felt the heavy pressure of Western
religious, political, economic, and cultural influences. Modern
rationalistic and scientific modes of thinking, modern notions of
liberal democracy and socialism, and modern patterns of capitalist
economic organization were introduced and became important elements in
the thought and life of Buddhists and non-Buddhists all across Asia. In
addition, Buddhism returned to areas where it had previously been an
important force (India is the major case in point), and it spread very
rapidly into the West, where new developments took place that in turn
influenced Buddhism in Asia.
Buddhists responded to this complex situation in diverse ways. In
many cases they associated Buddhism with the religious and cultural
identity that they sought to preserve in the face of Western domination.
Buddhists used a variety of measures to meet the challenge posed by the
presence of Western Christian missionaries, often adopting modern
Christian practices such as the establishment of Sunday schools, the
distribution of tracts, and the like. They also attempted to strengthen
the Buddhist cause by promoting missionary activity in Asia and in the
West. A number of societies have been established to promote cooperation
between Buddhists from all countries and denominations, including the
Maha Bodhi Society (established in 1891 in order to win back Buddhist
control of the pilgrimage site associated with the enlightenment of the
Buddha), the World Fellowship of Buddhists (founded in 1950), and the
World Buddhist Sangha Council (1966).
Four other responses deserve to be mentioned. In some situations
Buddhists introduced reforms designed to make Buddhism a more appealing
and effective force in the modern world. In the late 19th century,
Buddhist leaders put forward a highly rationalized interpretation of
Buddhism that de-emphasized the supernormal and ritualized aspects of
the tradition and focused on the supposed continuity between Buddhism
and modern science and on the centrality of ethics and morality. This
interpretation represents, according to its proponents, a recovery of
the true Buddhism of the Buddha.
Another response has been the development of so-called Socially
Engaged Buddhism. Those who identify with this cause include Asian
Buddhists and Western converts who have developed understandings of
Buddhist teachings and practice that focus on the implementation of
progressive social, political, and economic activity. In some cases
attention has been centred on Buddhist ideas and activities that seek to
foster world peace and world justice. Other socially active Buddhists
have sought to develop Buddhist teachings as a basis for a modern
democratic society. Still others have supported the development of a
Buddhist-based economic system that is socially and ecologically
responsible. Socially conscious Buddhists have also developed a Buddhist
form of feminism and have been associated with groups that are
attempting to reestablish (in the Theravada world) or to enhance (in
Mahayana and Vajrayana contexts) the role of Buddhist nuns.
A third widespread pattern of Buddhist reform has involved the
promotion of movements that give the laity a much stronger role than it
traditionally had. In the Theravada world lay-oriented meditation
movements focusing on vipassana (Pali: “insight”) techniques of
meditation have been successful and in some cases have found followers
far beyond the borders of the Theravada community. In East Asia an
anticlerical, lay-oriented trend, which appeared before the beginning of
the modern period, has culminated in the formation and rapid expansion
of new, thoroughly laicized Buddhist movements, particularly in Japan.
The fourth trend that can be identified stretches the usual notion of
“reform.” This trend is exemplified in the emergence of new kinds of
popular movements associated with charismatic leaders or with particular
forms of practice that promise immediate success not only in religious
terms but in worldly affairs as well. In recent years groups of this
kind, both large and small, both tightly organized and loosely knit,
have proliferated all across the Buddhist world. One example is the
Dhammakaya group, a very large, well-organized, hierarchical, and
commercialized sectarian group that is centred in Thailand. Sometimes
labeled “fundamentalist,” the Dhammakaya group propagates meditational
techniques that promise the immediate attainment of nirvana, as well as
patterns of ritual donation that claim to ensure immediate business and
financial success.
Buddhism in the contemporary world » Challenges and opportunities
The condition of contemporary Buddhist communities and the challenges
they face differ radically from area to area. There are a number of
countries, for example, where previously well-established Buddhist
communities have suffered severe setbacks that have curtailed their
influence and seriously sapped their vitality. This situation prevails
primarily in countries that have been ruled by communist governments
that have worked self-consciously to undercut Buddhist institutional
power and influence. This has happened in the Mongol areas of Central
Asia, in China (including Tibet), in North Korea, in Vietnam, in
Cambodia, and in Laos. By the end of the 20th century, the pressure on
Buddhist communities in many of these areas had eased, though conditions
varied from country to country and from time to time, and in at least
one case—that of Cambodia—Buddhism had been officially reinstated as the
state religion.
A different situation exists in parts of Asia where Buddhism has
remained the leading religious force and has continued to exert a strong
influence on political, economic, and social life. This is the case in
Sri Lanka and Myanmar, where Buddhism is the dominant religion among the
Sinhalese and Burman majorities, and in Thailand, where more than 90
percent of the population is counted as Buddhist. Although in the
majority, Buddhists face unique challenges in these areas. In Sri Lanka,
Buddhists are divided over the proper response to the ongoing civil war
between the Sinhalese government and the Hindu Tamil Tigers, who are
fighting for an independent Tamil state. In Myanmar, Buddhists confront
the profound political division between the ruling military junta, which
has sought to legitimate its dictatorial rule in traditional Buddhist
terms, and the democratic opposition—led by Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of
the Nobel Prize for Peace—which has based its resistance on a very
different version of Buddhist teaching and practice. In Thailand,
Buddhism has retained a firm position within a relatively stable social
and political order, despite deep divisions and conflicts that have
developed among various groups.
A third situation occurs in societies where Buddhist traditions
operate with a considerable degree of freedom and effectiveness, though
Buddhism’s role is more circumscribed. This situation prevails in
several of the Pacific Rim countries, including South Korea, Taiwan, and
Singapore, and to a lesser extent in Southeast Asian countries such as
Malaysia and Indonesia, where Buddhism is practiced by significant
numbers of immigrant Chinese. The primary example, however, is Japan,
where Buddhism has continued to exert an important influence. In the
highly modernized society that has developed in Japan, many deeply
rooted Buddhist traditions, such as Shingon, Tendai, Pure Land, and Zen,
have persisted and have been adapted to changing conditions. At the same
time, new Buddhist sects such as Risshō-Kōsei-kai (“Society for
Establishing Righteousness and Friendly Relations”) and Sōka-gakkai
(“Value-Creation Society”) have gained millions of converts in Japan and
throughout the world.
Finally, new Buddhist communities are struggling to put down roots in
areas where Buddhism disappeared many centuries ago or never existed at
all. In India, for example, the new Mahar Buddhist community established
by B.R. Ambedkar is struggling to develop its own style of Buddhist
teaching and practice. This seems to be leading toward the increasing
incorporation and integration of religious elements drawn from the
pre-existing Mahar tradition.
In the Western world, particularly in the United States and Canada,
the growth of new Buddhist communities—which include both Buddhist
immigrants from different parts of Asia and indigenous converts—has been
very rapid indeed. In these areas older Buddhist traditions are mixing
and interacting in ways that are generating rapid changes in ways of
thinking and in modes of practice. This process, some believe, may lead
to a new form of Buddhism that will turn out to be quite different from
the traditional forms of Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana.
For more than two millennia, Buddhism has been a powerful religious,
political, and social force, first in India, its original homeland, and
then in many other lands. It remains a powerful religious, political,
and cultural force in many parts of the world today. There is every
reason to expect that the appeal of Buddhism will continue far on into
the future.
Frank E. Reynolds
