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PREFACE

K?YA SAN HIEISAN AND ITS SECTS A SHINSHU TEMPLE A REVIVAL OF BUDDHISM CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE

A CHINESE TEMPLE

BUDDHISM IN THE MODERN WORLD

"Tend parents, cherish wife and child, Pursue a blameless life and mild: Do good, shun ill and still beware Of the red wine's insidious snare; Be humble, with thy lot content, Grateful and ever reverent."

Many times must these phrases be droned through before they are learned by heart, but gradually their meanings sink in and simple explanations and grammatical notes by the teacher help his class to understand as well as to learn. These moral maxims still exert a powerful influence for good.

Let us turn again to the shrine. The great sun is going down and the pagoda, splendid in the sunset as it changes from gold to purple and from purple to gray, and then to silver as the glorious moon rises, is thronged with devout worshippers. The monk prostrates himself before the jewelled alabaster image of Buddha. He seems unaware of the people around him, who honour him as a being of a superior order; or, if conscious of them, it is with a sense of his own aloofness. "Sabb? Dukkh?" he is murmuring: "Sabb? Anatt?" . Mechanically the lay-folk repeat with him the words which have been for twenty-five centuries the Buddhist challenge to the world, calling it away from the lure of the senses and the ties of family and home.

And finally, Buddhism influences Burmese women by appealing to their imagination and their love of mystery, with its solemn chanting, its myriad shrines, with their innumerable candles twinkling in the dusk, and the sexless sanctity of its monks. How wise and good they seem to be! Are they not custodians of the truth? Here one little woman is lifting a heavy stone weighing forty pounds; a monk has told her that if it seems heavy her prayer will surely be answered. To make assurance doubly sure, she may go and consult the soothsayer, whose little booth is near the shrine--a cheerful rogue, not without insight and a sense of humour--but she gives to the monk the supreme place, and pays him more generously!

A Burman acquaintance of mine, who was converted to Christianity, was asked by an old lady why he had deserted the "custom" of his people. "I am sick," he began, "of all this bowing down to the monks, and of all these offerings." "Stop, stop!" she cried, aghast. "You are destroying the whole religion of our nation!"

Again, while Buddhism does not give to womanhood nearly so high a place as does the religion of Jesus, yet it has granted her a far better standing than she has in any part of India under Hinduism or Islam. Woman is the "better half" in Burma and knows it, even though she may pray to be born next as a man.

Caste, moreover, the great bane of India, is almost unknown to Buddhist Burma: it is a cheerful democratic land. Buddhism believes in the education of the masses, and its schools and monasteries are open to all. It is also very tolerant and kindly. It has not led on any large scale either to religious persecution or to war. These are no small services. Moreover, Buddhism has in the past been a great bond of union between the peoples of Asia, and it is to-day again playing some part in the movement, "Asia for the Asiatics"--a movement deserving our sympathetic attention. In the great awakening of Nationalism the Buddhist Revival has its share both as cause and as effect.

There are only some twenty thousand Burmese Christians as yet, although, within the confines of Burma there is a far larger number of Christians, and the Karens are already a great church. What, then, are the reasons for confidence that Burma will at some time be a Christian country, albeit with a Christianity whose type will differ very greatly from the prevailing types of the West?

"Glory, laud and honour To our Lord and King, This through countless ages, Men and Devas sing."

These Buddhists have organised Buddhist Sunday Schools. In these the children not only closely imitate Protestant Sunday Schools but sing to a small portable harmonium:

"Buddha loves me, this I know; For the Scriptures tell me so,"

or more usually Burmese hymns and "carols."

On the other hand, there is still much work for the Christian missionary. Buddhism in many parts of Burma seems to be making one great last stand against the gospel of Christ. Its own standard is in many respects so high that our Christianity is as a whole not loving or sacrificial enough to win its adherents. The Christianity which is to be an overpowering argument for the efficacy and truth of the Christian faith is too rare. The Buddhist Revival is largely a reaction from our Western pseudo-Christianity, and from the shameless aggression of Christendom.

The ancient and still the classic language of S. Buddhism in which its scriptures are preserved. It is used religiously, much as Latin is used in the Roman Catholic services.

Gotama is the P?li form of the Sanskrit Gautama, more familiar to Western readers.

Over against this sketch of Buddhism as it appears in Burma let us consider a scene in a neighbouring land, the island of Ceylon, where for twenty-five hundred years, the religion of the yellow robe has held almost undisputed sway. Here it has a supreme opportunity, and has often used it nobly, building a great civilisation for a thousand years.

Wave after wave of European aggression has swept over Ceylon, arousing a resentment which leads the Singhalese even to exaggerate the glories of ancient Buddhism. It is not strange that they do so. Moreover, although it is fashionable in Ceylon to despise the mendicants of the yellow robe, the fact that there are still about eight thousand monks shows that in these days of disillusionment there are many world-weary men, to whom the traditional attraction of the monastic life is over-poweringly strong and who find under it protection and peace. I have seen strong and true boys being drawn under its spell, and have known some noble characters among the monks.

He is needed in jungle village and in teeming city, to cast out fear and sin, and to enable His people to live nearer to their ideals. They, too, have gifts for Him! And we and they are partners in a glorious enterprise: to establish His Kingdom of Love and Truth in all the world. Their devotion to their Buddha, no less than their need and helplessness to-day, is an inspiring motive to the Christian missionary to win them to Christ.

"All humbug," grunts the layman. "Come, let us go to the Young Men's Buddhist Association, where a Singhalese advocate, newly returned from England, is going to read a paper on 'Buddhism, a Gospel for Europe.'" Leaving the palms and fragrant trees of the jungle silhouetted against the brilliant sky, and passing the white buildings of the Buddhist High School and of the precious and venerated Temple of the Tooth, he talks of this possibility. It seems that a movement is on foot to send a mission to Europe. We agree that, if Christians were real followers of Jesus of Nazareth, such missions would be futile: and that the spirit of Gotama is akin to that of Jesus. "We see your Christ," he says; "in His beauty, because we have first seen the beauty of our Buddha." Here is a preparation for the gospel indeed. And may not all idealists--Christians, Buddhists, and others--cooperate much more freely than they do in great causes? In a League of Nations, for example, and in social programmes? In Ceylon, as in Burma, Buddhism is in some degree adapting itself to the new world-environment. Its old cry of pain, "All is fleeting, transient, sorrowful," is giving place to attempts at social service and positive living. Yet as compared with Burma or with Christian lands, the predominating note among Buddhists in Ceylon is one of world-weariness and despair.

Ceylon and Burma were for many centuries Buddhist kingdoms with a sovereign as patron and supporter of the monks and very often with members of the royal family amongst the great abbots. Buddhism has indeed depended much upon royal patronage, and in these days when kings are rare it is of special interest to get a glimpse of a modern Buddhist kingdom which is not unlike those of the past. Let us study a great festival in Siam where the king's own brother is Head of the Order and where he himself is a staunch patron of Buddhism.

In Siam as in Burma the monks are the elementary schoolmasters. The boys all spend some time as novices, during which they not only learn the rudiments of the religion but reading, writing, and arithmetic. As in Burma, very little is done for the education of the girls, though this is steadily improving owing to the splendid work done by mission schools.

These Siamese pagodas, fantastic and gay with gold and sky-blue tiles, are of four grades, those built by the King and dedicated to him, those built by the princes, those built by the nobles, and lastly those built by the common people, usually by subscription organised by the monks or by some enthusiastic laymen. Merit gained in this and similar ways has been called "The Sum and Substance of Siamese Buddhism": there is some truth in these generalisations as regards the whole of Southern Asia. But in Siam as elsewhere there is genuine devotion to the religion of Buddha, and the human heart is not as calculating as this sentence implies. Moreover, there is considerable attempt to modernise the religion to fit the new age, and many of the people follow the King in believing that it can be made the basis for a modern state, and can unify and uplift the peoples. All that helps to build up a nation is welcomed in Siam, and Christianity therefore has an open door here as in Ceylon and Burma. Burma is tolerant, but Siam desires the friendship of Western peoples, and being independent is freer to develop along its own lines. Let us now attempt to summarise our impressions of the Buddhism of these lands of Southern Asia by describing other typical scenes in each.

In due time the body is restored to its resting place on the funeral pyre, the fire is lighted, and the whole mass flares up in flame and smoke, consuming not only the body, but along with it the decorations, including paintings of numerous demons, among whom may be an Englishman with a gun! Only demons could kill for sport! When it is consumed, the crowd disperses with shouts of merriment, well content, not least among the others the relatives of the departed. A good show has been staged, the dead has been honoured, the family name has been distinguished, and everybody is satisfied. If for the next year or more the family exchequer has been sorely depleted, still "it is the custom," and every one expects to follow it. Some one has well said that Buddhism in Burma is a cheery and social affair, "from festive marriages to no less festive funerals." I confess to an admiration for this cheerful view of death, even if some of its expressions are bizarre! It is less pagan than our "blacks, and funeral obsequies."

Buddhism makes a strong appeal to minds dissatisfied with Christianity, or unwilling to accept the claims of Christ. It is not difficult to draw analogies between the acts and sayings of Jesus and those of Gotama. It is easy to be enthusiastic over the ethical teachings of Buddhism, and over its great influence upon Asia. It has a certain appeal too to the scientific mind, which is not found in any other non-Christian religion; and some claim that it is more satisfying to the intellect than Christianity. The appeal of Buddhism, therefore, is more than a mild satisfaction of curiosity in something novel; it gives to a mind which denies the fundamentals of Christianity an apparently good religious substitute. This being true, no one can question the fact that those who are to go as Christian missionaries to Buddhist countries must take the utmost pains to prepare themselves to meet those who believe in Buddhism, not merely with friendliness and a sense of sympathy, but with an adequate background of philosophical, psychological, and religious training which enables them adequately to represent the best that is in Christianity, and to deal sympathetically and fairly with Buddhism at its best. Missionaries are all too few who can "out-think" these Scotch and German Buddhists, who carry much influence with the peoples among whom they live. Some of them are sincere and able men: and there are also strong native defenders of the Buddhist Faith. Moreover, without a deep appreciation of the power of Buddhism one cannot understand the history and culture of Asia. And this study becomes daily more important and more interesting.

Where shall one begin in his endeavour to grasp the essential teachings of Buddhism? No one can fully understand Buddhism without studying Hinduism as a background and starting point. The student can go far, however, by starting from the fact of universal human suffering, and its relief. "One thing only do I teach," said Buddha, "sorrow and the uprooting of sorrow." He was never weary of bringing home to his disciples the horror of the world's pain, in order that he might lead them on to what he believed to be the only way of salvation. "What think ye, O monks, which is vaster, the flood of tears that, weeping and lamenting, ye in your past lives have shed, or the waters of the four great oceans? Long time, O monks, have ye suffered the death of father, mother, brothers, and sisters. Long time have ye undergone the loss of your goods; long time have ye been afflicted with sickness, old age, and death." "Where is the joy, where is the laughter, when all is in flames about us?" Buddhism is often labelled pessimistic, because its writings are full of attempts, such as these, to make men realise the suffering and the worthlessness of the life to which they cling. The critics, however, do not realise the hopes which it holds out to a suffering world, which are just as characteristic of Buddhistic teaching. The Buddhist replies, "If medical science is pessimistic then Buddhism is also pessimistic." It diagnoses the disease in order to cure it.

Like other religions it is a "Way out." It first states the problem: then offers a solution.

Born the son of a chieftain in Nepal in the foothills of the Himalayas, about 560 B.C., Gotama, the great founder of Buddhism, was sheltered from the sights and sounds of suffering, as we are told in the loving stories of Buddhist lore, until the gods, who had a higher destiny in store for him than that of an Indian princeling, revealed to him the facts of old age and decay and death. In a series of visions--of the old man tottering down to the grave, of the leper riddled with foul disease, of the corpse laid out for the burning, the great fact of human suffering came home to him. It made so deep an impression that he renounced his royal rights and went out as a mendicant ascetic to discover some way of escape. He was then twenty-nine years old. Not until he had reached the age of thirty-eight, and had honestly tried the various accepted paths for the attainment of holiness and the escape from the burdens of life laid down by Hindu sages, did he find what he was seeking. Sitting under the Indian fig-tree in the heat of the day, he meditated patiently and long until the vision dawned upon him, or, as we should say, until his sub-consciousness, which had long been working upon the problem presented to it, sent a complete and satisfying solution into the focus of his conscious mind. His solution, recognising the fact that Hindu practices had vainly attempted to drug the aching nerve of pain or to tear it out, offered a more positive remedy. The present writer believes that the Spirit of God had much to do with this discovery. There are, however, among missionaries, many who feel that this is a grievous heresy, and are bitterly opposed to any such view.

Buddhism exhibits salvation as, first of all, a way of understanding. It is a religion of analysis, which bids man see life steadily and see it whole, by first taking it to pieces! When one looks at the body, what is it, says Buddhism, after all, that we should regard ourselves as attached to it? There are so many bones, so many tendons, so much skin, so many juices. If a man views the body with an anatomical eye, he will see it as it really is; disgust will arise in him which will lead him out into detachment. A Buddhist is sometimes urged to practise the habit of sitting in cemeteries or among reminders of the dead, or to have a skeleton near at hand, in order that he may meditate upon the transient nature of all that is mortal. Similarly he is to dispel anger or lust by asking, "Who is it I am angry with, after whom do I lust, but a bag of bones?" It seeks to dispel passion by reason.

The "eight-fold path" is usually developed under three main endeavours--enlightenment, morality, and concentrated meditation. Stage by stage the disciple is led along this path. "Step by step, day by day, one may purify one's heart from defilements by understanding, even as the smith purifies silver in the fire." The true disciple must avoid the extremes of asceticism, on the one hand, or of entanglement with the world on the other. So the noble path claims to be a "middle path" of sweet reasonableness. The lines are not always clearly drawn between ritual offences or mistakes and moral failures, and the ideal life often seems to be represented as primarily monastic, but there is no doubt that one who deliberately sets himself to follow the "eight-fold path" would be a lovable and strong type of character, something like the fine old monk from Tibet in Kipling's "Kim." And there have been many such, men not only of his gentle strength, but men filled with missionary zeal and devotion to noble tasks.

In spite of the protests of Gotama against attempts to persuade the gods, this is what most Buddhists in Southern Asia have come to do: and in Tibet, China, and Japan prayer is multiplied by mechanical devices, such as prayer-wheels, prayer-cylinders, and prayer-flags--a degeneration of mysticism into magic, not unknown in some Christian lands. The human heart is hungry and wants to pray! And even this religion of enlightenment and of the fixed causality of the universe has had to find a place for prayer. And Divine Beings have been called in to answer the aspiration of the heart. Gotama himself is deified: and folk pray to him in Burma, Siam, and Ceylon: whilst in the other Buddhist lands they have learnt to love such compassionate beings as Kwanyin, and Amit?bha, Buddha of eternal Light who saves men by his grace. That there is mercy in heaven is the hope of every man. It is but a pathetic dream, until we know that the heavens have spoken and declared that mercy in the Word made Flesh.

"So through the thunder comes a human voice."

Buddhism has thus passed through an interesting history of adjustment. It is important for the student of religion to give close attention to this history, one of the most amazing and fascinating chapters in human thought.

I have tried to show both the good and the bad sides of Buddhism in Southern Asia: and have laid emphasis upon those characteristics which demonstrate its continuing power. Southern Buddhists, however, need earnest and sympathetic missionaries, with a gospel of abounding life, of a Father God, and of communion with Him in Christ. Let all who contemplate this great service note the following points.

There is a marked difference between the theoretical Buddhism of early days, reflected in the standard literature of Southern Buddhism, and the Buddhism of the present day in Southern Asia. The Buddhism which Western enthusiasts are eager to introduce into their own countries is something which they have learnt, not from the peoples of Buddhist lands, but from the ancient literature of Buddhism. Captivated at first, it may be, by the beauty of some isolated saying, or, possibly, deeply touched during some moonlight scene at the great golden pagodas of Burma or on the hillsides of Ceylon, they become eager and not infrequently learned students of the Buddhism of Gotama. They have to declare with sadness that the great bulk of the people who profess Buddhism have wandered very far from its true principles and practice, and that human nature, for the most part, needs something less austere.

This old Buddhism of the Books may be regarded and used as a kind of Old Testament for Buddhists; already they have passed away from its traditions.

In Ceylon, while Buddhist ideals are better suited to the more melancholic temperament of the people, yet they are acutely conscious of their powerlessness to gain the victory over sin and sorrow unaided. As in Japan and China, so in a lesser degree in Burma and Ceylon, Buddhism has been constrained to die to itself in a way that is full of encouragement and suggestion to the Christian. For, if the mythical Kwanyin and the far-off Metteya can so captivate hungry human hearts, how shall not the historic and living Christ be enthroned in their stead?

The life of a missionary to Buddhist peoples is full of interest. Each people has many attractive qualities and the life has much of delight. Certain special qualifications may be worth mentioning:--

The missionary to Buddhists may find encouragement and inspiration in the growing conviction that Oriental Christianity will definitely add strength to the universal Church in coming days. God's kingdom will not be complete without the peoples of Southern Asia. They are deeply religious. It may be far from being an idle dream that God should give to some missionary of to-day the privilege of training a St. Paul, an Origen or an Augustine of the East, who will give to the Church other great chapters of Christian interpretation, and a truly convincing apologetic of the gospel to the world.

It is possible to see in this developing Buddhology evidence of Christian influence: the late Arthur Lloyd of Tokyo is the chief exponent of such a view. To me, however, it seems at once more scientific and more interesting to find in these parallels one more evidence alike of the similarity of human nature in all lands and ages, and of the indwelling Presence of the one Father of us all, guiding the nations in their search for Truth. The vitality and adaptability of Buddhism are evidences of His Spirit.

This vitality, even if at times adaptability has degenerated into compromise, is, as we have seen, great in Southern Asia, and amongst the sources of its strength we have noted its great influence as a civilising power and as a bond of social life: its appeal to the imagination and to the gratitude of the peoples: its philosophical explanation of the age-old problem of suffering, and the moderation and sanity of its ethical teachings. All these factors enter in differing degrees into the vitality of Buddhism in China and Japan: for it has done much to help the civilisation of these countries also, and to give them a popular philosophy of life and a pleasant social setting for religious faith.

Let us consider these facts in more detail as regards the Buddhism of Japan; for she is leading the Orient not only in matters of material progress, but in such spiritual things as a revival of the old faith which she is characteristically using to her own advantage. In 1918, for instance, a Pan-Buddhistic League was formed in Tokyo, and more remarkable has been the lead taken by the Buddhists of Japan in sending strong idealistic appeals to the Conferences at Versailles and Washington. The vital forces of Buddhism in Japan, then, are as follows:--

Japan is, in many ways, the best country for an intelligent study of its achievements.

She has been called the custodian of Asiatic civilisation: India, China, and Korea have all poured their rich gifts into her lap, and she has preserved them with wise discrimination. But she has always assimilated them till they are her own, and express her own genius. This is perhaps especially true of Buddhism, which is a very different thing in Japan even from what it is in China and Korea. Still more does it differ from that which we have studied in Ceylon and Burma. To turn away from these monastic expressions of the ancient faith to the elaborate Buddhism of Japan is to realise that a development has taken place not unlike that of Christianity, in its transition from the simplicity of Galilean hillsides and the upper chamber at Jerusalem to the pomp of high mass in St. Peter's at Rome or St. Mark's at Venice. Into each great process there have entered similar elements, the growth of a theology by which the historic founder is related to the eternal order, the absorption of ideas and rituals from peoples converted to the new faith and the making over of the faith in each new land till it becomes indigenous, and racy of the soil. The story of Buddhism as it developed its philosophical systems and its elaborate pantheon cannot be told here; but we may attempt, as in the case of Ceylon and Burma, to give a few impressions of the Buddhism of Japan, which will indicate the processes of change and suggest what are the vital forces of this amazingly flexible religion, whose watchwords have been adaptation and compromise.

Let us glance at it first in its great mountain fastness of K?ya San, where its founder Kobo Daishi lived and died, and where the faithful await with him the coming of Miroku--or Maitri--the next Buddha.

Koya San.

Hieisan and its Sects.

A Shinshu Temple.

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