Our Oriental Heritage

by Will Durant

  Gradually this sect developed one of the strangest bodies of doctrine in all the history of religion. They began with a realistic logic, in which knowledge was described as confined to the relative and temporal. Nothing is true, they taught, except from one point of view; from other points of view it would probably be false. They were fond of quoting the story of the six blind men who laid hands on different parts of an elephant; he who held the ear thought that the elephant was a great winnowing fan; he who held the leg said the animal was a big, round pillar.17 All judgments, therefore, are limited and conditional; absolute truth comes only to the periodic Redeemers or Jinas. Nor can the Vedas help; they are not inspired by God, if only for the reason that there is no God. It is not necessary, said the Jains, to assume a Creator or First Cause; any child can refute that assumption by showing that an uncreated Creator, or a causeless Cause, is just as hard to understand as an uncaused or uncreated world. It is more logical to believe that the universe has existed from all eternity, and that its infinite changes and revolutions are due to the inherent powers of nature rather than to the intervention of a deity.18

  But the climate of India does not lend itself to a persistently naturalistic creed. The Jains, having emptied the sky of God, soon peopled it again with the deified saints of Jain history and legend. These they worshiped with devotion and ceremony, but even them they considered subject to transmigration and decay, and not in any sense as the creators or rulers of the world.19 Nor were the Jains materialists; they accepted a dualistic distinction of mind and matter everywhere; in all things, even in stones and metals, there were souls. Any soul that achieved a blameless life became a Paramatman, or supreme soul, and was spared reincarnation for a while; when its reward had equaled its merit, however, it was born into the flesh again. Only the highest and most perfect spirits could achieve complete “release”; these were the Arhats, or supreme lords, who lived like Epicurus’ deities in some distant and shadowy realm, impotent to affect the affairs of men, but happily removed from all chances of rebirth.20

  The road to release, said the Jains, was by ascetic penances and complete ahimsa—abstinence from injury to any living thing. Every Jain ascetic must take five vows: not to kill anything, not to lie, not to take what is not given, to preserve chastity, and to renounce pleasure in all external things. Sense pleasure, they thought, is always a sin; the ideal is indifference to pleasure and pain, and independence of all external objects. Agriculture is forbidden to the Jain, because it tears up the soil and crushes insects or worms. The good Jain rejects honey as the life of the bee, strains water lest he destroy creatures lurking in it when he drinks, veils his mouth for fear of inhaling and killing the organisms of the air, screens his lamp to protect insects from the flame, and sweeps the ground before him as he walks lest his naked foot should trample out some life. The Jain must never slaughter or sacrifice an animal; and if he is thoroughgoing he establishes hospitals or asylums, as at Ahmedabad, for old or injured beasts. The only life that he may kill is his own. His doctrine highly approves of suicide, especially by slow starvation, for this is the greatest victory of the spirit over the blind will to live. Many Jains have died in this way; and the leaders of the sect are said to leave the world, even today, by self-starvation.21

  A religion based upon so profound a doubt and denial of life might have found some popular support in a country where life has always been hard; but even in India its extreme asceticism limited its appeal. From the beginning the Jains were a select minority; and though Yuan Chwang found them numerous and powerful in the seventh century,22 it was a passing zenith in a quiet career. About 79 A.D. a great schism divided them on the question of nudity; from that time on the Jains have belonged either to the Shwetambara—white-robed—sect, or to the Digambaras—skyclad or nude. Today both sects wear the usual clothing of their place and time; only their saints go about the streets naked. These sects have further sects to divide them: the Digambaras have four, the Shwetambaras eighty-four;23 together they number only 1,300,000 adherents out of a population of 320,000,000 souls.24 Gandhi has been strongly influenced by the Jain sect, has accepted ahimsa as the basis of his policy and his life, contents himself with a loin-cloth, and may starve himself to death. The Jains may yet name him as one of their Jinas, another incarnation of the great spirit that periodically is made flesh to redeem the world.

  III. THE LEGEND OF BUDDHA

  The background of Buddhism—The miraculous birth—Youth—The sorrows of life—Flight—Ascetic years—Enlightenment—A vision of “Nirvana”

  It is difficult to see, across 2,500 years, what were the economic, political and moral conditions that called forth religions so ascetic and pessimistic as Jainism and Buddhism. Doubtless much material progress had been made since the establishment of the Aryan rule in India: great cities like Pataliputra and Vaishali had been built; industry and trade had created wealth, wealth had generated leisure, leisure had developed knowledge and culture. Probably it was the riches of India that produced the epicureanism and materialism of the seventh and sixth centuries before Christ. Religion does not prosper under prosperity; the senses liberate themselves from pious restraints, and formulate philosophies that will justify their liberation. As in the China of Confucius and the Greece of Protagoras—not to speak of our own day—so in Buddha’s India the intellectual decay of the old religion had begotten ethical scepticism and moral anarchy. Jainism and Buddhism, though impregnated with the melancholy atheism of a disillusioned age, were religious reactions against the hedonistic creeds of an “emancipated” and worldly leissure class.*

  Hindu tradition describes Buddha’s father, Shuddhodhana, as a man of the world, member of the Gautama clan of the proud Shakya tribe, and prince or king of Kapilavastu, at the foot of the Himalayan range.25 In truth, however, we know nothing certain about Buddha; and if we give here the stories that have gathered about his name it is not because these are history, but because they are an essential part of Hindu literature and Asiatic religion. Scholarship assigns his birth to approximately 563 B.C., and can say no more; legend takes up the tale, and reveals to us in what strange ways men may be conceived. At that time, says one of the Jataka books.*

  in the city of Kapilavastu the festival of the full moon . . . had been proclaimed. Queen Maya from the seventh day before the full moon celebrated the festival without intoxicants, and with abundance of garlands and perfumes. Rising early on the seventh day she bathed in scented water, and bestowed a great gift of four hundred thousand pieces as alms. Fully adorned, she ate of choice food, took upon herself the Uposatha vows,† entered her adorned state bed-chamber, lay down on the bed, and falling asleep, dreamt this dream.

  Four great kings, it seemed, raised her together with the bed, and taking her to the Himalayas, set her on the Manosila table-land. . . . Then their queens came and took her to the Anotatta Lake, bathed her to remove human stain, robed her in heavenly clothing, anointed her with perfumes, and bedecked her with divine flowers. Not far away is a silver mountain, and thereon a golden mansion. There they prepared a divine bed with head to the east, and laid her upon it. Now the Bodhisattwa‡ became a white elephant. Not far from there is a golden mountain; and going there he descended from it, alighted on the silver mountain, approaching it from the direction of the north. In his trunk, which was like a silver rope, he held a white lotus. Then, trumpeting, he entered the golden mansion, made a rightwise circle three times around his mother’s bed, smote her right side, and appeared to enter her womb. Thus he received . . . a new existence.

  The next day the Queen awoke and told her dream to the King. The King summoned sixty-four eminent Brahmans, showed them honor, and satisfied them with excellent food and other presents. Then, when they were satisfied with these pleasures, he caused the dream to be told, and asked what would happen. The Brahmans said: Be not anxious, O King; the Queen has conceived, a male not a female, and thou shalt have a son; and if he dwells in a house he will become a king, a universal monar
ch; if he leaves his house and goes forth from the world, he will become a Buddha, a remover, in the world, of the veil (of ignorance). . . .

  Queen Maya, bearing the Bodhisattwa for ten months like oil in a bowl, when her time was come, desired to go to her relatives’ house, and addressed King Shuddhodhana: “I wish, O King, to go to Devadaha, the city of my family.” The King approved, and caused the road from Kapilavastu to Devadaha to be made smooth and adorned with vessels filled with plantains, flags and banners; and seating her in a golden palanquin borne by a thousand courtiers, sent her with a great retinue. Between the two cities, and belonging to the inhabitants of both, is a pleasure grove of Sal trees named the Lumbini Grove. At that time, from the roots to the tips of the branches, it was one mass of flowers. . . . When the Queen saw it, a desire to sport in the grove arose. . . . She went to the foot of a great Sal tree, and desired to seize a branch. The branch, like the tip of a supple reed, bent down and came within reach of her hand. Stretching out her hand she received the branch. Thereupon she was shaken with the throes of birth. So the multitude set up a curtain for her, and retired. Holding the branch, and even while standing, she was delivered. . . . And as other beings when born come forth stained with impure matter, not so the Bodhisattwa, But the Bodhisattwa, like a preacher of the Doctrine descending from the seat of Doctrine, like a man descending stairs, stretched out his two hands and feet, and standing unsoiled and unstained by any impurity, shining like a jewel laid on Benares cloth, descended from his mother.28

  It must further be understood that at Buddha’s birth a great light appeared in the sky, the deaf heard, the dumb spoke, the lame were made straight, gods bent down from heaven to assist him, and kings came from afar to welcome him. Legend paints a colorful picture of the splendor and luxury that surrounded him in his youth. He dwelt as a happy prince in three palaces “like a god,” protected by his loving father from all contact with the pain and grief of human life. Forty thousand dancing girls entertained him, and when he came of age five hundred ladies were sent to him that he might choose one as his wife. As a member of the Kshatriya caste, he received careful training in the military arts; but also he sat at the feet of sages, and made himself master of all the philosophical theories current in his time.29 He married, became a happy father, and lived in wealth, peace and good repute.

  One day, says pious tradition, he went forth from his palace into the streets among the people, and saw an old man; and on another day he went forth and saw a sick man; and on a third day he went forth and saw a dead man. He himself, in the holy books of his disciples, tells the tale movingly:

  Then, O monks, did I, endowed with such majesty and such excessive delicacy, think thus: “An ignorant, ordinary person, who is himself subject to old age, not beyond the sphere of old age, on seeing an old man, is troubled, ashamed and disgusted, extending the thought to himself. I, too, am subject to old age, not beyond the sphere of old age; and should I, who am subject to old age, . . . on seeing an old man, be troubled, ashamed and disgusted?” This seemed to me not fitting. As I thus reflected, all the elation in youth suddenly disappeared. . . . Thus, O monks, before my enlightenment, being myself subject to birth, I sought out the nature of birth; being subject to old age I sought out the nature of old age, of sickness, of sorrow, of impurity. Then I thought: “What if I, being myself subject to birth, were to seek out the nature of birth, . . . and having seen the wretchedness of the nature of birth, were to seek out the unborn, the supreme peace of Nirvana?”30

  Death is the origin of all religions, and perhaps if there had been no death there would have been no gods. To Buddha these sights were the beginning of “enlightenment.” Like one overcome with “conversion,” he suddenly resolved to leave his father,* his wife and his newborn son, and become an ascetic in the desert. During the night he stole into his wife’s room, and looked for the last time upon his son, Rahula. Just then, say the Buddhist Scriptures, in a passage sacred to all followers of Gautama,

  a lamp of scented oil was burning. On the bed strewn with heaps of jessamine and other flowers, the mother of Rahula was sleeping, with her hand on her son’s head. The Bodhisattwa, standing with his foot on the threshold, looked, and thought, “If I move aside the Queen’s hand and take my son, the Queen will awake, and this will be an obstacle to my going. When I have become a Buddha I will come back and see him.” And he descended from the palace.31

  In the dark of the morning he rode out of the city on his horse Kanthaka, with his charioteer Chauna clinging desperately to the tail. Then Mara, Prince of Evil, appeared to him and tempted him, offering him great empires. But Buddha refused, and riding on, crossed a broad river with one mighty leap. A desire to look again at his native city arose in him, but he did not turn. Then the great earth turned round, so that he might not have to look back.32

  He stopped at a place called Uruvela. “There,” he says, “I thought to myself, truly this is a pleasant spot, and a beautiful forest. Clear flows the river, and pleasant are the bathing-places; all around are meadows and villages.” Here he devoted himself to the severest forms of asceticism; for six years he tried the ways of the Yogis who had already appeared on the Indian scene. He lived on seeds and grass, and for one period he fed on dung. Gradually he reduced his food to a grain of rice each day. He wore hair cloth, plucked out his hair and beard for torture’s sake, stood for long hours, or lay upon thorns. He let the dust and dirt accumulate upon his body until he looked like an old tree. He frequented a place where human corpses were exposed to be eaten by birds and beasts, and slept among the rotting carcasses. And again, he tells us,

  I thought, what if now I set my teeth, press my tongue to my palate, and restrain, crush and burn out my mind with my mind. (I did so.) And sweat flowed from my arm-pits. . . . Then I thought, what if I now practice trance without breathing. So I restrained breathing in and out from mouth and nose. And as I did so there was a violent sound of winds issuing from my ears. . . . Just as if a strong man were to crush one’s head with the point of a sword, even so did violent winds disturb my head. . . . Then I thought, what if I were to take food only in small amounts, as much as my hollowed palm would hold, juices of beans, vetches, chick-peas, or pulse. . . . My body became extremely lean. The mark of my seat was like a camel’s foot-print through the little food. The bones of my spine, when bent and straightened, were like a row of spindles through the little food. And as, in a deep well, the deep, low-lying sparkling of the waters is seen, so in my eye-sockets was seen the deep, low-lying sparkling of my eyes through the little food. And as a bitter gourd, cut off raw, is cracked and withered through rain and sun, so was the skin of my head withered through the little food. When I thought I would touch the skin of my stomach I actually took hold of my spine. . . . When I thought I would ease myself I thereupon fell prone through the little food. To relieve my body I stroked my limbs with my hand, and as I did so the decayed hairs fell from my body through the little food.33

  But one day the thought came to Buddha that self-mortification was not the way. Perhaps he was unusually hungry on that day, or some memory of loveliness stirred within him. He perceived that no new enlightenment had come to him from these austerities. “By this severity I do not attain superhuman—truly noble—knowledge and insight.” On the contrary, a certain pride in his self-torture had poisoned any holiness that might have grown from it. He abandoned his asceticism, went to sit under a shade-giving tree,* and remained there steadfast and motionless, resolving never to leave that seat until enlightenment came to him. What, he asked himself, was the source of human sorrow, suffering, sickness, old age and death? Suddenly a vision came to him of the infinite succession of deaths and births in the stream of life: he saw every death frustrated with new birth, every peace and joy balanced with new desire and discontent, new disappointment, new grief and pain. “Thus, with mind concentrated, purified, cleansed, . . . I directed my mind to the passing away and rebirth of beings. With divine, purified, superhuman vision I saw
beings passing away and being reborn, low and high, of good and bad color, in happy or miserable existences, according to their karma”—according to that universal law by which every act of good or of evil will be rewarded or punished in this life, or in some later incarnation of the soul.

  It was the vision of this apparently ridiculous succession of deaths and births that made Buddha scorn human life. Birth, he told himself, is the origin of all evil. And yet birth continues endlessly, forever replenishing the stream of human sorrow. If birth could be stopped. . . . Why is birth not stopped?† Because the law of karma demands new reincarnations in which the soul may atone for evil done in past existences.

  If, however, a man could live a life of perfect justice, of unvarying patience and kindness to all, if he could tie his thoughts to eternal things, not binding his heart to those that begin and pass away—then, perhaps, he would be spared rebirth, and for him the fountain of evil would run dry. If one could still all desires for one’s self, and seek only to do good, then individuality, that first and worst delusion of mankind, might be overcome, and the soul would merge at last with unconscious infinity. What peace there would be in the heart that had cleansed itself of every personal desire!—and what heart that had not so cleansed itself could ever know peace? Happiness is possible neither here, as paganism thinks, nor hereafter, as many religions think. Only peace is possible, only the cool quietude of craving ended, only Nirvana.