.
While the Christian recognises the vast gulf that separates such an one as even S. Paul {i.e., Saint Paul} in respect of the teaching of things divine from the founder of Buddhism, he will not deny to the latter the possession of a large measure of that true charity, that sympathy deep and wide, that missionary zeal and self-devotion for the good of men that characterised the Apostle.
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• [Editorial Note]: Golly! Having parsed the above sentence three times over, just to be sure, it does appear that the anonymous High Church writer—upon comparing an egoic Christian saint with the non-egoic a.k.a. egoless founder of Buddhism (an unselfish ego is nonetheless still an ego, no matter how unselfish a venerated egoic personage might restrain themselves into becoming, because of the very nature of being egocentric)—has ignorantly
found the latter wanting in regards true charity, sympathy deep and wide, self-devotion
for the good of humankind, and missionary zeal. Moreover, “a
vast gulf”, he stoutly asserts, separates the latter from the former in
respect to those virtues (and who only has them to “a large
measure” he further declaims).’Tis truly a laugh-a-minute read, this polemic!
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Would it be an idle fancy to suppose that the Divine Founder of Christianity included Gotama the Buddha, the Enlightened, among the ‘prophets and righteous men’ who pined for the fuller light {!ha!; it is not even remotely fanciable as Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, the fully enlightened/ fully awakened “sammāsambuddha”, was a “fuller light” [sic] than Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene, whose famous last words—“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”; (KJV; ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’)—speak for themselves} which He Himself projected upon the mystery of the government of the world, who, in short, wanted the revelation of the truth that God is love? {!sic! again, it is not even remotely fanciable as the sammāsambuddha brought “brahmavihāra”⁽*⁾ into the world some 400-500 years before the “Divine Founder of Christianity”, the only begotten son of a jealous and wrathful god, was even born}.
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⁽*⁾The Pāli “brahmavihāra” refers collectively to the radiative quartet of all-permeating boundless affections
known as ‘mettā’ (i.e., ‘Love
Agapé’), ‘karuṇā’
(i.e., ‘Sublime Compassion’), ‘muditā’
(i.e., ‘Empathetic Rejoicement’), and ‘upekkhā’
(i.e., ‘Imperturbable Grace’).By way of an example, verses 149-150, from the ‘Sutta-Nipāta’ (the oldest of the sutta collections), likens the unselfish nature of ‘mettā’ to a mother’s self-sacrificing care for her children. Viz.:
• || 149. Mātā yathā niyaṁ puttaṁ | āyusā ekaputtam anurakkhe, | evam pi sabbabhūtesu | mānasam bhāvaye aparimāṇaṁ, || 150. Mettañ ca sabbalokasmiṁ | mānasam bhāvaye aparimāṇaṁ | uddham adho ca tiriyañ ca | asambādhaṁ averam asapattaṁ ||.The horror! The horror!
• “Just as with her own life | a mother shields from hurt | her own, her only, child,— | let all-embracing thoughts | for all that lives be thine, ||—an all-embracing love | for all the universe | in all its heights and depths | and breadth, unstinted love, | unmarred by hate within, | not rousing enmity”. ~ (from the ‘Sutta-Nipāta’ or ‘Discourse-Collection’, Book 1, Sutta 8, ‘Goodwill’, Verses 149-150, translated from the Pāli by Lord Chalmers (1858-1938)—the First and Last Baron of Northiam, County Sussex—18 February 1931)
(left-clicking the yellow rectangle with the capital ‘U’ opens a new web page).
Yet more unbearable evidence demonstrating how the johnny-come-lately
religion—even with its death-of-the-sun winter solstice resurrection-of-the-sun mythos
thrown in for good measure—be
but a pale imitation of its 500-year-older source material.¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
That human life is all vanity and vexation of spirit has been felt in other lands besides India. What wonder that it should have been felt with tenfold force amongst those dwellers by the Ganges, when we recall to mind the conditions of their life, and the enervating nature of the climate, and when we learn that the old belief in divine protectors and helpers had been sublimated away in the crucible of philosophic thought, leaving only as a residuum the belief in a neuter, unconscious First Cause, when, for this too must be added, instead of inculcating justice, mercy, brotherly helpfulness between man and man, the religious teachers, as a rule, inculcated, on the one hand, the formal observance of a burdensome ritual, and, on the other hand, a self-annihilating asceticism, the aim of which was to win absorption into that cold unsympathetic shadow?
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• [Editorial Note]: If the above “felt with tenfold force” overstatement originates in those six volumes of Professor Max Duncker then he evidently has a dourer view than already noted of antiquitarian life on the Indian sub-continent—else the anonymous writer is selectively presenting the dourest passages to be found therein to bolster his mataeology
—as
Major-General Dawsonne M. Strong (for example) provides quite a different picture of the
same people in the same era and inhabiting the same land. He wrote the following. Viz.:
• [Major-General Strong]: “At the time of the advent of Gotama the people of India were in possession of a civilisation remarkable in many respects, but most remarkable, perhaps, in the freedom and latitude of thought prevalent.Now that is a majorly different perspective on the same peoples of the same era on the same sub-continent. Major-General Strong, a senior officer in the Indian Army for many a year—his above book has “Lovingly Dedicated To My Wife In Memory Of Our Sojourn In The East” on its dedication page—has first-hand experience of the peoples of the sub-continent, and of their various religions as actually practiced daily, whereas Professor Duncker, sitting in a room somewhere in Frankfurt (he was elected to the Frankfurt Parliament in 1848, sat in the Erfurt assembly in 1850, and in the second Prussian chamber from 1849 to 1852), gathered the fruits of other men’s labours and focussed the scattered lights they had thrown upon special departments of inquiry in his (unhistorical) ‘History of Antiquity’ tomes, first edition published 1852-1857, and which publication finally gained him professorship of history at Tübingen in 1857 (in 1859, however, he was recalled to Berlin as assistant in the ministry of state in the cabinet of the Prince of Hohenzollern, and, in 1861 was appointed councillor to the crown prince; becoming director of the Prussian archives, in 1867, and, retiring in 1875, he died at Ansbach in 1886).
It is difficult for many who have been brought up within the contracted influences of those who regard all alien religions and non-Christian countries as so many black spots on the pages of history and on the maps of the world, and who have been surrounded in their youth by the innumerable restrictions placed upon all speculative propensities, to realise that, at the time when they were mere cave-dwellers and unclothed sojourners with the beasts of the field, a great and lofty civilisation was existent in what they would possibly consider a barbarous corner of the globe, and that a people there held dominion whose chief intellectual pastime was to range over the vast domains of speculative thought and all the interminable mysteries of life.
The Indian has been a philosopher by birth and breeding from time immemorial; and only among a race of philosophers could such a religion as Buddhism, with its sudden iconoclasm, have been preached with so little opposition, and have taken root so rapidly, when we come to consider the strong hold the Brahmanical ceremonial had upon the people at that time...”. ~ (pp. 104-105, Chapter Five: ‘Some Concluding Remarks’, in “The Metaphysic of Christianity and Buddhism”, by Major-General Dawsonne Melanchthon Strong; 1899, Watts & Co., London)
Needless is it to add which perspective is likely to be the more accurate, and, thusly, more reliable?
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And if to a man born in the midst of these conditions, a man of subtle and intensely meditative intellect but of large heart, not ignorant of the doubts which heterodox teachers cast upon the truth of Brahmanic teaching and upon the validity of Brahmanic ritual, but
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[1]This theory {i.e., about the founder of Buddhism being the originator of the higher Judaism and the higher Christianity} is set forth so recently as 1881 in ‘Buddha and Early Buddhism’, by a Mr. Arthur Lillie. We shall make some {patronisingly dismissive} remarks upon this work by-and-by.
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1882.—The Rise of Buddhism.—Page 101.
unable altogether to emancipate himself from the ideas of his age,—if to such a man there came, as a master-passion, the desire to lift the weight of human suffering, can we conceive a more natural result than such a body of doctrine as that, the outlines of which can now be referred to Buddha, if not as the originator, certainly as the systematic, persevering, and popular exponent?
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• [Editorial Note]: Given how the reference to “these conditions” is a referral back to the previous overstatement “that human life is all vanity and vexation of spirit has been felt... with tenfold force amongst those dwellers by the Ganges” then a continuation of the quite different picture Major-General Strong presents—of the same people of the same era and inhabiting the same land—is definitely called-for. He continued as follows. Viz.:
• [Major-General Strong]: “With the inception of Christianity, however, the case was very different. At the birth of Jesus the inhabitants of Palestine, with the exception of the Essenes, were sunk low in the mire of bigotry, prejudice, and priestly domination. The mind of the people was less philosophically prepared to grasp a broad and exalted creed such as essential Christianity; it required dogmas more definite, doctrines more easily comprehendcd; and Jesus had perforce to mould his utterances to the temperament and mental capacity of the people among whom he preached.As it is, again, such a majorly different perspective, on the same peoples of the same era on the same sub-continent, it throws into stark relief just how much paltericity
To the east of the Holy Land was India, with its refined and more perfect civilisation; to the west, Central Europe, with its savage and ignorant tribes, worshippers of trees, and in servitude to many superstitious practices and customs. Christianity, with its immense potential resources, its innate power for good, required some outlet for its activities; and, as was only natural, it spread in the direction where a pure and sublime religion was most needed, and experienced little difficulty in eventually conquering the savage intellect of Central Europe. Becoming appropriated by men who, living in the far North, depended for their very life upon a ceaseless struggle with adverse circumstances, it gradually lost the softening and refining influences which are so characteristic of the Oriental temperament, and became the vehicle for the passions and ambitions of a race more brutal and more unsympathetic than that among which it took rise.
And to what an extent has this religion of Christ, the evangel of peace and goodwill, been since prostituted! The mistaken—though, no doubt, well-intended—dogmas formulated by the Holy Catholic Church proved to be, in their short-sightedness and complete lack of insight into human nature, a prolific source of degeneration, bigotry, persecution, ignorance, immorality, and extreme ecclesiastical tyranny in the Dark Ages.
The rigid and narrow doctrines inculcated by the Puritans have been almost as fruitful a cause of moral perversion and reckless narrow-mindedness. To-day it must be acknowledged that we have outgrown the gross and debasing Christianity of those medieval times; but many of us are still fast chained in the shackles of prejudice and intolerance, with all their concomitant delusions and hypocrisies. Bruno⁽*⁾, in his day, said: “Christianity has been tried for eighteen centuries; the religion of Christ remains to be tried”.
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⁽*⁾Giordano Bruno (1548-1600): an Italian philosopher who used Copernican principles in formulating his cosmic theory of an infinite universe; condemned by the Inquisition for heresy, immoral conduct, and blasphemy, he was burned at the stake. ~ (American Heritage Dictionary).
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This remark, however, overstates the case considerably, for it must be confessed that there have been many instances of individual lives which have approached as closely to the ideal as far as it has been practicable within human limits. True Christianity many of us have yet to learn; it is but the husk which exists with the many as yet. Nevertheless, we flatter ourselves sometimes as the elect of the earth, and despatch emissaries of civilisation to the darkest corners of heathendom to carry with them only a very imperfect presentment of our great religion in practice and doctrine...”. ~ (pp. 105-106, Chapter Five: ‘Some Concluding Remarks’, in “The Metaphysic of Christianity and Buddhism”, by Major-General Dawsonne Melanchthon Strong; 1899, Watts & Co., London)
is involved—a machiavellian skill honed to a nicety by the “Sacra Congregātiō
dē Prōpagandā
Fidē” (established by the Roman Curia in 1622)—in the apologia put forth by
the anonymous spokesperson for the High Church of England.¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Just as S. Paul was not uplifted into the purer atmosphere of Christianity before he had reached the highest summits of the older faith, so Gotama did not attain to Enlightenment until he had made the utmost trial of the system in which he was born. He had been taught that by severe self-mortification a man could obtain inward peace, and for six years he gave himself up to such pitiless asceticism that ‘he was wasted away to a shadow
[1]’.__________
• [Editorial Note]: Those extreme self-mortification practices—carried out in the main by the Jaina religieux and some of the more extreme practicians of the primarily ascetic Ājīvakas (to whom in all probability, as the accomplished translator Lord Chalmers insightfully observes, on page xxii of his Introduction to “Further Dialogues of The Buddha” (1926), Volume One
,
the unawakened Mr. Siddhattho Gotama had originally attached himself in his early
ascetic days)—demonstrates such a contempt for the body it speaks volumes for the
supremacy of the incorporeal entity within (which, without the despised body, would
have no vehicle for enabling said soul its long-sought-after deliverance).Nevertheless, bodily self-immolation—typically a fiery death—is still a feature of some buddhistic sects to this very day.
And various Christian sects, for that matter, still practice severe self-mortification in the form of self-flagellation (whereby the incorporeal entity within, for purposes salvatory, somehow persuades the body to whip itself into a bloody frenzy).
(With such nutty beliefs still being a feature of faith in extremis ’twas with good reason it used to be common vernacular knowledge, in the halcyon pre-ᴘᴄ era circa the 1950s-1960s, that religious nutters were the nuttiest nutjobs in the nuttery)
.¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
But he had not attained his object. He then modified his ascetic practices, and at length his long meditations bore fruit. He seemed to be able to penetrate into the secret of existence, and to have discovered how the endless chain of misery could be broken off.
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• [Editorial Note]: Golly Gosh! To openly acknowledge (albeit conditionally) that Mr. Gotama the Sakyan was “able to penetrate into the secret of existence” is quite an admittance on the part of the anonymous spokesperson for the High Church of England.
(’Tis the weasel-words “seemed to” which render it conditional).
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He had learnt now ‘the four highest truths: pain, the origin of pain, the annihilation of pain, and the way that leads to the annihilation of pain’.
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• [Editorial Note]: Here the English word “pain” (a bivalant noun referring to either an unpleasant sensation of acute physical hurt or discomfort, caused by injury, illness, etcetera, or to emotional suffering typically in conjunction with mental distress) has been pressed into service as if it had sufficient explanatory power to be a suitable translation of the Pāli “dukkha” (as in “the four highest truths” of “dukkha”, the origin of “dukkha”, the cessation of “dukkha”, and the way leading to the cessation of “dukkha”).
Yet the Pāli “dukkha” is a compound word [“du” + “kha”] where, etymologically, the ‘du’ prefix (an antithetic affix, generally opposed to the ‘su’ prefix, such as in “sukha” for instance) has connotations of “asunder, apart, away from”, and the ‘-kha’ syllable/ ending, which functions also as root [“√kha”], has the meaning “ākāsa” which, effectively, refers to the same as what the Greek word ‘aether’ refers to—for the Ancient Greeks the aether was “above the sky” (i.e., the archaic ‘firmament’ or ‘empyrean’; the realm of pure fire or light)—as is also evidenced by common-use English phrases such as “the akashic realm” and “the aetheric region” (as in ‘ethereal’, for instance, and ‘empyreal’ being interchangeable).
Thus rather than denoting “pain” per se the Pāli “dukkha” refers to being “asunder, apart, away from ākāsa” and “sukha” refers to being “united, joined, present with ākāsa”.
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In the system which Buddha now proclaimed, the doctrine of re-births held still a very prominent place, though, as the recent expositors of it inform us, in a modified form. It is not the soul that is renewed, but it is the character of the man that lives on, and the cause of its renewal in each successive existence is the desire of existence.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: As those “recent expositors” know not of what they speak—the professorial elite, being guided one and all by the unawakened/ unenlightened fifth century scholiast Mr. Buddhaghosa of Moraṇḍacetaka, might as well be speaking in tongues
—then
what a dictionary has to say about the word “character”
is essential in order to comprehend just what it is which is (purportedly)
rebirthing itself over-and-over-again (as well as suffering periodic hellfire and
damnation, from time-to time, alternating sporadically with heavenly beatitude and
bliss, on occasion, of course). Viz.:• character (n.): 1. (a.) the combination of mental characteristics and behaviour which distinguishes a person or group; (synonyms): disposition, temperament, personality, nature, character; these nouns refer to the combination of qualities which identify a person; disposition is approximately equivalent to prevailing frame of mind or spirit; [e.g.]: “A patronising disposition always has its meaner side”. (George Eliot); temperament applies broadly to the sum of emotions, habits, and beliefs which affect or determine a person’s actions and reactions; [e.g.]: “She is ... of a very serene and proud and dignified temperament”. (H. G. Wells); personality is the sum of distinctive traits which give a person individuality; [e.g.]: “an outgoing, friendly personality prevailed”; nature denotes native or inherent qualities; [e.g.]: “It is my habit,—I hope I may say, my nature,—to believe the best of people”. (George W. Curtis); character can refer to a defining or distinguishing set of personal traits; [e.g.]: “Whatever his peculiarities of character and outlook, he was far and away the most conversable person in our circle”. (Andrew Ryan); more often, though, it emphasises a person’s positive moral and ethical qualities; [e.g.]: “Education has for its object the formation of character”. (Herbert Spencer); 1. (b.) the distinguishing nature of something; (synonyms): quality, attribute, property, trait, character; these nouns signify a feature which distinguishes or identifies someone or something; [e.g.]: “explained the qualities of noble gases”; “knew the attributes of a fine wine”; “tested the resilient property of rubber”; “had positive traits such as kindness and generosity; “liked the rural character of the ranch”; 2. (a.) moral strength; integrity; [e.g.]: “an educational programme designed to develop character prevailed”; (b.) public estimation of someone; reputation; [e.g.]: “personal attacks which damaged her character repeatedly”; 3. (biology): a structure, function, or attribute of an organism, influenced by genetic, environmental, and developmental factors; 4. (a.) a person considered as having a specific quality or attribute; [e.g.]: “Being a man of the world and a public character, he took everything as a matter of course”. (George Eliot); (b.) a person considered funny or eccentric; [e.g.]: “catcalls from some character in the back row”; 5. (a.) a person portrayed in an artistic piece, such as a drama or novel; (b.) a person or animal portrayed with a personality in comics or animation; [e.g.]: “a cartoon character at large”; (c.) characterisation in fiction or drama; [e.g.]: “the script is weak in plot but strong in character throughout”; (d.) status or role; capacity; [e.g.]: “in his character as the father”; 6. a description of a person’s attributes, traits, or abilities; 7. a formal written statement as to competency and dependability, given by an employer to a former employee; a recommendation; (adj.): 1. of or relating to one’s character; 2. (a.) specialising in the interpretation of often minor roles which emphasise fixed personality traits or specific physical characteristics; [e.g.]: “a character actor”; (b.) of or relating to the interpretation of such roles by an actor; [e.g.]: “the character part of the hero’s devoted mother”; 3. dedicated to the portrayal of a person with regard to distinguishing psychological or physical features; [e.g.]: “a character sketch”; (tr.v.; charactered, charactering, characters; archaic): 1. to write, print, engrave, or inscribe; 2. to portray or describe; characterise; (idioms): in character: consistent with someone’s general character or behaviour; [e.g.]: “behaviour which was totally in character dominated”; out of character: inconsistent with someone’s general character or behaviour; [e.g.]: “a response so much out of character it amazed me”; (adj.): characterless. [Middle English carecter, ‘distinctive mark’, ‘imprint on the soul’, from Old French caractere, from Latin charactēr, from Greek kharaktēr, from kharassein, ‘to inscribe’, from kharax, kharak-, ‘pointed stick’ ]. ~ (American Heritage Dictionary).Furthermore, as it is “the character of the man” which is (purportedly) renewed it means that “the man” gets off scot-free whilst “the character” goes through all the aforementioned re-birthing and/or periodic hellfire and damnation and/or sporadic beatitude and bliss.
The nuttiness, it would seem, is quite contagious!
Meanwhile, in the Pāli Canon, as that which is “renewed” in the buddhistic palingenetic metempirics is referred to by the Pāli word “viññāṇa” it is indeed “the soul” (albeit neither in its regular usage in Christianity nor its popular treatment in Hinduism) who lives on.
In the Atthirāga Sutta (SN 12. 64; PTS: S ii 101), for example, it is clearly stated that “viññāṇa” descends and/or enters into the womb [viz.: “gabbhe okkanti”/ “gabbha-avakkanti”], establishes or founds itself in utero via four nutriments [viz.: “kabaḷinkāra āhāro”, “phassāhāro”, “manosañcetanāhāra” and “viññāṇāhāra”], after which nāmarūpa (i.e., psyche-&-soma) enters into the womb [viz.: “nāmarūpassa avakkanti”], thereby initiating saḷāyatana (i.e., its sentiency-field), also in utero, along with all what that entails thereafter.
And it is also clearly stated in the Pāli Canon—in the Upaya Sutta (SN 22.53; PTS: S iii 53) and the Bīja Sutta (SN 22.54; PTS: S iii 54) for instance—that it is an unestablished/ unfounded viññāṇa which is the awakened entity/ who attains nibbāṇa [viz.: “tadappatiṭṭhitaṃ viññāṇaṃ (...) paccattaññeva parinibbāyati”] and thus fully understands [“pajānātīti”] how any possibility of palingenesia⁽*⁾ is destroyed [“khīṇā jāti”] and how walking austerely and chastely with Brahma/ Dhamma is fulfilled [“vusitaṃ brahmacariyaṃ”] inasmuch that, having done what was to be done [“kataṃ karaṇīyaṃ”], there is no beyond after this present life [“nāparaṃ itthattāyā’ti”].
⁽*⁾palingenesia (n.; also, palingenesis palingenesy): the doctrine that a soul passes through several bodies in a series of rebirths; (adj.): palingenetic; (n.): palingenesist; (adj.): palingenesian. [from New Latin, from Greek πάλιν (palin), ‘again’, ‘anew’, + γένεσις (génesis), ‘genesis’, ‘production’]. ~ (Ologies & Isms Dictionary).
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In addition it is also clearly stated in the Pāli Canon—in the Godhika Sutta (SN 4.23; PTS: S i 120), for example, and in the Vakkali Sutta (SN 22.87; PTS: S iii 119) as well—that the unestablished/ unfounded viññāṇa [a.k.a. “viññāṇaṃ anidassanaṃ”] of an arahant escapes death’s clutches upon the demise of nāmarūpa (i.e., the physical death of the embodying organism) which, of course, includes the decease of the percipience component [“viññāṇ’anupādān’kkhandha”], the fifth of the five components [“panc’anupādāna-kkhandhā”] constituting an awakened/ enlightened personage.
When rendered into English the most apt word is either ‘soul’ (again neither in its regular usage in Christianity nor its popular treatment in Hinduism) or ‘spirit’; as in: “the soul (or spirit) enters and/or descends into the womb and establishes or founds itself in utero...&c.” and “it is an unestablished/ unfounded soul (or spirit) which is awakened/ attains nibbāṇa and thus fully understands...&c.” and “the unestablished/ unfounded soul (or spirit) of an arahant escapes death’s clutches...&c.”.
Incidentally, as to escape death’s clutches is to be immortal, deathless (i.e., Pāli ‘amata’ | ‘amara’; Sanskrit-Vedic ‘amṛta’), it is pertinent to recall that, shortly after awakenment under the bodhi tree, the sammāsambuddha declared: “Open are the doors to immortality!” (Viz.: “apārutā tesaṃ amatassa dvārā”; wherein ‘amata’ = immortal | deathless; vide: SN 6.1; Ayacana Sutta; PTS: S i 137).
Verily, the Pāli Canon is a fund of information vis-à-vis what was actually said and done all those years ago!
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This potency of desire seems to us the foundation stone, in its naked simplicity, of early Buddhism: and how natural is the connection of this doctrine with a pessimistic conception of the universe is strikingly shown in the fact that we have an analogous combination exemplified in the philosophy of Hartmann {!sic!; Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann, 1842-1906, was a pessimist extraordinaire who declared existence to be necessarily evil, and, further, that evil could cease only with the cessation of existence itself; i.e., not only all minera, flora, and fauna but the entire universe needs must cease to exist}. That our view is in accord with that of the Buddhists of a very early period themselves, is conclusively shown by the famous verses of the Dhammapada, which are believed by Buddhists to contain the very words uttered by the founder of their religion at the moment of his attaining to Buddhahood.
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• [Editorial Note]: As the anonymous writer’s “view” (which is strikingly exemplified in the philosophy of a pessimist extraordinaire who declared that evil could cease only with the cessation of the entire universe) is not in accord with those of Buddhists from “a very early period themselves” then nothing of the sort can be shown—conclusively or otherwise—by famous verses of the Dhammapada (allegedly) believed by Buddhists to contain the very words uttered by the sammāsambuddha at the moment of ego-death, at the moment of awakening into egolessness, whilst resolutely sitting under a certain ‘Ficus religiosa’, and identifiable as such by his ringing declaration shortly thereafter: “Open are the doors to immortality!” (Viz.: “apārutā tesaṃ amatassa dvārā”; wherein ‘amata’ = immortal/ deathless; vide: SN 6.1; Ayacana Sutta; PTS: S i 137).
Incidentally, the soi-disant “maker of this tabernacle” (introduced below as the-spanner-in-the-works) is none other than the egoic self, a.k.a. the ego-self, which arises from the soul-self circa two years of age—the age referred to by parents world-wide as “the terrible twos”
because of the temper tantrums for which they are infamous—as the doer of all
affective-psychic eventful experience (a.k.a. the ‘thinker’), as opposed to
the soul-self, the beer of all affective-psychic experiencing (a.k.a. the ‘feeler’),
which is an instinctual ‘self’ born of an amorphous affective ‘presence’ in
utero, an inchoate intuitive ‘being’ in vivo, which the genetically
endowed instinctual passions (such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire)
instinctively form themselves into just as, analogously, a vortex or eddy forming
itself vortically as whirling air or swirling water does.¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
We are told that he expressed himself as follows: “Looking for the maker of this tabernacle”, that is, not for any personal Creator, but, as Professor Max Müller explains, for the
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[1]See ‘Buddhism’, by T. W. Rhys Davids (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge), p. 39
.
See also ‘The History of Antiquity’, vol. iv. p. 338
seq.¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Page 102.—The Rise of Buddhism.—April.
cause of new births, “I shall have to run through a course of many births so long as I do not find him: and painful is birth again and again. But now, maker of this tabernacle thou hast been seen! Thou shalt not make up this tabernacle again! All thy rafters are broken, thy ridge-pole is sundered; the mind approaching the Eternal (Nirvâna) has attained to the extinction of all desires[1]”!
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• [Editorial Note]: As an aid to comprehension, the following comprises the translator’s footnotes for the above verses 153 and 154. Viz.:
• [Prof. Max Müller]: “These two verses are famous among Buddhists, for they are the words which the founder of Buddhism is supposed to have uttered at the moment he attained to Buddhahood. (See Spence Hardy, “Manual”, p. 180).And here is another translation—complete with the Pāli text—by way of comparison. Viz.:
According to the “Lalita-Vistara”, however, the words uttered on that solemn occasion were those quoted in the note to Verse 39. {viz.: “The vices are dried up, they will not flow again”; Sushkâ âsravâ na punaḥ sravanti}. In the commentary on the Brahmagâla this verse is called the first speech of Buddha, his last speech being the words in the Mahâparinibbâna-sutta, “Life is subject to age; strive in earnest”. The words used in the Mahâparinibbâna-sutta, Chapter IV, 2, “Katunnam dhammânam ananubodhâ apparivedhâ evam idam digham addhânam sandhâvitam samsâritam mamañ k’ eva tumhâkañ ka”, answer to the anticipation expressed in our verse.
The exact rendering of this verse has been much discussed, chiefly by Mr. D’Alwis in the “Attanugaluvansa”, page cxxviii, and again in his “Buddhist Nirvana”, page 78; also by Childers, “Notes on Dhammapada”, page 4, and in his Dictionary.
Gogerly translated: “Through various transmigrations I must travel, if I do not discover the builder whom I seek”.
Spence Hardy: “Through many different births I have run (to me not having found), seeking the architect of the desire-resembling house”.
Fausböll: “Multiplices generationis revolutiones percurreram, non inveniens, domus (corporis) fabricatorem quaerens”.
And again (page 322): “Multarum generationum revolutio mihi sub-eunda esset, nisi invenissem domus fabricatorem”.
Childers: “I have run through the revolution of countless births, seeking the architect of this dwelling and finding him not”.
D’Alwis: “Through transmigrations of numerous births have I run, not discovering, (though) seeking the house-builder”.
All depends on how we take “sandhavissam”, which Fausböll takes as a conditional, Childers, following Trenckner, as an aorist, because the sense imperatively requires an aorist. In either case, the dropping of the augment and the doubling of the “s” are, however, irregular. Sandhavissam is the regular form of the future, and as such I translate it, qualifying, however, the future, by the participle present “anibbisan”, i.e. not finding, and taking it in the sense of, if or so long as I do not find the true cause of existence.
I had formerly translated “anibbisan”, as not resting (“anirvisan”), but the commentator seems to authorise the meaning of “not finding” (“avindanto, alabhanto”), and in that case all the material difficulties of the verse seem to me to disappear.
The “maker of the tabernacle” is explained as a poetical expression for the cause of new births, at least according to the views of Buddha’s followers, whatever his own views may have been.
Buddha had conquered Mâra, the representative of worldly temptations, the father of worldly desires, and as desires (tamhâ) are, by means of upâdâna and bhava, the cause of gâti, or “birth”, the destruction of desires and the conquest of Mâra are nearly the same thing, though expressed differently in the philosophical and legendary language of the Buddhists. Tamhâ, “thirst” or “desire”, is mentioned as serving in the army of Mâra. (Lotus, p. 443). ~ (pp. 42-44, Verses 153, 154, “The Dhammapada”, translated by F. Max Müller; 1881, at the Clarendon Press, Oxford).
• Verses 153 -154 (“Craving is The Builder of This House”). || 153. Anekajāti saṃsāraṃ, sandhāvissaṃ anibbisaṃ | Gahakāraṃ gavesanto: dukkhā jāti punappunaṃ || (Through many births I wandered in saṃsāra, seeking, but not finding, the builder of this house. Painful is repeated birth). || 154. Gahakāraka diṭṭho’si, puna gehaṃ na kāhasi: | Sabbā te phāsukā bhaggā, gahakūṭaṃ visaṅkhataṃ | Visaṅkhāragataṃ cittaṃ, taṇhānaṃ khayam ajjhagā ||. (O house-builder, now you are seen. You will build no house again. All your rafters are broken. Your ridge-pole is shattered. My mind has gone to the unconditioned, the end of craving has been achieved). Story related to Dhammapada Verse 153-154: “Words of Exultation of the Buddha”; These two verses are expressions of intense and sublime joy felt by the Buddha at the moment of attainment of Supreme Enlightenment (“Bodhi nana” or “Sabbannuta nana”). These verses were repeated at the Jetavana monastery at the request of the Venerable Ananda. ~ (from www.suttas.com)
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We have now seen what was the salvation which Buddha offered, a state of peace and rest which might be obtained by any individual for himself without the aid of the Brahman, without having recourse to sacrificial rites.
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• [Editorial Note]: As the deliverance promulgated by the sammāsambuddha was much, much more than just “a state of peace and rest” the anonymous writer has *not* now seen what was “the salvation which Buddha offered” at all.
Put succinctly, words to the effect of “peace and rest” appear nowhere in the further above translation by Prof. Max Müller and there is no way in which “the Eternal (Nirvâna)” can be construed in such a manner.
Besides which, attempting to extract profound meaning from short, isolated and disconnected verses collected from hither and thither on an indeterminate date by an unknown hand via unannounced criteria for unexplained reasons is an exercise in futility.
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It was open to all of whatever caste. The Brahman might win it, so might the Sudra, and any that were lower and more despised than he, such as Chandalas, who were really of non-Aryan origin, though believed to have arisen from the intermarriage of Sudras with Brahman women, and consequently regarded as ‘the most contemptible mortals[2]’
.
When the Brahmans reproached him with preaching to the impure, “My law” {i.e.,
‘dhamma’},
said Buddha, “is a law of grace for all”. If here we are reminded of
our Blessed Lord’s attitude towards publicans and sinners, and of the
Pharisees making it a subject of reproach, an incident related of one of Buddha’s
most devoted disciples, his cousin Ananda, recalls the Gospel incident at the
well of Samaria.__________
• [Editorial Note]: Ha! ... alternatively (ťother
way round): if here the reader is reminded of Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene’s
attitude towards publicans and sinners, and of the Pharisees making it a subject
of reproach, the Gospel incident at the well of Samaria recalls an incident
related, some 400-500 years earlier, of Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s personal
attendant for twenty-five years—his first cousin (their respective fathers
being brothers) and favourite bhikkhu—Mr. Ananda the Videhamuni (i.e., ‘the
silent sage from Videha’).(The anonymous apologist for the High Church of England is yet again indulging in self-deception by fondly imagining his ‘deus absolutus’ to be the ultimate source of all religio-spiritual teachings).
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“On one occasion Ananda met a Chandala maiden drawing water at a fountain, and asked to drink. She replied that she was a Chandala and might not touch him, Ananda answered:
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[1]The Dhammapada, vs. 153, 154. The translation of ‘Nirvāna’ by ‘the Eternal’ {i.e., immortality} appears to us to convey a false idea: perhaps ‘perfect peace’ would reconcile the idea of total cessation of being, which the Arahat or Saint certainly attains to at death, with the idea of a reposeful state of mind to be attained on earth that neither passion nor sorrow can disturb.
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• [Editorial Note]: This is simply not true; any translation of ‘nirvāṇa’ by [quote] ‘the Eternal’ [unquote] does not convey any such “false idea” at all. And neither does an Arahant or a Buddha attain “total cessation of being” at physical death, either (let alone “certainly” as asserted above) as that would be annihilation, and the sammāsambuddha expressly proscribes the ‘doctrine of annihilation’ [“ucchedavādā”] on numerous occasions in the Pāli Canon.
As Prof. Thomas Rhys Davids has led so many astray with his misinformation (and, peradventure, disinformation) it begins to look as if he were a paid-up member of the “disloyal opposition”
.Incidentally, the Pāli word ‘nibbāna’ (Sanskrit ‘nirvāṇa’) does not feature in the original text for either Verse 153 or Verse 154 of the Dhammapada (see the green-coloured text in the “suttas.com” verses further above.
(Ha! ’twas all much ado about nothing).
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See ‘The Hibbert Lectures’ for 1881, pp. 31
,
100,
161,
and 253.
One of Buddha’s early disciples, a Brahman, is stated in the Buddhist
Scriptures to have thus accounted to the new teacher for his contempt of
sacrificial rites:—“That state of Peace I saw, wherein the roots
Of new existences are all destroyed; and greed,
And hatred, and delusion, all have ceased,—
The state from lust of future life set free;
That changeth not, can ne’er be led to change.
My mind saw that! What care I for those rites”?—Ibid, p. 159
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• [Editorial Note]: All the above quotation proves is that Prof. Thomas Rhys Davids translates the ultimate goal of buddhistic practice as a “state of Peace” with a capital ‘P’ (whereas Prof. Max Müller translates it as ‘the Eternal’ with a capital ‘E’).
(Pitting one academic translator against another academic translator—neither of whom actually know what the ultimate goal of buddhistic practice is which they are each translating in their own way—is not evidence that an Arahant or a Buddha attains “total cessation of being” at physical death).
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[2]‘The History of Antiquity’, vol. iv. p. 248
.
Distinct stages can be traced in the severity of the caste rules. At an early
period the offspring of parents belonging to different castes belonged to the
same caste as the father. Subsequently, when the caste system had come to be
regarded as a part of the divine order of the world, the offspring of a mixture
of castes was considered lower than any of the four original castes, and, on the
principle it would appear of corruptio optimi pessima⁽*⁾
{NB: in full it reads ‘corruptio optimi pessima est’; viz.: “the
corruption of the best is the worst”},
lowest of all was the offspring of a Brahman woman by a Sudra father.__________
⁽*⁾NB: The phrase “corruptio optimi pessima est”
(colloquially: ‘the worst tragedy is the corruption of the best’) readily
fits the fall of Christianity’s ‘Satan’. Contrary to popular belief the
Christian ‘Satan’ was not a ‘fallen angel’ but a seraph—one of the
seraphim (the highest choir of angelic beings and the most powerful of all)—and
thus most closest to the Christian God. According to Christian belief, there are
nine choirs, or levels, of angelic beings: ‘angels’, followed by ‘principalities’
then ‘archangels’, are at the lowest levels whereas the highest levels
consist of the ‘thrones’, the ‘cherubim’ and the ‘seraphim’. As the
story goes, “Satan the Seraph”, one of the ‘best’ of all angelic beings,
in rebelling thus became corrupted thereby being the worst thing ever
imaginable.Howsoever, in regards to the “Brahman woman” example of “corruptio optimi pessima”, provided by a representative of the High Church of England who was living in the midst of the Victorian Era at the time (and bearing in mind how Brahman=Aryan and Aryan translates as “Patrician”, in Latin, “Noblesse”, in French, and “Aristocrat”, in English), then the equivalent for the England of 100+ years ago—an England until recent times separated for well-nigh a thousand years, if not more, by insuperable barriers into the four classes, the royalty, the aristocracy, the middle-class and the working-class—was epitomised for all time in the notorious novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”
,
by D. H. Lawrence, 1885-1930, wherein Lady Constance Chatterley, the
aristocratic wife of Sir Clifford, Bart., ends up bearing “the
offspring” of the gamekeeper hired to manage the
manorial estate, Lieutenant Oliver Mellors, a commoner promoted in-the-field to
officer rank, by his colonel, on India’s north-west frontier during the Great
War of 1914-1918, who relapses into his native broad Derbyshire dialect, on
occasion, if only to drive home the central motif of the novel.Except, of course, the controversial tale (considered by its author to be his finest) is not presented as “the corruption of the best is the worst tragedy”, but, rather, the triumph of the sacralising nature
of amatory
love over the stifling conventions and crippling customs prevailing in the
post-Victorian era.¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
[Cont’d from Page 102. “On one occasion Ananda met a Chandala maiden drawing water at a fountain, and asked to drink. She replied that she was a Chandala and might not touch him, Ananda answered]: ‘My sister, I do not ask you about your caste, nor about your family; I ask you for water, if you can give it me’[1]”
.
We miss here, as elsewhere, the revelation of truth as to things divine recorded
by the Evangelist.__________
• [Editorial Note]: So what? That some latter-day mid-eastern anecdotalist saw fit to lard this Buddhist incident with some Christian trimmings to make their borrowing topical does not detract one jot from the fact that Mr. Ananda the Videhamuni (i.e., ‘the silent sage from Videha’) spake those wise words to the Mātaṅga maid Prakṛiti (who thereafter became a bhikkhuni and attained great spiritual results) some 400-500 years before Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene commenced his ministry.
As for “the revelation of truth as to things divine” it mayhap the anonymous writer is alluding to something like the following words from the Sainted Paul (a.k.a. Mr. Saul of Tarsus, albeit of questionable historicity
).
Viz.:
• “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus”. (KJV; Galatians 3:28).If so, it is worth noting how His Saintliness also penned the following. Viz.:
• “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ”. (KJV; Ephesians, 6:5).This is an apt moment to note how making the unsupportable assertion that ‘similarities’ such as the above came about via Christian missionaries travelling to the sub-continent to convert the heathens—who took with them scriptures, parables and homilies as a matter of course—wherefrom those sneaky heathens surreptitiously slipped extracts into their own scriptures, is such a desperate strategy, wrought out of whole cloth to distract attention away from all the evidence for it being ťother way round, it is simply risible.
And yet the anonymous writer mindlessly manifests that preposterous (which literally means ‘back-to-front’
)
rationale in the very last paragraph of this article of his—in
sooth an abject note to finish on—and then fades away unto the outer
darkness as myopic as he came.¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
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• The Rise of Buddhism: Part Seven.
• An Examen of “The Rise of Buddhism” Contents.
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