BUDDHISM-AMAZING FACTS- PART 1
To start with we must confess that almost the unanimous opinion of the scholars is that there is no authentic account of Buddha's life or teachings. We affirm that we cannot know anything about him with certainty, and that, as it is not possible to separate the myth from the truth, we cannot rely implicitly on any one statement that is made in relation to him, either in the Text or Commentary. There is doubt as to his birth place, his race, and the age in which he lived, and in a still greater degree, about almost every other event connected with his history. Let us give you a very recent fact to substantiate our position regarding Buddha. History (books of Buddhism) says that Buddha was born at Lumbini in Nepal. Archeological researchers in Orissa headed by noted archeologist Chandrabanu Patel says, according to the recent excavations, that Buddha was born in Orissa, not in Lumbini. There are a few things said about him that we might believe, because they are such as are common to man, but even upon these we cannot look without suspicion, from the overcrowding of the page that records them with the most glaring untruths.
More than four hundred years have elapsed between the death of Buddha and the period when his teachings are said to have been committed to writing. In this long interval there would have been time for the invention of the wonderful tales that are contained in the sacred books (Tri Pitaka, Atuwa and Teeka)). Of this rapid increase of these legends we have instance on record, as, though only one hundred years elapsed between the visit of Fa Hian to India and that of Soung Yun, "in the interval the absurd traditions respecting Sakya Muni's life and actions would appear to have been infinitely multiplied, enlarged, and distorted" – Lieut Colonel Sykes: Notes on the Religious, Moral and Political state of ancient India-Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, No: XII. p280.
We would like to express our doubts as to the truth of the statements given by the historians of Sri Lanka, both in reference to the mode in which the Pitakas are said to have been written by the priest and the time in which they were written. There were books in existence, regarded by the Buddhists as of authority, before b.c. 90. it was the opinion of Turnour that there were records in the island previous to the writing of the Pitakas at the Aluvihare, "and that the concealment of the record till the reign of the Sri Lankan ruler, Wattagamini, between b.c. 101 and 76, was a part of the esoteric scheme of that (Buddhist) creed, had recourse to in order to keep up the impression as to the priesthood being endowed with the gift of inspiration" – Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. VII. 722. By inspiration is meant rahatship. This power is not ascribed to the writers of the Pitakas in the Mahawansa, but we meet with it in the Sara Sangaha. "After the pari-nirwana of Buddha, for the space of 450 years, the Text and Commentaries, and all the words of Tathagatha, were preserved and transmitted by wise priests, orally, mukha-pathena. But having seen the evils attendant upon the mode of transmission, five hundred and fifty rahats, of great authority, in the cave called Aluvihare, in the province of Matale, in Lanka, under the guardianship of the chief of that province, caused the (sacred) books to be written". The third convocation (Damma Sangayana) is said to have been held in the reign of Asoka, b.c. 307, and inscriptions are still found in many parts of India that were cut in his reign. Now we can scarcely think that if the art of writing was commonly practiced in that age, and for Buddhist purposes, the same medium would not be used for the preservation and transmission of the sacred compilations. The Brahmins had a fanciful notion that it would be a desecration of the Vedas to commit them to writing, but the disciples of Buddha could have no such prejudice about Dhamma, as the benefit of its doctrines was for all classes of men that would embrace its supposed truths, or obey the ordinances of its disciples.
There are other difficulties connected with the alleged manner of the introduction of the Pitakas into Sri Lanka. With the Commentaries, they are twenty times or more the size of the Bible or the Qur'an. Allowing that Arahat Mahinda retained the whole in his own mind, exactly and perfectly, how could he teach them to others, without their being written? On the supposition that he repeated the whole once every two years that he spent in Sri Lanka, as he resided here forty seven years, no priest could have heard the recitation more than twenty four times, and how is it possible that anyone could remember this vast literature from hearing them only twenty four times, and with an interval of a year between the repetition of each sentence or sermon? And if certain priests heard and remembered only a part, which part they taught to others, the difficulties are not lessened thereby, as the first instructors must have learnt all they did learn from the mouth of Arahat Mahinda. Nor must we forget that the priests of Sri Lanka were at that time ignorant of Pali, and would have to acquire a knowledge of this language before they could derive any advantage from the teachings of their royal preceptor (Arahat Mahinda was a son of Emperor Asoka), and if it be true that Mahinda translated the Commentaries into Sinhala, this would be a further call upon his time, of a formidable character. Our Buddhist friends will say that we are entirely overlooking the fact that there were rahats in those days. But this we cannot believe, because the Greeks had then begun to hold intercourse with the very city whence Mahinda came, and if men with powers like those attributed to the rahats had existed, they would, doubtless, have made it known to their countrymen, along with the other wonders they told them about India.
All analogy, all collateral facts that we can bring to bear upon the question, forbid the receiving of the statement that the Pitakas were first written in the reign of Wattagamini. We are told of 'sacred books' being carried to China before this period. It may be said that this invalidates an argument that we have presented above, that the number of the false traditions of Buddhism was multiplied because of the length of the interval between the death of Buddha and the writing of the Dhamma. But this objection is set aside by another fact, that whenever we meet with books at an earlier period than the reign of Wattagamini, the era of Buddha is carried backward several hundred years beyond the date of his death, as given by the Sinhala books. The Tibetan version of the Pitakas is said to have been translated from works 'compiled' at three different places, and we are told that the Suttas in general 'were first written in the Sindhu language – Cosma de Korosi-Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society, vol.VI, p687. There are many evidences that the Commentaries were not written by Buddhaghosa in the exact form in which they are said to have come down to his age. He tells us that he omits certain portions, and in other instances refers us for further information in the Wisuddhi Magga. This is not the manner of a man who undertakes to translate a record, every sentence of which he regards as divine, as he would know that if some parts were omitted, and others added, such a course would prevent his work from being acknowledged as an authoritative rule of faith and conduct. He also refers to Milinda Panha, as explaining more fully certain subjects that he introduces. In the Commentary on the Deega Nikaya he says, that 'this Commentary, which is called Sumangalawilasini, is made, Katha, by the venerable one who is named by his teachers, Buddhagosha, whose knowledge of the Pitakas and the Commentaries is unlimited (without anything to obstruct it)'. The author of Sara Sangaha says, that on one occasion he made a wrong statement, 'from carelessness or want of thought'. And if upon one occasion, what certainty have we that it was not the same in other instances?
The names of the principal books in Tibetan agree those in Pali, but we can find no reference to any Commentary like that which is said to have been brought from India by Mahinda. According to the opinion of the Buddhists of Sri Lanka, and upon the principles they assume, the Atuwawas (Commentaries), as we have seen, must be of equal authority with the Text, and there is no possibility of evading this conclusion. The same men who wrote the Atuwawas, in the reign of Wattagamini, wrote the Text. The same priest who brought the Text from India, brought also the Atuwawas. Both the priests who wrote them, and the priest who brought them, are regarded as being rahats, and, therefore, as unerring in their knowledge of religious truth. They were not inspired in the Christian sense of the word, because there was no one to inspire them (due to not believing in One True Almighty God), but they had written themselves that which is equivalent to inspiration in other systems. The Buddhists of Sri Lanka have thus welded the Text and the Commentary so firmly together, that if one is proved to be in error, the other loses its authority, and as we have proved that the Commentary rests on no solid foundation, we are obliged to put the Text in the same position of uncertainty and mistrust. Independent of the absurdities and impossibilities contained in the Commentaries, the common rule of criticism would oblige us to declare this compilation to be of little value as a record of facts, and of no authority as an exponent of the system of Buddha as originally promulgated by the sage himself, when he instituted the religion known by his name.
There is this difference between a secular and sacred record. From the former we may cull what we suppose to be correct, and reject the rest, without denying the general authority of the author, as he presents himself before us as a man liable to be mistaken. But we cannot do the same with books that are regarded as sacred, without taking away their power entirely as a divine prescript. The supposition that they contain error is fatal to their claims as a religious authority. Therefore, as we have proved that Pitakas contain that which is not true, that which is contrary to known facts, not in isolated instances only, but in connection with their most essential principles, we must place them in same category as the works of any other author, who is neither rahat nor rishi. It follows, as a necessary consequence, that he who puts his trust in their sarana, under the supposition that it is based upon divine truth, will find, to his utter undoing, that there is in it no power to save.
They may say that nobody now believes the tales about Maha Meru, and about waves, trees, or fishes, many miles in size, and about lions as swift as sound, and, yet, with strange and reprehensible inconsistency, they will profess to believe that the books containing them are a divine and authoritative canon. They say these things are intended as allegories, figures, and hyperboles, but a moment's unprejudiced thought must convince them that this is impossible, as they rest upon the same foundation, and possess the same warrant, as the most important of Buddha's doctrines and revelations. The connection between the one and the other is so indissoluble, that if Maha Meru, and other things we have enumerated above, are proved to have no existence, or to be impossibilities, Buddhism cannot be a true religion and must be rejected as a guide to salvation in the hereafter.
Christmas Humpreys, author of the book ‘Buddhism’, says of himself that he studied Buddhism for thirty years and of Buddhism in the world today he knows more than most and he has this to say about the Buddhist Scriptures:
“The Buddha himself wrote nothing, and none of his teaching was written down for at least four hundred years after his death. We, therefore do not know what the Buddha taught, any more than we know what Jesus taught; and today at least four schools, with sub-division in each, proclaim their own view as to what Buddhism is”.
The disappearance of original teachings and practices of Buddha are almost complete today, for the Buddhists are sunk in superstitions, idol worship and Hindu religious rituals. Original Buddhism has changed colours completely.
H.G. Wells (An Outline of History Page 392) has described this in a very terse language. “Gautama's disciples have cared more for the preservation of his tree than of his thought, which from the first they distorted and misconceived (the Bo tree which helped him to rest his back, while achieving ‘enlightenment’, still exists and with a sapling from the original tree planted in Sri Lanka, the Sri Maha Bodi in Anuradapura , venerated and worshipped excessively)”. Writing on the corruption of Buddhism, Mr. Wells makes the following interesting observations:
“Tibet today is a Buddhist country, yet Gautama could he return to earth, might go from end to end of Tibet seeking his own teaching in vain. He would find the most ancient type of human ruler, a god-king, enthroned, the Dalai Lama, depicted as the ‘living Buddha’. (At the time when Wells wrote, the Dalai Lama had not fled to New Delhi). At Lhasa he would find a huge temple filled with priests, abbots and lamas, whose only buildings were huts and who made no priests-and above a high altar he would behold a huge golden idol, which he would learn was called ‘Gautama Buddha’! He would hear services intoned before this divinity, and certain precepts, which would be dimly familiar to him, murmured as responses. Bells, incense, prostrations, would play their part in these amazing proceedings. At one point in the service a bell would be rung and mirror lifted up, while the whole congregation, in an access of reverence, bowed lower………
About this Buddhist countryside he would discover a number of curious little mechanisms, little wind-wheels and water-wheels spinning, on which brief prayers were inscribed. Every time these things spin, he would learn, it counts as a prayer. ‘To whom?’, he would ask. Moreover, there would be a number of flagstaffs in the land carrying beautiful silk flags-which bore the perplexing inscription, ‘Ong Mani Padme hum’ , ‘the jewel is in the lotus’. Whenever the flag flaps, he would learn, it was a prayer also, very beneficial to the gentlemen who paid for the flag and to the land generally. Gangs of workmen, employed by pious persons, would be going about the country cutting this precious formula on cliff and stone. And this, he would realize at last, was what the world had made of his religion”(H.G.Wells-An Outline of History). Gautama Buddha achieved ‘enlightenment’ at the age of thirty-five. From then until he died forty-five years later, he devoted his entire life to preaching his ethical doctrines. Yet he never paid any attention to the vitally important task of recording his message in a permanent written form. As a matter of fact, the only religious personality who ever paid any proper attention to this task was the Messenger of Allah, Muhammed (peace and blessings be upon him). The Quran enjoys the unique distinction of being, on the one hand, the only religious scripture in the world today which is directly reported from the Messenger of the Almighty, and on the other, the only original religious scripture which has survived historical criticism in respect of its integrity, authenticity, genuineness and purity.
The Scriptures of Buddhism are numerous and mutually conflicting. Buddhism employed, in the main, two languages for recording scriptures. In the Pali language are recorded the scriptures of the Hinayana sect and in the Sanskrit language those of the Mahayana sect. Both these sets of scriptures oppose each other. This makes a Hinayana – Mahayana reconciliation next to impossible. Both these languages, Pali and Sanskrit, are now virtually dead or survive only as literary curiosities. The most striking and undisputable statement about the authenticity of the Buddhist scriptures is by Chief Monk Akuratiye Amarawansa, Chancellor of the Vidyodaya Buddhist University (Pirivena), Maligakanda, Colombo; Scholar of the Tripitaka and Chief Monk of Southern Sri Lanka. In his preface to the Sinhala translation of Deega Nikaya, he has expressed the following:
“We cannot assuredly state that the 'Deega Nikaya' we have in present days was the one that was presented to the first reform council (Dharma Sangayana). There were many reform councils held after the first one. In all these reform councils, Nikayas and Divisions would have been subjected to many amendments. Therefore, the most accepted view would be that the present day 'Deega Nikaya' is a collection of Suttas subjected to amendments, additions and deletions done during many reform councils held after the first one. It is very difficult to state the exact historical details of these amendments. The view of the scholars is that there are differences of historical period between each 'Sutta' and even between parts of the same 'Sutta'. According to the scholars, 'Brahmajala', 'Samajjapala' and 'Thevijja' are supposed to be the oldest 'Suttas' in 'Deega Nikaya'. Similarly, 'Janavasaba', 'Mahasudassana' and 'Lakkana' have been considered by scholars as belonging to a later period of history……. It is evident from 'Lakkana' sutta how Buddha has been gradually transformed into a super human being. It is useful to read the 'Lakkana' sutta to know about the thirty two super human signs of Budda". This description continues further and we feel that it is sufficient to state the above details to illustrate that the present day Buddhism is not what Buddha has taught.
Another important observation was found in a book written by one of the well known Buddhist scholars, Dr. Kirinde Sri Dhammananda Chief Priest (Sri Lanka) in his book ' What Buddhists Believe'.
Page 57: 'A few hundred years after his passing away, the disciples of the Buddha organized a religion around the teachings of the Master. While organizing the religion, they incorporated, among other concepts and beliefs, various types or miracles, mysticism, fortune telling, charms, talismans, mantras, prayers and many rites and rituals that were not found in the original teaching'. The learned Chief Priest has appropriately described the development of the present day Buddhism and how it deviated from the original teachings. Basing on these scholarly assertions can anyone say that the 'Absolute Truth' supposed to have been expounded by Buddha after his 'Enlightenment' has been preserved in its pristine purity?
Page: 71: 'Some scholars assert that the Abhidhamma is not the teaching of the Buddha, but it grew out of the commentaries on the basic teachings of the Buddha. These commentaries are said to be the work of great scholar monks…….. From ancient times there were controversies as to whether the Abhidhamma was really taught by the Buddha.' According to the learned Chief Priest, the authenticity of the nucleus of the present day Buddhism 'Abhidhamma' has been a controversial subject since the beginning.
The above statements deal lengthily about the amendments, additions and deletions of the sacred scriptures of Buddhism done after Buddha. Another striking point is the extraordinary differences in the chronology of Buddha's appearance adopted by the various nations that have embraced his faith. This difference amounts to nearly two thousand years. The Chinese have the following dates for this event: B.C., 640, 767, 949, 1045 and 1130. From the Tibetan books, fourteen different dates have been collected by the learned Hungarian, Cosma de Korosi: B.C., 546, 576, 653, 752, 837, 880, 882, 884, 1060, 1310, 2135, 2139, 2144 and 2422. The Japanese date is about B.C. 1000. Fa Hian, a Chinese traveler who visited Sri Lanka in C.E. 410, says that ten days before the middle of the third moon, the King of this island was accustomed to send a preacher to proclaim the austerities and mortifications of Buddha, at the conclusion of which he declared: “Since his parinirvana (death) 1497 years have elapsed;”, which would make the death of Buddha to be in the year B.C. 1087 ( Laidlay's Pilgrimage of Fa Hian). Hiun Thsang, another Chinese pilgrim, who wrote in C.E. 640, after his return from India, says that the accounts differ about Buddha's death, it being fixed at 900, 1000, 1200, 1300 and 1500 years before his time.
The Maha Wansa (chronology of Sri Lanka) fixes the same date for the death of Buddha and the landing of Vijaya in Sri Lanka; but this date, B.C. 543, is never found in the sacred chronology of Buddhism, before it was borrowed from the chronology of Sri Lanka ( Max Muller: Ancient Sanskrit Literature). Dr. Edward Conze, in his book, ‘Buddhism, Its Essence and Development’ remarks: “Buddhism is a body of traditions in which few names stand out, and in which fewer dates are precisely known. It is indeed most exasperating when we try to apply our current ideas of historical criticism. Langlois and Seignobos in their textbook of historical method, state that ‘ a document whose author, date and sources from which it has come cannot be determined, is just good for nothing’”. Dr. Conze goes on to remark sadly: “Alas, that is the case with most of the documents on which we build a history of Buddhism”.
