Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume I Part 31

[Footnote 295: _E.g._ Maj. Nik. 123 about the marvels attending the birth of a Buddha.]

[Footnote 296: See some further remarks on this subject at the end of chap. XIII. (on the Canon).]

[Footnote 297: Also Sakya or Sakka. The Sanskrit form is Sakya.]

[Footnote 298: See among other pa.s.sages the Amba??ha Sutta of the Digha Nikaya in which Ambattha relates how he saw the Sakyas, old and young, sitting on grand seats in this hall.]

[Footnote 299: But in Cullavagga VII. 1 Bhaddiya, a cousin of the Buddha who is described as being the Raja at that time, says when thinking of renouncing the world "Wait whilst I hand over the kingdom to my sons and my brothers," which seems to imply that the kingdom was a family possession. Rajja perhaps means Consuls.h.i.+p in the Roman sense rather than kingdom.]

[Footnote 300: E.g. the Sonada??a and Ku?adanta Suttas of the Digha Nikaya.]

[Footnote 301: Sanskrit Kapilavastu: red place or red earth.]

[Footnote 302: Tradition is unanimous that he died in his eightieth year and hitherto it has been generally supposed that this was about 487 B.C., so that he would have been born a little before 560. But Vincent Smith now thinks that he died about 543 B.C. See _J.R.A.S._ 1918, p.

547. He was certainly contemporary with kings Bimbisara and Ajatasattu, dying in the reign of the latter. His date therefore depends on the chronology of the Saisunaga and Nanda dynasties, for which new data are now available.]

[Footnote 303: It was some time before the word came to mean definitely the Buddha. In Udana 1.5, which is not a very early work, a number of disciples including Devadatta are described as being all _Buddha_.]

[Footnote 304: The Chinese translators render this word by Ju-lai (he who has come thus). As they were in touch with the best Indian tradition, this translation seems to prove that Tathagata is equivalent to Tatha-agata not to Tatha-gata and the meaning must be, he who has come in the proper manner; a holy man who conforms to a type and is one in a series of Buddhas or Jinas.]

[Footnote 305: See the article on the neighbouring country of Magadha in Macdonell and Keith's _Vedic Index_.]

[Footnote 306: Cf. the Ratthapala-sutta.]

[Footnote 307: Mahav. I. 54. 1.]

[Footnote 308: Devadutavagga. Ang. Nik. III. 35.]

[Footnote 309: But the story is found in the Mahapadana-sutta. See also Winternitz, _J.R.A.S._ 1911, p. 1146.]

[Footnote 310: He mentions that he had three palaces or houses, for the hot, cold and rainy seasons respectively, but this is not necessarily regal for the same words are used of Yasa, the son of a Treasurer (Mahav. 1. 7. 1) and Anuruddha, a Sakyan n.o.ble (Cullav. VII. 1. 1).]

[Footnote 311: In the Sonada??a-sutta and elsewhere.]

[Footnote 312: The Pabbajja-sutta.]

[Footnote 313: Maj. Nik. Ariyapariyesana-sutta. It is found in substantially the same form in the Mahasaccaka-sutta and the Bodhirajak.u.mara-sutta.]

[Footnote 314: The teaching of Alara Kalama led to rebirth in the sphere called akincan-nayatanam or the sphere in which nothing at all is specially present to the mind and that of Uddaka Ramaputta to rebirth in the sphere where neither any idea nor the absence of any idea is specially present to the mind. These expressions occur elsewhere (_e.g._ in the Mahaparinibbana-sutta) as names of stages in meditation or of incorporeal worlds (arupabrahmaloka) where those states prevail. Some mysterious utterances of Uddaka are preserved in Sam. Nik. x.x.xV. 103.]

[Footnote 315: Underhill, _Introd. to Mysticism_, p. 387.]

[Footnote 316: Sam. Nik. x.x.xVI. 19.]

[Footnote 317: The Lalita Vistara says Alara lived at Vesali and Uddaka in Magadha.]

[Footnote 318: The following account is based on Maj. Nik. suttas 85 and 26. Compare the beginning of the Mahavagga of the Vinaya.]

[Footnote 319: Maj. Nik. 12. See too Dig. Nik. 8.]

[Footnote 320: If this discourse is regarded as giving in substance Gotama's own version of his experiences, it need not be supposed to mean much more than that his good angel (in European language) bade him not take his own life. But the argument represented as appealing to him was that if spirits sustained him with supernatural nourishment, entire abstinence from food would be a useless pretence.]

[Footnote 321: The remarkable figures known as "fasting Buddhas" in Lah.o.r.e Museum and elsewhere represent Gotama in this condition and show very plainly the falling in of the belly.]

[Footnote 322: asava. The word appears to mean literally an intoxicating essence. See _e.g._ Vinaya, vol. IV. p. 110 (Rhys Davids and Oldenburg's ed.). Cf. the use of the word in Sanskrit.]

[Footnote 323: Naparam itthattayati. Itthattam is a substantive formed from ittham thus. It was at this time too that he thought out the chain of causation.]

[Footnote 324: Tradition states that it was on this occasion that he uttered the well-known stanzas now found in the Dhammapada 154-5 (cf.

Theragatha 183) in which he exults in having, after long search in repeated births, found the maker of the house. "Now, O maker of the house thou art seen: no more shalt thou make a house." The lines which follow are hard to translate. The ridge-pole of the house has been destroyed (visankhita? more literally de-com-posed) and so the mind pa.s.ses beyond the sankharas (visankharagata?). The play of words in visankhita? and visankhara can hardly be rendered in English.]

[Footnote 325: As Rhys Davids observes, this expression means "to found the Kingdom of Righteousness" but the metaphor is to make the wheels of the chariot of righteousness move unopposed over all the Earth.]

[Footnote 326: At the modern Sarnath.]

[Footnote 327: It is from this point that he begins to use this t.i.tle in speaking of himself.]

[Footnote 328: Similar heavenly messages were often received by Christian mystics and were probably true as subjective experiences. Thus Suso was visited one Whitsunday by a heavenly messenger who bade him cease his mortifications.]

[Footnote 329: It is the Pipal tree or Ficus religiosa, as is mentioned in the Digha Nikaya, XIV. 30, not the Banyan. Its leaves have long points and tremble continually. Popular fancy says this is in memory of the tremendous struggle which they witnessed.]

[Footnote 330: Such are the Padhana-sutta of the Sutta-Nipata which has an air of antiquity and the tales in the Mahavagga of the Sa?yutta-Nikaya. The Mahavagga of the Vinaya (I. 11 and 13) mentions such an encounter but places it considerably later after the conversion of the five monks and of Yasa.]

[Footnote 331: The text is also found in the Sa?yutta-Nikaya.]

[Footnote 332: Concisely stated as suffering, the cause of suffering, the suppression of suffering and the method of effecting that suppression.]

[Footnote 333: Writers on Buddhism use this word in various forms, arhat, arahat and arahant. Perhaps it is best to use the Sanskrit form arhat just as karma and nirvana are commonly used instead of the Pali equivalents.]

[Footnote 334: I.15-20.]

[Footnote 335: Brahmayoni. I make this suggestion about gra.s.s fires because I have myself watched them from this point.]

[Footnote 336: This meal, the only solid one in the day, was taken a little before midday.]

[Footnote 337: I. 53-54.]

[Footnote 338: His father.]

[Footnote 339: _I.e._ the Buddha's former wife.]

[Footnote 340: Half brother of the Buddha and Suddhodana'a son by Mahapraj.a.pati.]

[Footnote 341: Jataka, 356.]

[Footnote 342: Mahavag. III. 1.]

[Footnote 343: Thus we hear how Dasama of Atthakam (Maj. Nik. 52) built one for fifteen hundred monks, and Ghotamukha another in Pataliputta, which bore his name.]