it. It eats into the skin, and into the flesh, etc.;1 it is like a hair rope on the leg.2

1 The expression used about the love of a father for a son, in the account of the admission of Rahula, supra, p. 59.

2 Sanyut. xvii. xviii., where there are over forty Sutras upon it.

CHAPTER XI

IT

THE VIRTUES

T is a curious thing, considering how fond the Buddhist books are of lists of vices and of mental attainments, that they have no corresponding lists of virtues. There are the four ill-conditions, the ten bonds, the three corruptions, and a multitude more lists of faults. There are the four meditations, the four supernatural attainments, the ten forms of intellectual strength, and so on. But I know of no numerical list of virtues.1 So much the better. We can follow an arrangement of our own without doing any violence to the Buddhist method.

First, let us take, what is the glory of Buddhism, the doctrine of loving-kindness, or mettaṁ (maitreya). The word meant originally friendship, and it is mainly by Buddhism, I believe, that its meaning has been enlarged. The next Buddha, as later Buddhist belief

1 The ten Perfections (páramitá) are no exception to this, as they concern only Buddhas; but they form the nearest approach to a list of virtues, and are by no means a scientific arrangement: the place occupied by knowledge (paññá) is alone enough to show this. These ten Perfections are those of giving, conduct (or obedience to the precepts), leaving the world, knowledge, energy, patience, truth, firmness, loving-kindness, resignation. 'The attainment of Buddhahood with all its superhuman attributes (e.g. omniscience) is the result or consequence of the vast accumulation of merit during the exercise of the páramitás in anterior births.'—Childers, Dict. s.v.

holds, is to be named Maitrí; or 'the loving one.' Whether this expectation is regarded as moulded by the worship of Mitra or Mithras, or as an unconscious prophecy of the coming of Him who is Love, it is at any rate a proof of the place which this virtue once occupied in Buddhist thought.

I propose to discuss it under four heads: In its widest sense, as loving-kindness and sympathy, and in three special senses, as the spirit of unity, as meekness, as unwillingness to hurt.

§ 1. Gotama the Buddha is described as having devoted himself to preaching his doctrine out of kindness to gods and men, out of compassion. He is often represented as looking abroad with supernatural power of sight on the worlds of gods and men, and sending out his compassion towards all. But with the exception of this general governing principle of his life, he is not often presented to us as an example of this virtue in any particular action. No particular act of kindness, or at any rate none that cost him anything, is narrated of him as a historical person.

In manner, he is represented as extremely courteous and winning; in his method of teaching, considerate and patient. To opponents he was generous. Several times, when a rich convert proposed at once to transfer to Gotama and his monks the liberality which he had been bestowing on members of rival religious orders, Gotama is said to have dissuaded him.' When insulted, as the later books make him often to have Maj. Nik. lvi. etc.

1

been, by rival teachers, he was a pattern of patience. For the jealous Fire-worshipper, who feared Gotama's higher reputation would outshine his own on his own festival, Gotama showed consideration by withdrawing from the scene. Even towards his bitter and murderous enemy, Devadatta, he maintained an attitude of perfect patience and dignity. For the feelings of Cunda, who gave him the pork which brought on his final illness, he showed a touching tenderness. Towards his affectionate but rather slow-witted friend, Ananda, Gotama is at once severe and considerate.

But with the general exception above noted, there is not ascribed to the historical Gotama any striking or peculiar illustration of loving-kindness. On his supposed conduct in previous births,' the legends have lavished every extravagance in attributing heroic actions to hares and stags and elephants. But they have left the Gotama of this age in the simplicity of the facts. What is the explanation ?

I believe that as regards the older records the reason is that they tell the truth. As regards the later narratives, Professor Oldenberg's explanation may be correct. The Buddha had attained that to which moral achievements are only a means. He had 'done all that had to be done.' After he had become a Buddha, any action but that of teaching would have been out of place. So the exercise on a vast scale of all the virtues was relegated to the region of former births, in former ages, and under former Buddhas,

1 Maha Vagga, i. 19.

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when he who was to be the Buddha of this age was a Bodhisat, or being destined to be a Buddha.

But there is a further reason. The loving-kindness of Buddhism is rather a temper than a motive of action. It may have existed to the full in the Buddha without exhibiting itself in act. As a temper, it is the characteristic aim of his teaching.

He is represented as teaching that a little love is better than vast gifts. It leads to high condition in future births. In the Kassapa Síhanáda Sutta, Gotama discusses the common saying, 'It is hard to be a Brahman or a Samana.' In contrast with the labours and austerities to which this saying refers, Gotama says, ‘The mendicant who cultivates loving-kindness in his heart, without enmity and without malice, and by destruction of the corruptions attains even in this life by his own insight the realisation of the corruptionless emancipation of the mind, the emancipation of knowledge, he, Kassapa, is rightly called a Brahman

'He lets his mind pervade one quarter of the world with thoughts of love, and so the second, and so the third, and so the fourth. And thus the whole wide world, above, below, around, and everywhere, does he continue to pervade with heart of love, farreaching, grown great and beyond measure.

'Just Vasettha, as a mighty trumpeter makes himself heard, and that without difficulty, in all the four

1 Sanyut. xx. 4.

2 Angut. iv. 190.

3

Dig. Nik. viii. 16.