Fa hian subsequently enters into minute details respecting the habits, manners, customs, and advantages of the priesthood, which were the same all over the country. When strangers arrived amongst them, they were received with great honour and kindness. They were met on the road, and their clothes and begging-pot carried for them. Water was taken to them to wash their feet; oil to anoint their bodies, and a special entertainment was given to them. Fa hian particularly enumerates six towers [monasteries?] in Mutra where ecclesiastics put up. They were named after disciples of Buddha, or from containing certain sacred books. At the close of this chapter', Fa hian has a very remarkable passage. Still speaking of the Buddhist ecclesiastics, he says, "At the end of the year they receive their customary presents from the elders, [les anciens,] the men in office, the Brahmans, and others, which consisted of the coloured dresses, and other things necessary for Buddhist priests." Here the Brahmans can scarcely be viewed as religious characters; for it cannot be supposed, if they were priests, that they would be in the habit of making annual presents to their hated rivals: they may rather be looked upon, as there is strong ground for believing at this period, as seculars, and laymen, and constituents, as I shall have occasion to show, of even a Buddhist community! Fa hian concludes the chapter by repeating that in these countries the rites and ceremonies of Buddhism had never been interrupted from the time of Buddha, and M. Remusat very quaintly remarks, "The alleged superiority of Brahmanism, therefore, must be looked for in other countries!" Fa hian now proceeds seventy miles S. E. to the kingdom of Sam Kassam in Pali, and mentioned in the Ramayana as Sankasya, somewhere about Farrakhabad. Here was a great stoupa or tope: it contained the ladder by which Buddha had descended from heaven, [where he had been to see his mother,] accompanied by Indra and Brahma. He does not make any mention of temples to these two personages; but Hiuan thsang found two temples erected to them in honour of their having accompanied Buddha on his return from heaven, manifesting the corruptions that were then undermining Buddhism. It is to be remarked that Indra and Brahma, in the estimation of the Buddhists, had the Pas in the Brahmanical Pantheon, and there is no mention of Siva or Vishnu, who may not yet have been grafted upon the stock. As a crowd of gods were in attendance VOL. VI. Chap. 16. * Page 125. U upon Buddha; Siva and Vishnu would probably have been named, had they then attained to a fraction of their modern celebrity. But with regard to Indra and Brahma, and the thirty-one other gods residing in the second heaven, they are not eternal beings, but in transitu; and it is competent to mortals even to take their names and places as they become vacant in the progress of the universe'. Brahma, therefore, was considered by the Buddhists 1400 years ago as only a transitory Devata, and not the Creator of the universe: he was inferior even to Indra. Part of the Buddhists of Nepal with a Brahmanical tinge, speak of Brahma as Creator, Vishnu as Preserver, and Mahesa as Destroyer, all emanating from an ancient Buddha. But this was looked upon as heresy by the Chinese Buddhists; for they deem all these gods, when they admit their existence at all, as imperfect beings, whom men may even surpass by attaining the quality of Bodhisattwa or purified intelligence'. The Chinese have, nevertheless, now got a corrupted Pantheon of twenty of these personages, M. Remusat does not mention his authority, but from the complexion of the account of them, it has not an ANTIQUE character: Brahma is put at their head; Indra follows; but Maha Iswara, supposed to be Mahadeo, or Siva, from his being described as having eight arms, three eyes, and being seated on a white bull with a white brush in his hand, ranks as low as the eighth in the list; but the name of Siva never occurs in these Chinese writings, and it is not less remarkable that in the numerous inscriptions between the sixth and fourteenth centuries, [vide Appendix,] in which the Destroyer is referred to or eulogized, he is called in all the earlier inscriptions by some other of his numerous names, and not by that of Siva. The twelfth of these gods is the general of the Vedas, which word vedas is explained to mean a "discourse on science." Instead of giving himself up to the voluptuousness of the gods, he walked in purity and continence, received the instruction of Buddha, and defended his religion. What this relation between the Vedas and Buddha exactly means, I do not know; but it plainly says that the commander-in-chief of the armies of the Vedas defended the religion of Buddha, and when a temple to Buddha was built, a statue of the general was put into it3. Then comes the mother of the Demons with her 1000 children to whom human beings address themselves if they want progeny. The twentieth and last in the list is Yama, the god of the infernal regions. Although this jumble of Buddhist and Brahmanical or 2 Page 128 aud 138. 1 Page 128. 3 Pages 138 and 142. Tching fa nian tchou king, quoted in the San tsang fa sou, book 18, page 20. rather Hindu Devatas is evidently comparatively modern, there is not any mention of Vishnu, Krishna, Ganesa, or the Hindu goddesses, and if they had been known at the time of writing the list, they would most probably have come in for a place of honour. It can scarcely be doubted that this list contains evidence of the progress of corruption in Buddhism, which has ended in the substitution of the worship of spirits or genii [naats] in most parts of China, to the exclusion of Buddha. In one of the curious diaries of the ambas sadors sent from the Burman empire in the present century, to Pekin, and published by Colonel Burney', the ambassadors state that they found the Chinese temples filled with figures of naats or spirits, and that they did not see a single figure of Buddha between the frontiers of Ava and Pekin! M. Remusat ends his list of the Buddhist Pantheon, by adding that there were very many others whose names were not known; but it was asserted that Indra was their chief in the time of the ancient Buddha. Here again is a reference to a predecessor of Sakya's. Arrian, in his Histor. Ind., cap. viii., mentions a Buddha, the third from Bacchus, as a king of India, as far back as the fabulous times3. All the above gods of the second heaven were, of course, inferior to those of the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth heavens. Brahma, Indra, &c., had no reason, therefore, to be very grateful to the Buddhists for the honour vouchsafed to them, whether viewed as constituents of the Polytheism of the Brahmans, or as belonging to Buddhism. It was only in the sixth heaven these fabulous personages were supposed to be elevated above carnal desires. In addition to the above, the Buddhists enumerated other heavens with their inhabitants. But all of them, of whichever heaven, were infinitely below a Bodhisattwa, the next rank below a Buddha'. It is time, however, to return to Fa hian, who states that the King Asoka, wanting to see how far the ladder went down into the earth, caused people to dig; but not being able to reach the end, his faith and veneration increased, and he built a chapel over the spot, and on the middle step of the ladder he raised an erect statue of Buddha, sixty feet high. Behind the chapel he raised a stone 3 Απιόντα δὲ ἐκ τῆς Ἰνδῶν γῆς, ὡς οἱ ταῦτα κεκοσμέατο, καταςῆται βασιλέα τῆς χώρης Σπαρτέμβαν, τῶν ἑταίρων ἕνα, τὸν βακχωδέςατον τελευτήσαντος, δὲ Σπαρτέμβα, τὴν βασιλείην ἐκδέξασθαι βουδύαν τὸν τούτου παῖδα, καὶ τὸν μὲν πεντή κοντα, καὶ δύο ἔτεα βασιλεῦσαι Ινδῶν, τὸν πατέρα τὸν δὲ παῖδα, εἴκοσιν ἔτεα, column forty-five feet high, with a lion on the top of it'. Certain heretics disputed the possession of this locality, but the lion on the top of the column giving a lusty roar, the heretics were discomfited, and the dispute was settled. M. Remusat has a note in which he says it may be supposed the heretics were Brahmans; but it does not necessarily follow, as no less than eleven sects of heretics have already been enumerated, some Buddhists and some Brahmanical". Some of the legends of Sakya Muni make him and his disciples dispute with ninety-five different sects, but these are reducible to eleven, whose doctrine, books, and habitudes, prevailed IN THE WEST 3; and it may be supposed, therefore, OUT OF INDIA, or at least in Bikaner, and Jaysalmer. Amongst these was the Sankhya system, the Vaishesika, the author of which lived 800 years before Sakya Muni, and who appears to have been a quasi Buddhist, or one whose doctrines Sakya may be supposed to have reformed, in case he came as a reformer, and not as an inventor. Then come the Vibhuti, who cover themselves with cinders, and believe the sixth god of the world of desires, Iswara, to have created all things. Then the followers of the Vedas, who imagine that Narayana created the four families, Brahmans from his mouth, Kshatryas from his arms, Vaisyas from his thighs, and Sudras from his feet. Then come the partisans of the Egg, [Anda,] from which Brahma sprung, and created the world'. Then come the Timeists; also those who believe space to be the origin of things, then the Conformists; next follow the believers in all things originating in Ether. The tenth sect believed in the supreme efficacy of morality; and the eleventh and last believed that there was not any first cause! The above details appear to have been translated from the Chinese work, "San tsang få sou." M. Remusat does not give the date of the work, which, however, looks to be comparatively modern, from its notices of Puranic fables. It is very curious, as it would seem to separate the followers of the Vedas from those of Brahma, the latter from Narayana, and the followers of both these latter from the Vibhuti: its location of all the Hindu sectaries or heretics in the West is important. Its details are probably founded on the information taken to China, by Chinese pilgrims returning from India; or by the immigrating Buddhists in the seventh and eighth centuries, flying from their persecutors, the Saiva's. 1 Very many such columns have recently been found in India, some of them wihh Asoka's edicts engraved on them. 2 See page 149, for a list of the heretical sects. 3 Page 152, et seq. * San tsang fâ sou, book 47, page 26. Another Chinese variation of the above details in the same work, reduces the heretical sects to nine. It contains an explanation of the three forms of Iswara, [Siva,] seen in the cave-temples of Elephanta, and at Ellora, which I have never met with before. It says, "The heretics say that this god [Iswara] has three bodies; that of the "law," which means that his substance is eternal, universally diffused, and extending as far as space, and having the power to create all things; that which " disposes," because he is above all forms; and that of "transformations," because he changes in the six conditions all the beings of whom he takes the form." I cannot say that this is very intelligible, but it is new. The account further says, that Iswara resides in the heaven called Aghanista; that he is the lord of 3000 worlds; that his followers rub themselves with ashes, and the Brahmans in general consider him to be the cause of all things. In a further enumeration of nine points in which the heretics are în error, respecting form, cause, effect, destiny, conduct, &c., it says "the heretics, partisans of the Vedas, believe that from the navel of Narayana sprung a lotus, on which appeared Brahma, who produced all things, and to whom are made offerings of flowers and plants, and victims, such as hogs, sheep, asses, horses, &c. &c." Here we learn from Buddhist authority that it was part of the Hindu ritual to offer flesh in sacrifice; and this is in strict accordance with the details in the Ramayana, which state that flesh was thrown about on the funeral pile of Rama's father'. Those who go entirely naked, and whom we may suppose to be the Gymnosophists, met with by Alexander, are stated to believe that Nirvana, or identification with the godhead, depends upon a clear and distinct perception of all things in their different manners of being. Buddha himself mentions this naked class of religionists without calling them heretics, and Arrian in his APPIANOY INAIKH3, describes them as philosophers and diviners, and offerers of sacrifices, without calling them Brahmans, which, indeed, they could not have been, as ANY of the seven classes of society might supply them, which is quite in accordance with the practice of the Buddhists". Those who place themselves in dependence on women, believe that Maha Iswara created a woman who produced gods and men, &c., &c. others make salvation to consist in penance; some in the : 1 Book 2, sect. 61, page 206. 2 KEP. XI. 3 Μοῦνον σφίσιν ἀνεῖται, σοφιςὴν ἐκ παντὸς γένεος γενέσθαι· ὅτι οὐ μαλθακὰ τοῖσι σοφιςῆσιν εἰσὶ τὰ πρήγματα, ἀλλὰ πάντων ταλαιπωρότατα. ΚΕΦ. XII. |