however, now be no longer any doubt on the point. Spence Hardy and Bigandet find in the modern Sinhalese and Burmese books the same opinion as Alvis and Gogerly and especially Childers have found in the more ancient authori ties ; and though the modern books of the Northern Bud dhists are doubtful, Eugene Burnouf has clearly proved that their older texts contain only the same doctrine as that held in the South. Buddhism does not acknowledge the existence of a soul as a thing distinct from the parts and powers of man which are dissolved at death, and the
Nirvana of Buddhism is simply Extinction.[1]It will seem strange to many that a religion which ignores the existence of God, and denies the existence of the soul, should be the very religion which has found most acceptance among men, and it is easy to maintain that had Buddha merely taught philosophy, or had he lived in later ages, he might have had as small a following as Comte. Gautama s power over the people arose in a great degree from the glow of his practical philanthropy, which did not shrink in the struggle against the abuses most peculiar to his time; his philosophy and his ethics attracted the masses, from whose chained hands they struck off the manacles of caste, and in leaving the school for the world they insensibly became a religion. But there is no reason to believe that Gautama intended either at the beginning or the end of his career to be the founder of a new religion. He seems to have hoped that the new wine would go into the old bottles, and that all men, not excepting even the Brahmins, would gradually adopt his, the only orthodox, form of the ancient creed. However the question of the historical succession or connection between the different systems of Hindu philosophy be ultimately settled, whether any of them were post-Buddhistic or not, they afford at least sufficient evidence that beliefs very inconsistent with the practical creed of the masses met with little opposi tion from the priests so long as they were taught only in schools of philosophy; and Buddhist morality was not calculated to excite anger or hatred. But the very means which Gautama adopted to extend and give practical effect to his teaching, while giving it temporary success, led to its ultimate expulsion from India. It was his Society rather than bis doctrine, the Sangha rather than the Uharma, which both gave to his religion its practical vitality and excited the active hostility of the Brahmins.
The Sangha or Society, the Buddhist Order of Mendicants.—It was a logical conclusion from the views of life held by Gautama that any rapid progress in spiritual life was only compatible with an ascetic life, in which all such contact with the world as would tend to create earthly desires could be reduced as much as possible ; and accordingly from the first he not only adopted such a mode of life for himself but urged it on his more earnest disciples. He contem plated no such division between clergy and laity as obtains in Christian countries, and constantly maintained that there was no positive merit in outward acts of self-denial or penance; but holding that family connections and the possession of wealth or power were likely to prolong that mistaken estimate of the value of things, that clinging to life which was the origin of evil, he taught that to forsake the world was a necessary step towards the attainment of spiritual freedom. Little by little, as occasion arose, he laid down rules for the guidance of those who thus devoted themselves to the higher life, and insensibly as he did so, the Society became more and more like one of the monkish orders which sprung up afterwards in the west. But not even now has the order become a priesthood. It possesses no mystic powers of regeneration or confirmation or absolu tion from sin ; it works no miracles by consecration or by prayer, and its doors are always open alike to those who wish to enter and to those who wish to leave it. In a system which acknowledged no Creator and no God, the monks could never become the only efficient intercessors between man and his Maker ; and since salvation was held to be and to depend upon a radical change in man s nature, brought about by his own self-denial and his own self-control, the monks could never obtain power over the keys of heaven and hell. When successive kings and chiefs were allowed to endow the society, not indeed with gold or silver, but with the few necessaries of the monkish life, including lands and houses, it gradually ceased in great measure to be the school of virtue or the most favourable sphere for intellectual progress, and became thronged with the worthless and the idle ; but in the time of its founder it undoubtedly contained few besides those who longed under his guidance first to train themselves and then to preach to others the glad tidings of rest ; that hope, to us so uninviting and so cold, to them to whom life, under their glowing sky and under the oppressive weight of tyranny in church and state, was a burden too heavy to be borne to them so welcome and so sweet, of utter rest in annihilation. For admittance to the Society no other credentials were at first required than the simple wish of the applicant; afterwards on different occasions a few neces sary conditions were imposed, the applicant being obliged to state that he was free from contagious disease, consump tion, and fits ; that he was neither a slave nor a debtor nor a soldier, that is, that he was sui juris ; and that he had obtained the consent of his parents. At first, also, the candidate was admitted without any ceremony by merely shaving his head, putting on the yellow robes, and leading an ascetic life ; afterwards a simple ceremony was adopted, probably identical with that now in use in Ceylon, an excellent account of which has been given in the Journals of the Ceylon Asiatic Society for 1852 and of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1873. At first also there is no mention of any distinction within the ranks of the society ; but the preparatory rank of novice was very early introduced, and later on, as the religion became more and more corrupted, the order became more and more subdivided, until in Tibet, in the 14th century, we find a complete episcopal hierarchy.
the sacred books to the senior members of the order are Sramana and Bhikshu, and to the novices Samanera. The first, from which the third is derived, means one who exerts himself, controls himself; the second means simply a beggar. Self-conquest and poverty, then, were to be the distinguish ing characteristics of the " sons of Sakya," but it was not left to them to decide for themselves how far this self- suppression and abstinence were to be carried. The teacher gave a number of rules and directions which have been handed down to us more or less correctly in the Vinaya, the first part of the Buddhist canon, and which are summed up in the " Patimokkha," a book which, though not included in the canon, cannot be much later than the great council of Asoka, about 250, and is regarded with much reverence by the monks, from its having from time immemorial been ordered to be read twice monthly in every monastery. These rules may be roughly divided into two divisions, those which are obligatory, and those which, not being obligatory, are recommended to such as wish to work out their own salvation to a point further than that attainable by the ordinary rules. And first, as to food. No monk
can eat solid food except between sunrise and noon, aud- ↑ On Nirvana, see Gogerly, Journal of the R. A. S., Ceylon Branch, 1867-1870, Part i. p. 130 ; Alvis, Buddhist Nirvana, Colombo, 1871 ; Childers, Pali Diet., sub. v., Nirvana; Burnouf, Intr., 18-20, 78, 83, 155, 516-522, and esp. 589 et seq., and Lotus, 355 ; Hardy s Eastern Monachism, 280-309 ; Bigandet, p. 320-323 ; Wassilief, Der Bud- dhismus, p. 101. On the other side, Prof. Max Miiller, Buddha- ghosha s Parables, xxxix-xlv.: Mohl, Journal Asiatigue, 1856, p. 94; and Obry, Du Nirvana Bouddhiyue, Paris, 1863.
