3 Some Misstatements About the Mahâyâna Doctrines
Before entering fully into the subject proper of this work, let us glance over some erroneous opinions about the Mahâyâna doctrines, which are held by some Western scholars, and naturally by all uninitiated readers, who are like the blind led by the blind. It may not be altogether a superfluous work to give them a passing review in this chapter and to show broadly what Mahâyânism is not.
Why Injustice is done to Buddhism.
The people who have had their thoughts and sentiments habitually trained by one particular set of religious dogmas, frequently misjudge the value of those thoughts that are strange and unfamiliar to them. We may call this class of people bigots or religious enthusiasts. They may have fine religious and moral sentiments as far as their own religious training goes; but, when examined from a broader point of view, they are to a great extent vitiated with prejudices, superstitions, and fanatical beliefs, which, since childhood, have been pumped into their receptive minds, before they were sufficiently developed and could form independent judgments. This fact so miserably spoils their purity of sentiment and obscures their transparency of intellect, that they are disqualified to perceive and appreciate whatever is good and true and beautiful in the so-called heathen religions. This is the main reason why those Christian missionaries are incapable of rightly understanding the spirit of religion generally—I mean, those missionaries who come to the East to substitute one set of superstitions for another.
This strong general indictment against the Christian missionaries, however, is by no means prompted by any partisan spirit. My desire, on the contrary, is to do justice to those thoughts and sentiments that have been working consciously or unconsciously in the human mind from time immemorial and shall work on till the day of the last judgment, if there ever be such a day. To see what these thoughts and sentiments are, which, by the way, constitute the kernel of every religion, we must without any reluctance throw off all the prejudices we are liable to cherish, though quite unknowingly; and keeping always in view what is most essential in the religious consciousness, we must not confound it with its accessories, which are doomed to die in the course of time.
As specimen of injustice done to the Mahâyâna Buddhism by Christian critics, we quote the following passages from Monier-William’s Buddhism, Waddell’s Buddhism in Tibet, and Samuel Beal’s Buddhism in China, all of which are representative works each in its own field.
Monier Monier-Williams is a well-known authority on Sanskrit literature, and his works in this department will long remain as a valuable contribution to human knowledge. But, unfortunately, as soon as he attempts to enter the domain of religious controversy, his intellect becomes piteously obscured by his preconceived ideas. He thinks, for instance, that the principal feature of Mahâyânism consists merely in amplifying the number of Bodhisattvas, who are contented, according to his view, with their “perpetual residence in the heavens, and quite willing to put off all desires for Buddhahood and Parinirvana.” (P. 190.)
This remark is so absurd that it will at once be rejected by any one who has a first-hand knowledge of the Mahâyâna system, as even unworthy of refutation, but Monier-Williams takes special pains to give to his characterisation of the Mahâyâna doctrine a show of rational explanation. “Of course,” says he, “men instinctively recoiled from utter self-annihilation, and so the Buddha’s followers ended in changing the true idea of Nirvana and converting it from a condition of non-existence into a state of lazy beatitude in celestial regions (!), while they encouraged all men—whether monks or laymen—to make a sense of dreamy bliss in Heaven (!), and not total extinction of life, the end of all their efforts.” (P. 156.)
This view of the Buddhist heaven as interpreted by Monier-Williams is nothing but the conception of the Christian heaven colored with paganism. Nothing is more foreign to Buddhists than this distinguished Sankritist’s interpretation of celestial existence. The life of devas (celestial beings) is just as much subject to the law of birth and death as that of men on earth. What consolation would there be for the Mahâyânists striving after the highest principle of existence, only to find themselves transmigrated to a celestial abode, that is also full of sorrows and sufferings? Always working for the welfare of their fellow-creatures, the Bodhisattvas never desire any earthly or heavenly happiness for themselves. Whatever merits, according to the law of karma, there be stored up for their good work, they do not have any wish to enjoy them by themselves, but they will have all these merits turned over (parivarta) to the interests of their fellow-beings. This is the ideal of Bodhisattvas, i.e., of the followers of Mahâyânism.
Samuel Beal who is considered by Western scholars to be an authority on Chinese Buddhism, referring to the Mahâyâna conception of Dharmakâya,6 says in his Buddhism in China (p. 156): “We can have little doubt, then, that from early days worship was offered by Buddhists at several spots, consecrated by the presence of the Teacher, to an invisible presence. This presence was formulated by the later Buddhists under the phrase, ‘the Body of the Law’, Dharmakâya.”
Then, alluding to Buddha’s instruction that says after his Parinirvana the Law given by him should be regarded as himself, Beal proceeds to say: “Here was the germ from which proceeded the idea or formula of an invisible presence: teaching and power of the Law (Dharma) represented the Dharmakâya or Law-Body of Buddha, present with the order, and fit for reverence.”
To interpret Dharmakâya as the Body of the Law is quite inadequate and misleading. To the Hînayânists, there is nothing beside the Tripitaka as the object of reverence, and, therefore, the notion of the Body of the Law has no meaning to them. The idea is distinctly Mahâyânistic, but Beal is not well informed about its real significance as understood by the Buddhists. The chief reason of his misinterpretation, as I judge, lies in his rendering dharma by “law”, while dharma here means “that which subsists,” or “that which maintains itself even when all the transient modes disappear,” in short, “being,” or “substance.” Dharmakâya, therefore, would be a sort of the Absolute, or Essence-Body of all things. This notion plays such an important rôle in Mahâyânism that an adequate knowledge of it is indispensable to understand the constitution of Mahâyânism as a religious system.
Let us state one more case of misrepresentation by Western scholars of the Mahâyâna Buddhism. Waddell, author of Buddhism in Tibet, referring to the point of divergence between the so-called Northern Buddhism and the Southern, says (pp. 10-11): “It was the theistic Mahâyâna doctrine which substituted, for the agnostic idealism and simple morality of Buddha, a speculative theistic system with a mysticism of sophistic nihilism in the background.”
And again: “This Mahâyâna [meaning Nâgârjuna’s Mâdhyamika school] was essentially a sophistic nihilism, or rather Parinirvana, while ceasing to be extinction of life, was converted a mystic state which admitted of no definition.”
It may not be wrong to call Mahâyânism a speculative theistic system in a wide sense, but it must be asked on what ground Waddell thinks that it has in its background “a mysticism of sophistic nihilism”. Could a religious system be called sophistry when it makes a close inquiry into the science of dialectics, in order to show how futile it is to seek salvation through the intellect alone? Could a religious system be called a nihilism when it endeavors to reach the highest reality which transcends the phenomenality of concrete individual existences? Could a doctrine be called nihilistic when it defines the absolute as neither void (çûnya) nor not-void (açûnya)?
I could cull some more passages from other Buddhist scholars of the West and show how far Mahâyânism has been made by them a subject of misrepresentation. But since this work is not a polemic, but devoted to a positive exposition of its basic doctrines, I refrain from so doing. Suffice it to state that one of the main causes of the injustice done to Buddhism by the Christian critics comes from their preconceptions, of which they may not be aware, but which all the more vitiate their “impartial” judgments.