History of India/Volume 1/Chapter 30

by Romesh Chunder Dutt

BUDDHIST TOPE AT SANCHI.

CHAPTER XXX

HISTORY OF BUDDHISM

WE are told in the Chullavagga that, on the death of Gautama, the venerable Mahakasyapa proposed, "Let us chant together the Dhamma and the Vinaya." The proposal was accepted, and 499 Arhats were selected for the purpose; and Ananda, the faithful friend and follower of Gautama, completed the number five hundred.

This was the Council of Rajagriha held in the year of Gautama 's death, presumably 487 b.c., to settle the sacred text and, by chanting it together, to fix it on the memory.

A century after the death of Gautama, according to tradition, the Bhikkhus of Vaisali promulgated ten theses, which permitted, among other things, the use of unfermented liquor, and the receipt of gold and silver by Bhikkhus, or monks.

Yasa, the son of Kakandaka, a venerable Bhikkhu, protested against these licenses, and convoked a great Buddhist council at Vaisali. He sent messengers to the Bhikkhus of the western country, and of Avanti, as well as of the southern country; but in the meantime the Bhikkhus of Vaisali heard that he was obtaining support from the Bhikkhus of the western provinces, and they, in their turn, sought for sanction from the east. Indeed the difference was between the eastern Buddhists of Vaisali and the western Buddhists of the provinces along the higher course of the Ganges, and also of Malwa and the Deccan.

The final decision of the Council, rendered by a committee of four from each side, was against all the proposed innovations except one, which was allowed in certain cases; but this verdict the majority of monks refused to accept. Those who thus renounced western conservatism in favour of the eastern innovations of the Vrijjians, formed the school known as the Northern Buddhism of Nepal, Tibet, China, and Japan, while their orthodox opponents are represented by the Southern Buddhism of Ceylon, Burma, and Siam.

Buddhism first became the state religion of India when Asoka, who had ascended the throne of Magadha about 272, became a convert to the new faith. About the seventeenth year of his reign, he held at his capital, Pataliputra, the third council, which lasted for nine months, under the presidency of Tissa, son of Moggali, and was attended by a thousand elders. After the close of the Council, Asoka sent missionaries to Kashmir and Gandhara, to Mahisa (near modern Mysore), to Vanavasa (probably Eajputana), to Aparantaka (West PAnjab), to Maharattha, to Yonaloka (Bactria and Greece), to Himavanta (Central Himalayas), to Subannabhumi (probably Burma), and to Lanka (Ceylon). The edicts of Asoka also inform us that his orders were carried out in Chola (Madras country), Pandya (Madura), Satyapura (Satpura range), Kerala (Travancore), Ceylon, and the land of the Greek King Antiochus of Syria, while in another edict he informs us that he sent

BUDDHIST CARVING AT ANURADHAPURA.

embassies to the five Greek kingdoms of Syria, Egypt, Macedon, Epirus, and Cyrene.

We have already seen that Asoka sent his own son Mahendra, or Mahinda, to Ceylon, and that he soon converted King Tissa and spread Buddhism throughout the island. The scenes of Mahinda 's labours are still visible in Ceylon. Eight miles from the ruined city of Anuradhapura is the hill of Mihintale, where the Ceylonese king built a monastery for the Indian monks, and here is a great stupa, or cupola, under which rest the ashes of Asoka 's son. After the death of King Tissa and of Mahinda, Ceylon was twice overrun and conquered by Dravidian conquerors, who were finally expelled by Watta Gamini about 88 b. c., when the three Pitakas, which had been so long preserved by word of mouth, are said to have been reduced to writing.

About 450 a. d. Buddhism was introduced into Burma, and in 638 it penetrated to Siam. Java seems to have received Buddhist missionaries about the same time, and Buddhism apparently spread thence to Sumatra. All these countries belonged to the Southern Buddhist school.

Northern Buddhism was the prevailing faith in the northwest of India before the commencement of the Christian Era. Pushpamitra, the King of Kashmir, whose history will be found in the next volume, persecuted the Buddhists early in the second century b. c., and Pushpamitra 's son, Agnimitra, met the Greeks on the banks of the Ganges. The Greeks under Menander were victorious, and about 150 b. c. extended their conquests as far as the Ganges. But the victory of the Greeks was no loss to Buddhism, and Nagasena, a renowned Buddhist teacher of the time, had religious controversies with the Greek king, which have been preserved to us in a most interesting Pali work.

Between the first and second centuries after Christ the Yueh-chi under Kanishka conquered Kashmir. Kanishka's vast empire extended over Kabul, over Yarkand and Khotan, over Kashmir and Rajputana, and over the whole of the Pan jab, to Gujarat and Sind in the south, and to Agra in the east, and even China had hostages at his court. Kanishka was a zealous Buddhist of the Northern school, and held a council of five hundred monks. If this council had settled the text as the Council of Asoka at Pataliputra did, we should now have in our possession the canon of Northern Buddhism as we have the Three Pitakas of the South. But Kanishka 's council satisfied itself with writing three commentaries only, and Northern Buddhism drifted more and more from its primitive form, and assumed different aspects in different lands.

As early as the second century b. c., Buddhist books were taken to the Emperor of China, probably from Kashmir. Another emperor, in 62 a. d., procured more Buddhist works and Buddhism spread rapidly from that date until it became the state religion in the fourth century.^[1]

From China the religion spread to Korea in 372 a. d., and thence to Japan in 552 a. d. Cochin-China, Formosa, Mongolia, and other countries received Buddhism from China in the fourth and fifth centuries; while from Kabul the religion travelled to Balkh, Bokhara, and elsewhere.

Buddhism must have penetrated into Nepal at an early date, although the kingdom did not become Buddhist until the sixth century, nor did the first Buddhist King of Tibet send for scriptures from India before 632 a. d.

1. For an account of the introduction of Buddhism into China see vol. ii, pp. 231-234.