Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3

Project Gutenberg, Charles Eliot

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3), by Charles Eliot This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) Author: Charles Eliot Release Date: October 10, 2005 [EBook #16847] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM *** Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: Volume 1 may be found at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/2/5/15255/ Volume 2 may be found at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/5/4/16546/ Excerpts from the Preface to the book from Volume 1, regarding the method of transcription used. "In the following pages I have occasion to transcribe words belonging to many oriental languages in Latin characters. Unfortunately a uniform system of transcription, applicable to all tongues, seems not to be practical at present. It was attempted in the Sacred Books of the East, but that system has fallen into disuse and is liable to be misunderstood. It therefore seems best to use for each language the method of transcription adopted by standard works in English dealing with each, for French and German transcriptions, whatever their merits may be as representations of the original sounds, are often misleading to English readers, especially in Chinese. For Chinese I have adopted Wade's system as used in Giles's Dictionary, for Tibetan the system of Sarat Chandra Das, for Pali that of the Pali Text Society and for Sanskrit that of Monier-Williams's Sanskrit Dictionary, except that I write s instead of s. Indian languages however offer many difficulties: it is often hard to decide whether Sanskrit or vernacular forms are more suitable and in dealing with Buddhist subjects whether Sanskrit or Pali words should be used. I have found it convenient to vary the form of proper names according as my remarks are based on Sanskrit or on Pali literature, but this obliges me to write the same word differently in different places, e.g. sometimes Ajâtasatru and sometimes Ajâtasattu, just as in a book dealing with Greek and Latin mythology one might employ both Herakles and Hercules. Also many Indian names such as Ramayana, Krishna, nirvana have become Europeanized or at least are familiar to all Europeans interested in Indian literature. It seems pedantic to write them with their full and accurate complement of accents and dots and my general practice is to give such words in their accurate spelling (Râmâyana, etc.) when they are first mentioned and also in the notes but usually to print them in their simpler and unaccented forms. I fear however that my practice in this matter is not entirely consistent since different parts of the book were written at different times." LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS [From Volume 1] The following are the principal abbreviations used: Ep. Ind. Epigraphia India. E.R.E. Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (edited by Hastings). I.A. Indian Antiquary. J.A. Journal Asiatique. J.A.O.S. Journal of the American Oriental Society. J.R.A.S. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. P.T.S. Pali Text Society. S.B.E. Sacred Books of the East (Clarendon Press). Volume 3 has a number of words in Chinese. These are represented by the notation [Chinese: ] in the text files. In html the words are included as image files. HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM AN HISTORICAL SKETCH BY SIR CHARLES ELIOT In three volumes VOLUME III ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL LTD Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane, London, E.C.4. 1921 _First published_ 1921 _Reprinted_ 1954 _Reprinted_ 1957 _Reprinted_ 1962 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY LUND HUMPHRIES LONDON-BRADFORD CONTENTS BOOK VI BUDDHISM OUTSIDE INDIA CHAPTER XXXIV. EXPANSION OF INDIAN INFLUENCE XXXV. CEYLON XXXVI. BURMA XXXVII. SIAM XXXVIII. CAMBOJA XXXIX. CHAMPA XL. JAVA AND THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO XLI. CENTRAL ASIA XLII. CHINA. INTRODUCTORY XLIII. CHINA (_continued_). HISTORY XLIV. CHINA (_continued_). THE CANON XLV. CHINA (_continued_). SCHOOLS OF CHINESE BUDDHISM XLVI. CHINA (_continued_). CHINESE BUDDHISM AT THE PRESENT DAY XLVII. KOREA XLVIII. ANNAM XLIX. TIBET. INTRODUCTORY L. TIBET (_continued_). HISTORYLI. TIBET (_continued_). THE CANON LII. TIBET (_continued_). DOCTRINES OF LAMAISM LIII. TIBET (_continued_). SECTS LIV. JAPAN BOOK VII MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF EASTERN AND WESTERN RELIGIONS LV. INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA LVI. INDIAN INFLUENCE IN THE WESTERN WORLD LVII. PERSIAN INFLUENCE IN INDIA LVIII. MOHAMMEDANISM IN INDIA INDEX BOOK VI BUDDHISM OUTSIDE INDIA CHAPTER XXXIV EXPANSION OF INDIAN INFLUENCE INTRODUCTORY The subject of this Book is the expansion of Indian influence throughout Eastern Asia and the neighbouring islands. That influence is clear and wide-spread, nay almost universal, and it is with justice that we speak of Further India and the Dutch call their colonies Neerlands Indië. For some early chapters in the story of this expansion the dates and details are meagre, but on the whole the investigator's chief difficulty is to grasp and marshal the mass of facts relating to the development of religion and civilization in this great region. The spread of Hindu thought was an intellectual conquest, not an exchange of ideas. On the north-western frontier there was some reciprocity, but otherwise the part played by India was consistently active and not receptive. The Far East counted for nothing in her internal history, doubtless because China was too distant and the other countries had no special culture of their own. Still it is remarkable that whereas many Hindu missionaries preached Buddhism in China, the idea of making Confucianism known in India seems never to have entered the head of any Chinese.It is correct to say that the sphere of India's intellectual conquests was the East and North, not the West, but still Buddhism spread considerably to the west of its original home and entered Persia. Stein discovered a Buddhist monastery in "the terminal marshes of the Helmund" in Seistan[1] and Bamian is a good distance from our frontier. But in Persia and its border lands there were powerful state religions, first Zoroastrianism and then Islam, which disliked and hindered the importation of foreign creeds and though we may see some resemblance between Sufis and Vedantists, it does not appear that the Moslim civilization of Iran owed much to Hinduism. But in all Asia north and east of India, excluding most of Siberia but including the Malay Archipelago, Indian influence is obvious. Though primarily connected with religion it includes much more, such as architecture, painting and other arts, an Indian alphabet, a vocabulary of Indian words borrowed or translated, legends and customs. The whole life of such diverse countries as Tibet, Burma, and Java would have been different had they had no connection with India. In these and many other regions the Hindus must have found a low state of civilization, but in the Far East they encountered a culture comparable with their own. There was no question of colonizing or civilizing rude races. India and China met as equals, not hostile but also not congenial, a priest and a statesman, and the statesman made large concessions to the priest. Buddhism produced a great fermentation and controversy in Chinese thought, but though its fortunes varied it hardly ever became as in Burma and Ceylon the national religion. It was, as a Chinese Emperor once said, one of the two wings of a bird. The Chinese characters did not give way to an Indian alphabet nor did the Confucian Classics fall into desuetude. The subjects of Chinese and Japanese pictures may be Buddhist, the plan and ornaments of their temples Indian, yet judged as works of art the pictures and temples are indigenous. But for all that one has only to compare the China of the Hans with the China of the T'angs to see how great was the change wrought by India. This outgrowing of Indian influence, so long continued and so wide in extent, was naturally not the result of any one impulse. At no time can we see in India any passion of discovery, any fever of conquest such as possessed Europe when the New World and the route to the East round the Cape were discovered. India's expansion was slow, generally peaceful and attracted little attention at home. Partly it was due to the natural permeation and infiltration of a superior culture beyond its own borders, but it is equally natural that this gradual process should have been sometimes accelerated by force of arms. The Hindus produced no Tamerlanes or Babers, but a series of expeditions, spread over long ages, but still not few in number, carried them to such distant goals as Ceylon, Java and Camboja. But the diffusion of Indian influence, especially in China, was also due to another agency, namely religious propaganda and the deliberate despatch of missions. These missions seem to have been exclusively Buddhist for wherever we find records of Hinduism outside India, for instance in Java and Camboja, the presence of Hindu conquerors or colonists is