V. THE LAST DAYS OF BUDDHA
His miracles—He visits his father’s house—The Buddhist monks—Death
From this exalted philosophy we pass to the simple legends which are all that we have concerning Buddha’s later life and death. Despite his scorn of miracles, his disciples brewed a thousand tales of the marvels that he wrought. He wafted himself magically across the Ganges in a moment; the tooth-pick he had let fall sprouted into a tree; at the end of one of his sermons the “thousand-fold world-system shook.”80 When his enemy Devadatta sent a fierce elephant against him, Buddha “pervaded it with love,” and it was quite subdued.81 Arguing from such pleasantries Senart and others have concluded that the legend of Buddha has been formed on the basis of ancient sun myths.82 It is unimportant; Buddha means for us the ideas attributed to Buddha in the Buddhist literature; and this Buddha exists.
The Buddhist Scriptures paint a pleasing picture of him. Many disciples gathered around him, and his fame as a sage spread through the cities of northern India. When his father heard that Buddha was near Kapilavastu he sent a messenger to him with an invitation to come and spend a day in his boyhood home. He went, and his father, who had mourned the loss of a prince, rejoiced, for a while, over the return of a saint. Buddha’s wife, who had been faithful to him during all their separation, fell down before him, clasped his ankles, placed his feet about her head, and reverenced him as a god. Then King Shuddhodhana told Buddha of her great love: “Lord, my daughter (in-law), when she heard that you were wearing yellow robes (as a monk), put on yellow robes; when she heard of your having one meal a day, herself took one meal; when she knew that you had given up a large bed, she lay on a narrow couch; and when she knew that you had given up garlands and scents, she gave them up.” Buddha blessed her, and went his way.83
But now his son, Rahula, came to him, and also loved him. “Pleasant is your shadow, ascetic,” he said. Though Rahula’s mother had hoped to see the youth made king, the Master accepted him into the Buddhist order. Then another prince, Nanda, was called to be consecrated as heirapparent to the throne; but Nanda, as if in a trance, left the ceremony unfinished, abandoned a kingdom, and going to Buddha, asked that he, too, might be permitted to join the Order. When King Shuddhodhana heard of this he was sad, and asked a boon of Buddha. “When the Lord abandoned the world,” he said, “it was no small pain to me; so when Nanda went; and even more so with Rahula. The love of a son cuts through the skin, through the hide, the flesh, the sinew, the marrow. Grant, Lord, that thy noble ones may not confer the ordination on a son without the permission of his father and mother.” Buddha consented, and made such permission a prerequisite to ordination.84
Already, it seems, this religion without priestcraft had developed an order of monks dangerously like the Hindu priests. Buddha would not be long dead before they would surround themselves with all the paraphernalia of the Brahmans. Indeed it was from the ranks of the Brahmans that the first converts came; and then from the richest youth of Benares and the neighboring towns. These Bhikkhus, or monks, practised in Buddha’s days a simple rule. They saluted one another, and all those to whom they spoke, with an admirable phrase: “Peace to all beings.”* They were not to kill any living thing; they were never to take anything save what was given them; they were to avoid falsehood and slander; they were to heal divisions and encourage concord; they were always to show compassion for all men and all animals; they were to shun all amusements of sense or flesh, all music, nautch dances, shows, games, luxuries, idle conversation, argument, or fortune-telling; they were to have nothing to do with business, or with any form of buying or selling; above all, they were to abandon incontinence, and live apart from women, in perfect chastity.85Yielding to many soft entreaties, Buddha allowed women to enter the Order as nuns, but he never completely reconciled himself to this move. “If, Ananda,” he said, “women had not received permission to enter the Order, the pure religion would have lasted long, the good law would have stood fast a thousand years. But since they have received that permission, it will now stand fast for only five hundred years.”86 He was right. The great Order, or Sangha, has survived to our own time; but it has long since corrupted the Master’s doctrine with magic, polytheism, and countless superstitions.
Towards the end of his long life his followers already began to deify him, despite his challenge to them to doubt him and to think for themselves. Now, says one of the last Dialogues,
the venerable Sariputta came to the place where the Exalted One was, and having saluted him, took his seat respectfully at his side, and said:
“Lord, such faith have I in the Exalted One that methinks there never has been, nor will there be, nor is there now, any other, whether Wanderer or Brahman, who is greater and wiser than the Exalted One . . . as regards the higher wisdom.”
“Grand and bold are the words of thy mouth, Sariputta” (answered the Master); “verily, thou hast burst forth into a song of ecstasy! Of course, then, thou hast known all the Exalted Ones of the past, . . . comprehending their minds with yours, and aware what their conduct was, what their wisdom, . . . and what the emancipation they attained to?”
“Not so, O Lord!”
“Of course, then, thou hast perceived all the Exalted Ones of the future, . . . comprehending their whole minds with yours?”
“Not so, O Lord!”
“But at least, then, O Sariputta, thou knowest me, . . . and hast penetrated my mind?” . . .
“Not even that, O Lord.”
“You see, then, Sariputta, that you know not the hearts of the Able, Awakened Ones of the past and of the future. Why, therefore, are your words so grand and bold? Why do you burst forth into such a song of ecstasy?”87
And to Ananda he taught his greatest and noblest lesson:
“And whosoever, Ananda, either now or after I am dead, shall be a lamp unto themselves, and a refuge unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge, but, holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, . . . shall not look for refuge to any one besides themselves—it is they . . . who shall reach the very topmost height! But they must be anxious to learn!”88
He died in 483 B.C., at the age of eighty. “Now then, O monks,” he said to them as his last words, “I address you. Subject to decay are compound things. Strive with earnestness.”89