Introducing Buddhism. Kodo Matsunami
was in these circumstances that historical Buddha was born in 560 B.C. as the son of King Suddhodana and Queen Maya. His real name was Gautama Siddhartha. His father was a ruler of Sakya clan in northern Magadha which was constantly threatened by the surrounding kingdoms. Therefore, his father was anxious to have a son who would succeed to his throne. One day, the astrologer predicted that the baby to be born would either become the future ruler or the Buddha. Queen Maya gave birth to her child at Lumbini Garden on her way to her parents' home. Legend tells us that when he was born he took seven steps and pointed to heaven with his right hand and to the earth with his left hand, and proclaimed, "Here I am who is destined to be the most honorable one on this earth." Since his mother passed away seven days after his birth, he was brought up by his step mother who spared no pains in the training of this future ruler. However, as he grew older, his keen sensitivity made him ponder over the sophisticated court life, and his uneasiness never ceased but rather intensified even though he was married to the beautiful Yasodhara when he was nineteen. When a son was born to him, he sighed and named his son Rahula the fetter. Legend also tells us that one day he stole out from the walled palace, and saw for the first time an old man, an ill man and a dead man. This horrible sight made him appreciate his deep sense of impermanence. In order to seek the truth, at the age of twenty-nine he decided to renounce the world, and left the palace one dark night leaving behind him all his worldly fame and luxury. He wondered around as mendicant practicing samadhi and asceticism for six years. However he could only gain an exhausted mind and an emancipated body. Thereafter he gave up his austere practices, and went to Gaya where he sat under a pipphala tree and vowed not to rise from deep contemplation till he attained enlightenment. Legend tells us that while he was in deep contemplation he was tempted by Mara, but unfettered he finally attained enlightment and became a Buddha, the Awakened One, at the age of thirty-five.
Gautama Buddha remained at Gaya for seven days and then started for the Grove of Deer Park at Saranath where he met a goup of five ascetics and delivered them the first sermon. The Buddha's disciples were multiplied in number, and their communities were formed as Samgha. Many monasteries were built at the cities such as Sravasti, Kausambi, Nalanda and Vaisali with the help of wealthy merchants and landlords. He sent his disciples to various parts of India and preached to the people according to their abilities and without making any distinction of caste or class. As water drawn into the parched earth so his teaching attracted the distressed people who were yearning for peace of mind. He left his footprints over almost all of the Central Ganges area of India.
At the close of forty-five years of missionary activity, Gautama Buddha went to Kusinagara where he felt the pangs of illness. He felt his death was approaching but his mind was calm because he knew that he had done what he had set out to do. He also knew that his teaching was universally valid and did not depend on the lives of its leaders. At his deathbed, he gave his final exhortations to Ananda and other disciples who had surrounded him: "Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge unto yourselves. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Hold fast as a refuge to the Truth. Look not for a refuge to anyone besides yourselves. Decay is inherent in all component things. Work out, therefore, your salvation with diligence!" Leaving these last words behind him, Gautama Buddha peacefully passed away at the age of eighty.
Chapter 2
A Short History of Early
Buddhism in India
What Gautama Buddha taught to his disciples was the deliverance of oneself from the bondage of this illusioned world and the attainment of enlightenment which always entails death to the profane condition followed by a new birth. His teaching was therefore addressed to all suffering people regardless of whether they were ascetics or householders. However, he seemed to assert that rapid progress was to be gained in spiritual life which was only compatible with a retired life. He once said, "Now I tell you of the life which a householder should lead, of the manner in which a disciple should conduct himself. Such duties as are peculiar to the mendicants cannot be fulfilled by one who has a family." Many disciples were reported to abandon their past life and joined the Buddha's community which was known as Samgha. They thought that spiritual life could not be fulfilled in any existing form of society, and therefore formed a confraternity where they were relieved of care for food and lodging and could concentrate on their spiritual life. It should be noted, however, that there was a peculiarity of Buddhist Samgha distinguishing it from other religious orders, that is, everyone was accepted into its community regardless of whatever their ranks in their previous caste might have been. Since they were equally treated, they abandoned their family name and became a "son of the Buddha". In due course, such Buddhist Samgha were expanded as there were many more converts coming into the community, and they set up their own regulations, called Vinaya, in order to maintain it and propagate the Buddha's teaching more widely than ever. Although the Buddha held the life of a mendicant to be necessary for rapid progress toward deliverance from suffering, he highly honored the laity and received the same attention as the monks. After the passing away of the Buddha, however, there were some objections among the disciples to giving the same position to the laity. The Theravadin disciples wanted to possess the priviledges of attaining the Truth by themselves, but the disciples who belonged to the Northern school of Uttarapathaka admitted the laity to the same priviledges. In later years, this controversy gave rise to the development of Mahayana Buddhism in China and Japan in contrast to the traditional Theravada Buddhism which is prevalent in the South East Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.
Whichever the case may be, it was the Buddha's Samgha rather than his teaching which first insured for his religion its great vitality and its rapid spread, and which afterwards became a stronghold against the deep-rooted caste system of India. It naturally excited the hostility of the Brahmins and consequently was driven out from Indian soil.
Chapter 3
A Short History of Buddhism in China
Buddhism was first introduced to China in 61 A.D. when the Han dynasty was powerless to control the subject and was exposed to external threats. In those days Confucian ideology and structure were collapsing and Taoism prevailed among the people. The Han government permitted the spread of Buddhism in order to comfort the people who had a seemingly homogeneous thought in Taoism. They were attracted by Buddhist novel formulas for the attainment of supernatural powers, immortality or salvation. Buddhist scriptures and ornaments were brought to China by the Indian monks who had travelled all the way through Central Asia.
With the downfall of the Han dynasty in 220 A.D., China was divided into two, one in the South and the other in the North. Northern China was governed by non-Chinese rulers who were free from the pressures of traditional Confucian ideology and encouraged their subjects to promote Buddhist practices. Southern China was governed by Chinese rulers but they also were dissatisfied with traditional Confucian ideology, so they began to take an interest in the Buddhist thought. Buddhism not only permeated to the common people but also to the government officials, and the rising popularity of the Buddhist community of monks soon gave rise to the problem between the community and the head of the state. In India, the Buddhist community were refrained from worldly affairs, while in China the emperor was considered to be supreme and everyone should be prostrated before him. When the Northern Wei absorbed all the kingdoms in north China, the emperor Wu-ti felt that the rising Buddhist community of monks had threatened the politics and economy of the state, so he carried out, in 446, the persecution of Buddhism, ordering all the temples, stupas, scriptures and paintings to be destroyed and all the monks to be executed. However, when he died, his orders were cancelled and Buddhism was ever more revived among the people. It was in the Sui dynasty that the emperor finally united north and south China in 589 and decided to utilize Buddhism as an ideology to knit the Chinese and non-Chinese of the entire country closer together. The government assisted in every way possible the building of temples, stupas, statues and in translating almost all the Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into Chinese.
When the T'ang dynasty was in power in the seventh and eighth centuries, Buddhism flourished along with the government embracing the whole of China and portions of Central Asia. The Buddhist community of monks also gained materialistic wealth through the acquisition of lands. Contributions of money and foods sometimes far exceeded the needs of the monastic community living in the temples, so were used for the furtherance of the religion