INTRODUCTORY NOTE

SIDDHARTHA Gautama, known as Buddha, the “Awakened,” was the son of the ruler of Çākya-land, a region lying to the northeast of Oude, in northern India. The date of his birth is placed about 557 B. C.

He was born a warrior prince, but at the age of twenty-nine, after having married and had a son, he determined to renounce the world. Abandoning his family and possessions, he gave himself up to asceticism and concentration of thought, under the direction of masters of this discipline. After seven years, he concluded that this method brought him no nearer to the wisdom he sought as a means of escaping rebirth into a life which he had found not worth living, and for a time he tried starvation and self-torture. This also availed him nothing; when suddenly, sitting under the sacred fig-tree at Bodhi Gayā, he became illumined and saw the Great Truths. Henceforth he was “Buddha.” Gautama's first aim had been merely his own salvation; but moved by pity for mankind he resolved to bestow on others the Four Great Truths and the eight-fold path. Beginning his ministry at Benares, he converted first five monks who had previously been his fellows in asceticism, then many of the noble youth of the city, then a thousand Brahman priests.

The rest of his life was spent in wandering about and preaching his new creed, which spread with extraordinary rapidity. He died not far from his native region about the year 477 B. C.

The foregoing outline selects what seem the most reliable main elements in a biography which has naturally become saturated with legend of later growth. The teaching of Buddha, so similar in its pessimistic view of life to that of the Book of "Ecclesiastes," is amply represented in the following writings.

III. THE ORDER

THE ADMISSION AND ORDINATION CEREMONIES

THE MENDICANT IDEAL

"AND HATE NOT HIS FATHER AND MOTHER

THE STORY OF VISAKHA.

BUDDHIST WRITINGS

I. THE BUDDHA

THE STORY OF SUMEDHA1

Translated from the Introduction to the Jātaka (i.31).

A

HUNDRED thousand cycles vast
And four immensities ago,

There was a town named Amara,
A place of beauty and delights.
It had the noises ten complete2
And food and drink abundantly.

The noise of elephant and horse,
Of conch-shell, drum, and chariot,
And invitations to partake-

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Eat ye, and drink!"-resounded loud.

A town complete in all its parts,
Where every industry was found,
And eke the seven precious gems,*
And foreigners from many lands.
A prosperous city of the gods,
Full of good works and holy men.

Within this town of Amara
Sumedha lived, of Brahman caste,
Who many tens of millions had,

And grain and treasure in full store.

1 This entire story is related by The Buddha to his disciples, and describes how, in his long-ago existence as the Brahman Sumedha, he first resolved to strive for the Buddhaship. In stanzas 4-5 he speaks of himself, that is, of Sumedha, in the third person, but elsewhere in the first. 2 Only six of the ten noises indicative of a flourishing town are here mentioned. For the complete list, see The Death of The Buddha.

Probably gold, silver, pearls, gems (such as sapphire and ruby), cat'seye, diamond, and coral.

"Even as, although there evil is,
That which is good is also found;
So, though 't is true that birth exists,

That which is not birth should be sought.
Lust, hatred and infatuation.