Personalities - Buddha

Buddha

Among several Paths of Wisdom that came to grow and develop in India, the one chalked out by Lord Buddha stands out prominently. This path was in many ways a continuation of the wisdom of the Vedas and the Upanishads, even when it rejected their authority. This Path, which is referred to as the Middle Path, had a special appeal both to intellectual idealism and to spiritual pragmatism. None has spoken so clearly and trenchantly of the need to test the truth of a teaching on the anvil of the reason as the Buddha. And, again, none has spoken so clearly and trenchantly of the need to eschew the futile intellectual debate and of getting straight to the task of spiritual operation which can deliver one from the pain of the thorn of desire and its ever-multiplying consequences. These two attitudes are not contradictory of each other, but they stand harmoniously together, when they are understood properly in the context of the original intentions of the teaching of the Buddha. But issuing from these two tendencies, the teaching of the Buddha, came to have profound consequences both to philosophical and spiritual currents of the cultures of the countries wherever this teaching spread.

The name Buddha means literally the "Enlightened one." This name represents and recalls the highest state of consciousness, the state into which the personality of Sakyamuni, of Gautama, was uplifted, at his 35th year, and which is recognised as a state of liberation and perfection. This state is also called the state of Silence beyond the Silence. And yet it is the state which gives a dual capacity, that of an absolute peace and freedom within, Nirvana, and a desireless but effective action without. This possibility of an entire motionless impersonality and void Calm within doing outwardly the works of the eternal verities, Love, Truth and Righteousness was perhaps the real gist of the Buddha's teaching. Thus was it possible for the Buddha to attain the state of Nirvana and yet act puissantly in the world, impersonal in his inner consciousness, in his action the most powerful personality that we know of as having lived and produced results upon earth. And it is this dual aspect of the state of the Buddhahood that seems to provide to us the key to the silent but potent cultural efflorescence in the countries where the teaching of the Buddha came to be accepted and practised.

Buddhism first spread in India, and it produced a profound change both in the way of the life of the people and in various cultural expressions. But its migration to other countries is an amazing story, and by the 10th century A.D., Buddhism had spread to a large number of countries of Asia. It is said, but I think quite wrongly, that Buddhism was ultimately rejected by India. As a matter of fact, Buddhism was absorbed by India, and the Buddha came to be accepted as one of the incarnations of the Supreme. In any case, the culture that Buddhism produced in India has continued to have its influence right up to the present day. The message of non-violence which became so prominent during our freedom struggle bears the impress of Buddhism, and the concept of Panchsheel which came to be formulated in the early years of the post- Independence period derives its fundamental inspiration from Buddhism. The recent recovery of the Buddhist thought all over the world has brought back to India once again the impact of Buddhism, and we of the present day feel the presence of the Buddha very much in our midst, in our thought and in our cultural ethos. At the time of the 2500th Buddha Jayanti, Jawaharlal Nehru described the celebration of this great event as the 'home-coming of Buddhism.' Dr. Radhakrishnan, while paying tribute to Buddha said: 'Buddha aimed at the development of a new type of free man, free from prejudices, intent on working out his own future, with one's self as one's light, attadipa. His humanism crossed racial and national barriers.’

A special feature of the Buddhist Influence on culture is expressed by the concept of Samavayo or "concord". This concept came to assume importance both in religious and social life. Buddha insisted on the unity among the Buddhist monks and nuns. In the Digha-Nikaya we find the following remark of Buddha concerning the monks and nuns:

"United they meet, united they rise up, united they do their duties". The concept of Samavayo also signifies "religious toleration" among different religious sects. In one of the edicts, Asoka proclaims that there should be the growth of the essential elements of all religious sects. He directed that the sects of others should be honoured. He also pointed out that doing otherwise, one hurts his own sect and injures the sects of others. He went further and said that all should listen and be willing to listen to the doctrines professed by others, that there should be the growth of the essential elements, and breadth of all sects. The spirit of Samavayo also gave a guideline in regard to the conduct of discussions. Buddha himself did not appreciate that Sramanas and Brahmanas edified and glorified their own respective doctrines, but deprecated the doctrines of others. Commenting on how discussions should be conducted Asoka maintained that criticism should be "as light as possible and always to the point, but there must also be appreciation of other sects in regard to this or that point." Decision-making procedure also in politics and in business came to be greatly influenced by the attitude of Samavayo. The Japanese corporations arrive at decisions by consensus in their board meetings rather than by voting. In order to facilitate consensus, the final decision is often taken only after many rounds, but in the final round the consensus is expressed by almost every one. In recent times, this tradition still prevails, with minor changes. It has even been claimed that much of the success of the export policy of Japan owes a great deal to the culture of concord that has developed under the Buddhistic influence.

It is well known that Buddhism constitutes a powerful basis for egalitarianism. While we may not read modern concepts in the ancient teaching of Buddha, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Buddhist idea of change and the Buddhist idea of inter-dependence of the individual and the society have always promoted in every Buddhist land a powerful trend of equality. The equality of men and women in their right to search for the highest possible state of consciousness was explicitly recognised right from the earliest stages of Buddhism. Similarly, Buddhism did not discriminate among the young and the old, and permitted even the young to undertake the same discipline of liberation as the old.

The sociological implications of Buddhism underlined the need for a gradual educative transformation of individuals first into social beings and finally into entirely deindividualised or impersonalised beings, so conceived in terms of ineffable Nirvana. The Sangha of the Buddhists was supposed to interact with the ever-increasing circle of common people. The education and transformation of the people was supposed to emanate from the example and influence of the members of the Sangha.

A special element that Buddhism seems to introduce in culture is its subtle and rich symbolism. One great symbol that stands out distinctly in all the Buddhist lands, is the Stupa. The other important symbols are the Buddha's footprint and the Wheel of the Doctrine. In Nepal the Stupa has retained the place of honour as the central Buddhist symbol, despite the fantastic iconographic changes that have affected the whole pantheon of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, gods and goddesses. In India, the Stupa underwent a long period of architectural and symbolic development. In the beginning, the Stupa was the symbol of the Buddha's Nirvana, but it tended to become gradually the symbol of Buddhahood as a kind of ineffable peace, manifest through five Buddhas. The footprint, Buddha Pāda, was evidently a symbol of Buddha's personal presence. An early example of very simple design is found at Gandhāra, and it seems to have become increasingly popular. Often these footprints are found in natural surroundings, impressed on rocks like the famous example on Samantakuta (Adam's Peak) in Sri Lanka, where it is associated with the legendary account of Sakyamuni's supposed visit to the island. Yet another rock imprint in Pātaliputra is supposedly related to his last presence in Magadha. Rubbings of original footprints were taken to China and there transferred to new stone slabs, which in turn were copied still further in Japan. At the Temple of Yakushi-ji, near Nara a footprint stele of the 8th century is still to be seen. There are many examples from south-East Asia, particularly in Burma and Thailand, and we have also the fine example from Angkor Wat.

The Wheel of Doctrine is the most ubiquitous of Buddha's symbols, occurring in so many varied contexts, iconographic as well as ornamental. In Tibet it would probably be impossible to find any temple or gateway to a religious enclave where the Wheel of the Doctrine is absent. As symbols of the actual event of the Enlightenment, mention must be made of the tree, still growing at Bodh Gaya, as well as its famous off shoot at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka. In a later period, the main temple at Bodh Gaya was copied elsewhere as a symbol of the Enlightenment. Famous replica temples of this kind, simply known as Maha Bodhi, are found in places as far apart as Pagan in Burma, Chieng Mai in Thailand, Pātan in Nepal and Beijing in China. Again, the symbolism of Stupa and temple coalesce in the special symbol, the Mandala or the mystic circle. The mystic circles symbolised both the world and release from it, and thus they serve the purpose of meditation and ritual. The other interesting symbol is the Vajra, symbolising the axis of the universe, identical with the Perfection of Wisdom.

An interesting development of symbolism was the rejection of symbolic objects or signs by Ch'an Buddhists. The Ch'an masters liked to paint, with powerful, utterly concentrated brush-strokes, simple objects taken from everyday life and experience — flowers, fruits, vegetables, stones — or highly abbreviated landscapes, because they all can, if seen with right understanding, convey the real essence in its concreteness and immediate evidence. Japanese Zen masters sometimes went so far as to hang up a white sheet of paper mounted as a scroll: an empty image as an image of emptiness. One of the Ch'an sayings very clearly expresses the fundamental tendency, inherent in Buddhist thought from the very beginning to transcend the image: "The universal body has no reflection (or shadow-image)." At a deeper level of thought, the image is not conceived as the opposite of the universal body. And there is no fundamental contradiction between the impossibility of conceiving and depicting the Buddha in his true nature and of making images as the only means of rendering manifest the reality of Buddhahood. The relationship is a dialectical one, and between of this paradoxical dialectic of image and non-image, Buddhist art appears to have always been suspended.

Thus we see that it is the ineffable state of Buddhahood which lies at the root of symbolism and art wherever they have been inspired by Buddhism. Buddhist sculpture also has the same basis. The image of the Buddha himself, in its various forms in various countries has this mysterious element, where the outer form leads us to something that is formless and something that transcends articulation. In every image of Buddha, we see the manifestation of Silence and Peace which seems somehow to be far above and behind the outer form.

History of Buddhist art and literature and philosophy and religion is not only rich, in content but it manifests a remarkable tendency of a mystery of the meeting of the affirmation and negation, which ultimately seem to be only apparently but not really contradictory of each other. How the spirit of Buddhism has grown and developed in each country is a fascinating story, and both for the scholars and for the laymen, it has a never-ending message. In recent times, there is a renewed interest in Buddhist thought and culture, and we seem to be standing today where a new synthesis of the old and the new seems to be an urgent need.
It is in this context that an international meeting of scholars such as the one that has been organised here in India for the first time assumes special significance. I am sure that the exchange of ideas that this Conference would provide will be both interesting and instructive. I welcome distinguished scholars who have come from different parts of the world, and I should like to underline the importance that we give to this Conference.

With these words, I have pleasure in inaugurating this Conference.