The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1879-06-11
BUDDHISM.

The Founder of the Religion of Half the
World-Its observation-disclosures in
Worship to Catholicism.
John Russell Young's Correspondence in N.
Y. Herald.J
In the sixth century before Jesus Christ
came upon the earth there lived near Ben
ares a man whose influence has not been ex-
ceeded by that of any spiritual teacher
known In history. This was Sakya
Muni. better known as Buddhs-
the caste Cshatrlyas-the military
caste-and descended from the sun, whose
descendants still reign in Rajpootanah,
among them our friend, the maharsjah OF
Jeypore. Sakya NUM- was the son of prince
who reigned in a small territory about 100
miles Forth of Benares. He was not priest,
but on the contrary, belonged to a class
upon which the priests looked down-the
military class" who governed states and
commanded armies. He lived until he
was so, as such princes are apt to do,
seeking pleasure and excitement, ever
came upon Sakya NUM- in his thirtieth year
sense of unworthIness-a feeling that
there were better things than physical graft.
ication. He became an enthusiast, and
like Loyola, dedicated himself to religion
to the practice of the most severe forms of
in its exactions when compared
with that an Indian oevotee will
undertake. To sit under a tree with an
arm uplifted for years until the member
shrinks and withers, to lie on the ground
under the rain and sun, to stand all day on
one foot, to go naked in winter and summer,
to accept death in the most cruel forms,
walking to a funeral pile and lying down
among the flames 10 live in the woods
and the jungle subsistlng on roots and
fruits and leaves-these are among
the methods of the devotion which
.w.1x
down under tree and there remained in
meditation five years. He thought of the
sins and sorrows OF the world. its vanity
and sel6shness, the canker of ambition,
the shame of vanity, of the immortality of
priests, the disrespect shown to sacred things
and virtue. For five years he remained in
silence, in seclusion, with no
root but the tree, exiled
from court and palace and throne and
the attractions of military career. During
these years of meditation he derived q new
faith, and rising journeyed to Benares, the
holy city, and preached his faith. The es-
sential principle was that man by meditation
can make himself SO holy as TO come into
possession of that knowledge which God
only bestows upon the most holy, and which
raises the man himself to the rank of deity.
In other words, that man by goodness
might become God.
THE MEANING OF BUDDHISM.
Many dogmas have been proclaimed by
the various religious teachers who have
arisen from age to age to control and lead
mankind. But know of none more daring
or fascinating than this which came to Sakya
NUM- as he sat under his tree, that man by
virtue and holiness may make himself God.
He became at the end OF five years Buddha,
and in this character, as
the human expression of deity visited
n
preached his faith N Benares, and from place
to place throughout India, making converts,
encouraging disciples, planting the seeds of
religion until when he disd he had won q
divine recognition, and his religion was so
firmly planted that for centuries 1t was the
religion of one-half the human race. Even
now, although the Brahmins have expelled
1T from greater part Of India, you find it
here in Burmah; and you know that it rules
in China, in Thibet, in Japan, and is, per
haps, the dominant religion of the world.
What is pleasant to know in the progress OF
this faith is that no blood was ever shed to
enforce it. Mohammed founded creed and
an empire. but he carried his religion at the
point of his sword. Sakya NUM-, like Jesus
Christ, was content with preaching and
teaching and, apart from the blasphemy
which Christians see in the rejection of the
Deity, his teachings form commendable
code of moral law. Subtle expounders of
believe in Supreme Being, an eternal God,
who remains in a state of everlasting repose
not an active and an angry God, like that
of the Jews, who slew enemies, and visited
His punlshments upon the the third and
fourth generations of those who obeyed not
the commandments. Others believe that
this Supreme Being is only another name
for nature. and that with Him is second
deity, associated something like the Father
and Son in our own Holy
Trinity. These two gods unite
and form q third being, who created
the world, thus shadowing forth in start
ling manner the mystery of the Trinity, and
showing that the idea OF the Trinity had
been dimly seen by good men OF the Indian
race before our Savior preached 1t. The
leading theory in the Bhuddist faith is
repose, that with repose there may be medi-
tatlon, and from meditation felicity. An
other dogma is that there were other Budd-
has before Sakya NUM-; that each Buddhs
belonged to a separate world; that Sakya
Muni's world will last 5000 years,
when another will come and bring a new
world with him. In this dogma one sees
the doctrine of geological ages-of Messiah
coming again-of the destruction of the
world. Each world leads into higher
stage of existence, so that even the expo
nents of Darwin's theory of evolution may
find out that its essential principle was
thought out more than 1000 years ago by
an Indian prince sitting under q
tree. There are many variations of this faith,
the most important of which is that there are
stages of moral development, men rising
into higher grades of felicity by the sanctity
of their lives. No one has ever succeeded
in reaching to the knowledge which came
to Sakya NUM-, the profession of which is
the creed OF every Buddhist There are
various translations OF this creed, which one
| finds written over the temples, 'of all things
proceeding from cause. Their cause hath
Buddha explained, Buddha hath also ex
| planned the causes of the cessation of ex
| istence." This lacks the ringing
| martial force of the creed oil
Islam-''There is 10 God but God
and Mohammed is his prophet" 1t wants
the supreme, majestic declaration recorded
| in the Hebrew Scrptures-"I am that am. ~
1t fails in that lofty beauty with which John
records the creed of CRAFTSMANSHIP the be-
| ginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. The same
| WAS in thu hepinninq With God A Ii things