God in Buddhism

Since the time of the Buddha, the refutation of the existence of a creator has been seen as a key point in distinguishing Buddhist from non-Buddhist views.B. Alan Wallace, Contemplative Science. Columbia University Press, 2007, pages 97-98. Buddhism is usually considered a religion, but is also commonly described as a "spiritual philosophy", because it generally lacks an Absolute creator god. The Buddhist approach is clinical and systematic. In the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha analyzed the problem of suffering, diagnosed its root cause and prescribed a method to dispel suffering. He taught that through insight into the nature of existence and the wisdom of "not-self" or "selflessness" (anatta) No-Self or Not-self, Thanissaro Bhikku all sentient beings following the noble eightfold path can dispel ignorance and thereby suffering. Hence Buddhism does not hinge upon the concept of a Creator God but upon the personal practice of ethics, meditation, and wisdom.Mahasi Sayadaw, Thoughts on the Dhamma, The Wheel Publication No. 298/300, Kandy BPS, 1983 Buddhist philosophy can also be contrasted with Hindu ideasHelmuth von Glasenapp, Vedanta and Buddhism: A comparative study The Wheel, Publication No. 2, Kandy, 1978 of an ultimate Self, the definition of which varies between sects.
However, in all Buddhist traditions, veneration of the Buddha as a teacher of Dharma is significant and an important part of spiritual development. While according to Pali Buddhism, the Buddha rejected being deified, in some streams of Mahayana Buddhism Gautama Buddha is worshipped as 'an omnipotent divinity endowed with numerous supernatural attributes and qualities'.Dr. Guang Xing, The Three Bodies of the Buddha: The Origin and Development of the Trikaya Theory, RoutledgeCurzon, Oxford, 2005, p. 1
==The Supernatural in Buddhism==
While Buddhism does not deny the existence of supernatural beings (e.g., the devas, of which many are discussed in Buddhist scripture), it does not ascribe powers, in the typical Western sense, for creation, salvation or judgement, to the "gods". They are regarded as having the power to affect worldly events in much the same way as humans and animals have the power to do so. Just as humans can affect the world more than animals, devas can affect the world more than humans. While gods may be more powerful than humans, none of them are absolute (unsurpassed). Most importantly, gods, like humans, are also suffering in samsara, the ongoing cycle of death and subsequent rebirth. Gods have not attained nirvana, and are still subject to emotions, including jealousy, anger, delusion, sorrow, etc. Thus, since a Buddha shows the way to nirvana, a Buddha is called "the teacher of the gods and humans" (Skt: śāsta deva-manuṣyāṇaṃ). According to the Pali Canon the gods have powers to affect only so far as their realm of influence or control allows them. In this sense therefore, they are no closer to nirvana than humans and no wiser in the ultimate sense. A dialogue between the king Pasenadi Kosala, his general Vidudabha and the historical Buddha reveals a lot about the relatively weaker position of gods in Buddhism.Kannakatthala Sutta, (MN-90)
The Pali Canon also attributes supernatural powers to enlightened beings (Buddhas), that even gods may not have. In a dialogue between king Ajatasattu and the Buddha, enlightened beings are ascribed supranormal powers (like human flight, walking on water etc.), clairaudience, mind reading, recollection of past lives of oneself and others. Yet, according to the Buddha, an enlightened person realizes the futility of these powers and instead unbinds himself completely from samsara through discernment.
==Attitudes towards theories of creation==
Nowhere in the Pali Canon, are Buddhas ascribed powers of creation, salvation and judgement. In fact, Buddhism is indifferent to all theories on the origin of the universeBrahmajala Sutta (DN 1) and holds the belief in creation as a fetter binding one to samsara. It is important to understand that the Buddha did not expressly say that creation did not occur or that there is no creator. Instead, Buddhist focus is on the effect the belief in theories of creation and a creator have on the human mind. The Buddhist attitude towards every belief is one of critical examination from the perspective of what effect the belief has on the mind and whether the belief binds one to samsara or not.
The Buddha declared that "it is not possible to know or determine the first beginning of the cycle of existence of beings who wander therein deluded by ignorance and obsessed by craving."David Kalupahana, Causality: The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. The University Press of Hawaii, 1975, page 111. Speculation about the origin and extent of the universe is generally discouraged in early Buddhism.David Kalupahana, Causality: The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. The University Press of Hawaii, 1975, pages 111-112.
===Theravada===
Huston Smith describes early Buddhism as psychological rather than metaphysical. Unlike theistic religions, which are founded on notions of God and related creation myths, Buddhism begins with the human condition as enumerated in the Four Noble Truths. Thus while most other religions attempt to pass a blanket judgement on the goodness of the world (e.g. 'He then looked at the world and saw that it was good.' Book of Genesis, Old Testament) and therefore derive the greatness of its Creator, Early Buddhism denies that the question is even worth asking to begin with.Life Isn't just suffering, Thanissaro Bhikku Instead it places emphasis on the human condition of clinging and the insubstantial nature of the world. This approach is often even in contrast with many of the Mahayana forms of Buddhism. No being, whether a god or an enlightened being (including the historical Buddha) is ascribed powers of creation, granting salvation and judgement. According to the Pali Canon, omnipotence cannot be ascribed to any being. Further, in Theravada Buddhism, there are no lands or heavens where a being is guaranteed nirvana, instead he can attain nirvana within a very short time, though nothing conclusive could be said about the effort required for that. In this sense therefore, there is no equivalent of the Mahayana "Pure Land" or magical abode of Buddhas where one is guaranteed to be enlightened, in Early Buddhist tradition.
===Mahayana===
In both Mahayana and Tantric Buddhism (which is considered a third branch of Buddhism), there is far less reticence on the part of the Buddha to discuss metaphysical matters than is found in the Pali Canon. In some major traditions of Mahayana Buddhism (the Tathagatagarbha and Pure Land streams of teaching) there is a notion of the Buddha as the omnipresent, omniscient, liberative essence of reality, and Buddhas are spoken of as generators of vast "pure lands", "Buddha lands", or "Buddha paradises", in which beings will unfailingly attain Nirvana.
===Vajrayana===
Tibetan schools of Buddhism all speak of two truths, absolute and relative. Relative truth is regarded as the chain of ongoing causes and conditions that define experience within samsara, and ultimate truth is synonymous with emptiness. While there are many philosophical viewpoints, they are all flavors of Madhyamaka, a central thread of the Mahayana philosophical tradition. Unique to the Vajrayana perspective is the expression (by meditators) of emptiness in experiential language, as opposed to the language of negation used by scholars to undo any conceptual fixation that would stand in the way of a correct understanding of emptiness. For example, one teacher from the Tibetan Kagyu school of Buddhism, Kalu Rinpoche, elucidates: "...pure mind cannot be located, but it is omnipresent and all-penetrating; it embraces and pervades all things. Moreover, it is beyond change, and its open nature is indestructible and atemporal."
==Veneration of the Buddha==
Although an absolute creator god is absent in most forms of Buddhism, veneration or worship of the Buddha and other Buddhas does play a major role in all forms of Buddhism. While, in Buddhism all beings may strive for Buddhahood, striving to become a god or God in a monotheistic context (like in Abrahamic religions) would be futile or senseless, even heretical, due to a strict distinction between humanity and divinity. Throughout the schools of Buddhism, it is taught that being born in the human realm is best for realizing full enlightenment, whereas being born as a god presents one with too much pleasure and too many distractions to provide any motivation for serious insight meditation. Doctrines of theosis have played an important role in Christian thought, and there are a number of theistic variations of Hinduism where a practitioner can strive to become the godhead (for example Vedanta), but from a Buddhist perspective, such attainment would be disadvantageous to the attainment of nirvana.
In Buddhism, one venerates Buddhas and sages for their virtues, sacrifices, and struggles for perfect enlightenment, and as teachers who are embodiments of the Dhamma.
==Thought as creator==
In Buddhism, there is no Supreme creator. Yet thoughts (or mind, perceptions, etc.; Pali manas, mano in combined form) are the causes and conditions of the way we view the world.Dhammapada, 1.1-3
The opening phrase of the Dhammapada expresses in a few words the most profound understanding in Buddhism of the role of thought in the creation of our perception of the things (dhamma) with which we construct our worldview. In modern parlance it expresses a psychology of phenomonologically ideal realism.
These words are of such integral importance to understanding the Buddhist view of the role of thinking in the construction of a worldview that no single English translation should be relied upon. For example, many English translations insert the pronoun "we" into the lines which does not appear in the original Pali. To demonstrate the variety of English translations:
This verse, however, does not mean that we create the world by thinking in a godlike sense of creation, that is, by existing as a being who thinks of something and it is created. In Buddhism there is no "designer" who is outside of the design. The recognition of a "design" (i.e., pattern recognition at all levels of mentation, perception, mental complexes, etc.) is the function of manas (thinking mind) and is otherwise known in Buddhist psychology as the Sixth Consciousness. It is this role of the Sixth Consciousness in creating the fundamental patterns for the building blocks of a worldview that makes thought the "creator" of the world. All the notions we have about ourselves and our world are fundamentally incorrect notions that become the root cause of ignorance. In Buddhism, the term the world does not refer to an objective empirical world accepted as real, but to the process of objectification of a world that we experience. In Buddhism the world arises moment by moment, and no thing exists beyond the thought-moment of its existence, but that thinking makes it seem to be so by stringing together thought-moments (for example, using memory and associations) into a tapestry of the illusion of a world. So in Buddhism, the words the world refers to all this mass of stress created by the delusions of our thought-designs interpreting, configuring, and constructing the world of experience (i.e., the first Five Consciousnesses).
It is noteworthy therefore that while creation in most other religions, as perceived by a person who objectifies themselves as a being, or separate entity, is the act of a divine being and viewed as a purely positive event, while in Buddhism, neither is creation divine nor is it only positive, but necessarily both positive and negative, plus and minus, in equal proportion. That is, when the undifferentiated mind (i.e., the Eighth Consciousnesses) discriminates itself (i.e., the functioning of the Seventh Consciousnesses), that discrimination is itself the activity of mind functioning in both plus and minus capacities. This discrimination function must necessarily include both poles of every "opposition" or "polarity" that is discriminated. When the thinking process (manas) then attempts to configure a design out of the multiplicity of oppositions, it naturally falls on or grasps at one side of the apparent opposition in distinction to the other side in order to create a sense of solidity or fixation to the world. By such "taking sides" or "one-sidedness", thinking makes itself appear supreme (seṭṭha) in its own world, thus the designation manoseṭṭhā in line two of the Dhammapada above. In the Buddhist view, liberation occurs when our thinking mind (manas) comes down off its self-created throne and sees that the world it creates is illusory and that all things or patterns (i.e., dhammas) are not other than discrimination of Mind as the waves are the discrimination of the ocean. This Mind that is discriminated is designated in positive language as the Tathagata, Dharmakaya, Tathagatagarbha, Buddha Nature, Suchness, Thusness, etc. and in negative language as Sunyata, Emptiness, Non-dual, No-Mind, etc.
==God in early Buddhism==
In early Buddhism, the Buddha clearly states that "reliance and belief" in creation by a supreme being leads to lack of effort and inaction:Tittha Sutta AN 3.61 This is a significant hindrance in the path to liberation in the Buddha's view. It may be noted that the Buddha did not criticize veneration of the noble, veneration of the wise and learned, but only said that the belief in the existence of a creator God fetters the mind to samsara.
It is also noteworthy that gods in Buddhism have no role to play in liberation. Sir Charles Eliot describes god in early Buddhism as such:
===Brahmins and communion with God===
The Brahmins of the day apparently claimed that they were the link between humans and the devas. Often this would place the priestly class at an advantageous position. But the Pāli suttas dismiss the folly of those religious teachers who would lead others to what they themselves do not personally know, as "foolish talk", or "ridiculous, mere words, a vain and empty thing".Digha-Nikaya No. 13, Tevijja Sutta
===Brahma in the Pali Canon===
Brahma is among the common gods found in the Pali Canon. Brahma (in common with all other devas) is subject to change, final decline and death, just as are all other sentient beings in samsara (the plane of continual reincarnation and suffering). In fact there are several different Brahma worlds and several kinds of Brahmas in Buddhism, all of which however are just beings stuck in samsara for a long while. Instead of belief in such a would-be Creator God as Brahma (a benign heavenly being who is in reality not yet free from self-delusion and the processes of rebirth), the wise are encouraged to practise the Dharma (spiritual truth) of the Buddha, in which the Noble Eightfold Path are paramount and are said to bring spiritual Liberation and Awakening.
===Other common gods referred to in the Canon===
Many of the other gods in the Pali Canon find a common mythological role in Hindu literature. Some common gods and goddesses are Indra, Aapo (Varuna), Vayo (Vayu), Tejo (Agni), Surya, Pajapati (Prajapati), Soma, Yasa, Venhu (Visnu), Mahadeva (Siva), Vijja (Saraswati), Usha, Pathavi (Prithvi) Sri (Lakshmi) Kuvera (Kubera), several yakkhas (Yakshas), gandhabbas (Gandharvas), Nagas, garula (Garuda), sons of Bali, Veroca, etc.Mahasamaya Sutta, DN 20 While in Hindu texts some of these gods and goddesses are considered embodiments of the Supreme Being, to early Buddhists this is a ridiculous idea. In the Buddha's view all gods and goddesses were bound to samsara. The world of gods according to the Buddha presents a being with too many pleasures and distractions.
===God as a maintainer and the force behind the world===
One of the popular views emerging in the time of the Buddha and often seen even today was the view that even though the world was not created by a creator God, there is a driving force, a guiding principle behind the workings of the world. As an example, in ancient India, some Hindu sects considered God to be the dispenser of the results of action. According to the Buddha, this view was very dangerous in two ways.
One of the primary reasons is that this places a limitation in ones understanding of the mechanism of karma. Understanding the mechanism of karma is central to the understanding the Dharma leading to the cessation of stress and hence to complete unbinding (nirvana). In fact, when the Buddha attained enlightenment, he first used his insightful awareness to view his past lives and the past and future lives of all other beings and observed the law of karma in action. Belief that a Supreme God is the force behind this law of nature places a significant road-block in spiritual progress, thus disabling the person from understanding the mechanism of karma, in terms of paticcasamuppada (or dependent causality).
The second reason the Buddha considered this notion as egregious is that this belief makes God a dispenser of the results of our actions. Given this, we could try to bribe God or as was common in those days and even today, one would worship God (or confess) to ask for forgiveness. According to the Buddha, this only makes a person irresponsible. If he were solely responsible for the results of his own actions (as he truly is) he will have no one to ask for pardon. The tendency of the human mind to look for such a God is mainly due to its tendency to indulge and yet expect to be forgiven. However, only when we understand that we are entirely responsible for our own actions, and that results accrue as a law of nature and not due to some benign or judgmental being, will we understand the importance of skillful action and reflection that leads to happiness and escape from samsara.
Another view quite popular today which was also present at the time of the Buddha in India was that God is the principle of the law of nature that causes events to occur in a causal manner. In this belief he is not considered a being whose behaviour could be influenced by human endeavour, but nevertheless was a personified image that 'governs' the world. However this is essentially an egregious personification of the laws of causality that the Buddha ascribed to the workings of the world. According to the Buddha, the law of causality could be described briefly as:
A detailed exposition of the dependent causality was needed to understand the more subtle function of the mind-body complex of the human world. The law of causality is not intended to explain the workings of every single phenomenon in the world, but to understand the nature of samsara, the round of birth and death and karma. Personifying this law of nature into a God is of no special benefit as seen from the Buddhist standpoint.
But more than that, the Buddha adopted here a radical viewpoint on the basic tendency of the human mind to posit a God or a governor. Humans tend to look for a governor or a God primarily because of his fundamental need for protection and self-preservation. This lack of security and human weakness was according to the Buddha, the root cause that inspires humans to posit a God. In Buddhism, it is precisely because of this clinging to self and the need for self-preservation that we conceive a self, a soul or a super-soul. It is the proximal cause of ignorance and the root cause of clinging, thus binding us to samsara.
==Mahayana and tantric mystical doctrines==
Mahayana Buddhism, unlike Theravada, talks of Mind — using terms such as "the womb of the Thus-come One" — in a manner that is mistaken by some to indicate an "eternal entity". Such positive statements arose as a way to relate to the common misunderstanding of emptiness as nothingness, that is a nihilistic view of reality. The affirmation of emptiness by positive terminology appears quite radical when compared with early Buddhism's avoidance of "atman" and "god" terminology. Theravada, the oldest surviving school of Buddhism, generally does not subscribe to the idea of referring to the emptiness of mind with positive terminology. According to the Pali Canon, there is no eternal, all-pervading entity that is the source of all energy. Several Theravada scholars criticize the Mahayana scholars as having resorted to the same Vedantic ideas of eternal entities that the Buddha had rejected. From the Mahayana view, to the extent that any Mahayana practitioner actually asserts an "eternal entity" then this Theravada criticism is warranted. However, also from the Mahayana view, the Theravada criticism of Mahayana's use of postitive terminology as an assertion of "eternal entity" is itself a misperception of Mahayana and of Buddha's teaching.
===Tathagata and Dharmakaya as God equivalents===
In some Mahayana traditions, the Buddha is worshipped as a virtual divinity who is possessed of supernatural qualities and powers. Dr. Guang Xing writes: "The Buddha worshipped by Mahayanist followers is an omnipotent divinity endowed with numerous supernatural attributes and qualities ...[He] is described almost as an omnipotent and almighty godhead.".Guang Xing, The Three Bodies of the Buddha: The Origin and Development of the Trikaya Theory, RoutledgeCurzon, Oxford, 2005, pp.1 and 85 In the Mahayana, it is also believed that there are countless Buddhas, but all of one essence – that of "Tathata" ("suchness" or "thusness") – and it is in this sense that the Buddha proclaims himself as "Tathagata" and exalts himself in theistic terms beyond all other "gods" when he declares, (Lalitavistara Sutra), "I am the god above the gods, superior to all the gods; no god is like me – how could there be a higher?" There are also many examples in the Pāli Canon, where the Buddha shows his magical superiority over the Brahma class of gods. So this was already present in the Pāli scriptures/ agamas. The Mahayana schools take the "akalikam" ("timeless") or eternal Dhammakaya of the Buddha in the earliest Tipitika and take it to its furthest understanding.
His realm ("dhatu"), of which he is the "Holy King" (Nirvana Sutra), is further said to be inherent in all beings. This indwelling, indestructible, incomprehensible, divine sphere or essence is called the "Buddha-dhatu" (Buddha-sphere, Buddha-nature, Buddha-realm) or "Tathagatagarbha" in such sutras as the "Mahaparinirvana Sutra" and the "Anunatva-Apurnatva-Nirdesa".
A further name for this irreducible, time-and-space-transcending mysterious Truth or Essence of Buddhic Reality is the Dharmakaya (Body of Truth). Of this the Zen master (Zen Buddhism is a Mahayana school), Sokei-An, says:Zen Pivots, Weatherhill, NY, 1998, pp. 142, 146:
The same Zen adept, Sokei-An, further comments:The Zen Eye, Weatherhill, New York, 1994, p. 41
The Rinzai Zen Buddhist master, Soyen Shaku, speaking to Americans at the beginning of the 20th century, discusses how in essence the idea of God is not absent from Buddhism, when understood as ultimate, true Reality:Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot, by Soyen Shaku, Samuel Weiser Inc, New York, 1971, pp.25-26, 32
===Primordial Buddhas===
The idea of an eternal, all-pervading, all-knowing, immaculate, uncreated and deathless Ground of Being (the dharmadhatu, inherently linked to the sattvadhatu, the realm of beings), which is the Awakened Mind (bodhicitta) or Dharmakaya ("body of Truth") of the Buddha himself, is promulgated in a number of Mahayana sutras and in various tantras as well. Occasionally, this principle is presented as manifesting in a more personalised form as a primordial buddha, such as Samantabhadra, Vajradhara, Vairochana, and Adi-Buddha, among others.
In the Mahavairocana Sutra, the essence of Vairocana is said to be symbolised by the letter "A", which is claimed to reside in the hearts of all beings and of which Buddha Vairocana declares that "[the mystic letter ‘A’] is placed in the heart location:The Maha-Vairocana-Abhisambodhi Tantra, p. 331
The text refers to Vairocana Buddha as the "Bhagavat" ("Blessed One," a term traditionally linked in Indian discourse with "the Divine"), "Master of the Dharma, the Sage who is completely perfect, who is all-pervasive, who encompasses all world systems, who is All-Knowing, the Lord Vairocana".Ibid., p. 355
The Tantric text, The Sarva-Tathagata-Tattva-Samgraha, characterizes Vairocana as follows:
Similar God-like descriptions are encountered in the All-Creating King Tantra (Kunjed Gyalpo Tantra), where the universal Mind of Awakening (in its mode as "Samantabhadra Buddha") declares of itself:The Supreme Source, p. 157
Another important primordial Buddha is Ādibuddha (Adi-Buddha), who figures prominently in the Kalachakra tantra. Ādibuddha is believed to be a primordial, self-existent, self-created Buddha who is the personification of Shunyata or emptiness [freedom from confining substance or conceptual graspability) enshrining the infinitely Knowing Mind of Great Compassion; all phenomena lack true separate existence yet still appear, and their basis is the undifferentiated and inconceivable Mind of Buddha (empty of all defects and ignorance).
However, all these seemingly godlike figures (Samantabhadra, Vairochana, Vajradhara, etc.) are traditionally understood to be personifications of emptiness and compassion – the ungraspable, limitless, invisible, inconceivable, unimpeded benevolent Reality of Buddha-Mind and the true nature of all phenomena. Some Buddhists see the above quote from Samantabhadra Buddha as radically subjective psychology, while still others will insist that the words mean what they say and do communicate the sense of an actual sustaining force or spiritual essence behind and within all phenomena.
===God as manifestation of mind===
One of the Mahayana Sutras, the Lankavatara Sutra, states that the notions of a sovereign God, Atman are figments of the imagination or manifestations of the mind and can also be an impediment to perfection as this leads to attachment to the concept of God:
Instead of a personal creator God, the sutra speaks of creative Mind, and of Suchness (tathata - universal Truth-as-it-is), which is defined as: "... this Suchness may be characterised as Truth, Reality, exact knowledge, limit, source, self-substance, the Unattainable".Suzuki, Lankavatara Sutra, p. 198
Moreover, the same sutra also sees the Buddha reveal that he is the unrecognised One who is actually being addressed when beings project from their unawakened minds notions of Divinity and address themselves to "God". The many names for such ultimate Being or Truth are in fact said by the Buddha to be unwitting appellations of the Buddha himself. He states:
In the "Sagathakam" section of the sutra (which contains some striking statements contradictory of earlier chapters of the sutra), one also reads of the reality of the pure Self (atman), which (while not identical to the atman of the Hindus) is equated with the Tathagatagarbha (Buddha-Essence):
This Tathagatagarbha is in the Lankavatara Sutra identified with the root or all-containing Consciousness of all beings, the Alaya-vijnana. This Tathagatagarbha-Alayavijnana is stated not to belong to the realm of speculation, but can be understood directly by
Such an all-containing Buddhic Matrix (Tathagatagarbha) or basis of universal consciousness (Alayavijnana) has resonances with a conception of divinity which posits the latter as the underlying reality behind and within all things. This "Self" is in some Mahayana Buddhist scriptures and tantras equated with the original, primal, all-sustaining cosmic Buddha himself (viewed either as Samantabhadra or Mahavairochana).
==Devas==
Though not believing in a creator God, Buddhists inherited the Indian cosmology of the time which includes various types of 'god' realms such as the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, the Four Great Kings, and so on. Deva-realms are part of the various possible types of existence in the Buddhist cosmology. Rebirth as a deva is attributed to virtuous actions performed in previous lives. Beings that had meditated are thought to be reborn in more and more subtle realms with increasingly vast life spans, in accord with their meditative ability. In particular, the highest deva realms are pointed out as false paths in meditation that the meditator should be aware of. Like any existence within the cycle of rebirth (samsara), a life as a deva is only temporary. At the time of death, a large part of the former deva's good karma has been expended, leaving mostly negative karma and a likely rebirth in one of the three lower realms. Therefore, Buddhists make a special effort not to be reborn in deva realms.
==Schopenhauer==
Schopenhauer claimed that Buddhism is atheistic. In the "Sinology" chapter of his On the Will in Nature, he cited the reasons for this claim.On the Will in Nature, "Sinology."
When they [Europeans] found themselves in a country where temples, priests and monasteries
abounded, they started from the firm assumption that
Theism would also be found there, though in some very unusual
form. On seeing these expectations disappointed
however, and on finding that the very conceptions of
such things, let alone the words to express them, were
unknown, it was but natural, considering the spirit in
which their inquiries were made, that their first reports of
these religions should refer rather to what they did not,
than to what they did, contain. ... Monotheism, an exclusively Jewish doctrine,
to be sure is
alien to Buddhists and in general to
the Chinese. For instance, in the Lettres édifiantes
we find: "The Buddhists, whose views on the migration of
souls are universally adopted, are accused of Atheism."
In the Asiatic Researches (vol. vi. p. 255) we find:
"The religion of the Burmese (Buddhism) shows them to
be a nation far advanced beyond the barbarism of a
wild state and greatly influenced by religious opinions,
but which nevertheless has no knowledge of a Supreme
Being, Creator and Preserver of the world. Yet the system
of morality recommended in their fables is perhaps
as good as any other taught by the religious doctrines
which prevail among mankind." And again, p. 258: "The
followers of Gotama (i.e. of Buddha) are, strictly speaking,
Atheists." Ibid., p. 258: "Gotama's sect consider the
belief in a divine Being, Creator of the world, to be highly
irreligious (impious)." Ibid., p. 268, Buchanan relates, that Atuli, the
Zarado or High-Priest of the Buddhists at Ava, in an
article upon his religion which he presented to a Catholic
bishop, "counted the doctrine, that there is a Being who
has created the world and all things in it and is alone
worthy of adoration, among the six damnable heresies."
[Father Vincent] Sangermano relates precisely the same thing, and closes
the list of the six grave heresies with the words: "The last
of these impostors taught, that there is a Supreme Being,
the Creator of the world and of all things in it, and that he
alone is worthy of adoration."
Colebrooke too says:
"The sects of Jaina and Buddha are really atheistic, for
they acknowledge no Creator of the world, nor any
Supreme ruling Providence." I. J. Schmidt likewise says: "The system of Buddhism knows no eternal, uncreated,
single, divine Being, having existed before all
Time, who has created all that is visible and invisible.
This idea is quite foreign to Buddhism and there is not the
slightest trace of it anywhere in Buddhistic books." We
find the learned sinologist
Morrison too not less desirous
to discover traces of a God in the Chinese dogmas and
ready to put the most favourable construction upon every
thing which seems to point in that direction; yet he is
finally obliged to own that nothing of the kind can be
clearly discovered. Where he explains the words Thung and
Tsing, i.e. repose and movement, as that on which Chinese
cosmogony is based, he renews this inquiry and concludes
it with the words: " It is perhaps impossible to acquit
this system of the accusation of Atheism." And even
recently Upham says: "Buddhism presents to us a world
without a moral ruler, guide or creator." The German
sinologist Neumann too, says in
his treatise ...: "In China, where neither Mahometans nor
Christians found a Chinese word to express the theological
conception of the Deity. The words God, soul,
spirit, as independent of Matter and ruling it arbitrarily,
are utterly unknown in the Chinese language. ... This
range of ideas has become so completely one with the language
itself, that the first verse of the book of Genesis
cannot without considerable circumlocution be translated
into genuine Chinese." It was this very thing that led
Sir George Staunton
to publish a book in 1848 entitled: "An
Inquiry into the proper mode of rendering the word God
in translating the Sacred Scriptures into the Chinese language.
==See also==
* Buddha as an Avatara of Vishnu
* Faith in Buddhism
* Mindstream
* Nontheism in Buddhism
* Trikaya
==References==
==Literature==
* 
* 
* 
* 
* Sokei-an, 1998, Zen Pivots, Weatherhill, New York, Tokyo.
* Amit Goswami, The Self-Aware Universe, Tarcher, 1995 reprint, softcover, ISBN 0-87477-798-4
==External links==
* Tathagatagarbha sutras: Several major Tathagatagarbha sutras, expressive of an ultimate, immortal spiritual Essence within all beings/phenomena
* Buddha Teachings
* A Study of Buddhism in Contrast to Christianity
* Gandhi and Lord Buddha
* The Nirvana Sutra and its teachings on the Supreme and Eternal Self of Buddha
Category:Buddhist philosophical concepts
Category:Conceptions of God