BUDDHA or Buddiiu, one of the two appearances of Vishnu, assumed for the purpose of deluding the enemies of the gods, and effecting their destruction by leading them to profess heretical opinions, and thus to reject the Hindu religion. In the Bhagawat, a work held in high esteem by the great majority of the Hindus, it is expressly declared, “that, at the commencement of the Kali Yug, Vishnu became incarnate in Kikata, under the name of Buddha, the son of Jina, for the purpose of deluding the enemies of the gods ;” that “the Undiscernible Being, having assumed a mortal form, preached heretical doctrines in the three cities founded by Maya, for the purpose of destroying, by deluding, the enemies of the gods, stedfast in the religion prescribed by the Vedas ;” that praise is due to “the pure Buddha, the deluder of the Daityas and Dana was ;” and that, “by his words, as Buddha, Vishnu deludes the heretics.” The same legend is related in a more detailed manner in the Kashi Khand of the Skanda Purana, and also in the Ganesha Upa-Purana, in which the appearance of Buddha is described as a manifestation rather than an incarnation of Vishnu; and an account is given of the circumstances under which it is alleged to have been made. According to the Puranas, Divodasa, a king of the solar race, finding Kashi unoccupied, took possession of the place, and there established the religion of Vishnu on so firm a foundation, and rendered his people so virtuous and happy, that the gods having become alarmed lest they should lose their supremacy, which they maintained by the use of very different means, applied to Vishnu and Shiva to relieve them from their anxieties on this head. The two incarnations of the Supreme Being, however, declared at first that it would be unjust to deprive so virtuous a prince of his kingdom; but Divodasa, having obtained as a boon from Brahma that none of the deities should remain in his kingdom, or exercise any power over it, Shiva at length waxed wroth at being so long banished from his favourite residence, and consented to fulfil the malignant wishes of the deities. But how was this to be accomplished? As long as Divodasa and his subjects remained stedfast in their religion, they were secure from injury; it therefore became necessary to lead them into error as a pretext for destroying them; and with this view Devi, the twelve suns, and Ganesha, were employed, but without success. At last, when these minor tempters had failed, Vishnu appeared, as Buddha, and effected their apostacy.

From the tenor of this legend may be divined, a priori, the doctrines which it was necessary for Buddha to propagate, in order to induce Divodasa and his subjects to apostatize from the religion of the Vedas. These in fact were,—that no credit whatever is due to the Vedas or Shastras; that it is vain to worship the images of gods; that sacrifices are cruel and sinful; that there is no such thing as transmigration of souls; that at death the five elements in the body dissolve never to reunite; that pleasure is the grand object of life, and that all acts of abstinence, piety, and charity, are unprofitable; that the body is man’s real god, and should alone be worshipped; that pleasant food, fine clothes, and handsome women, form the grand felicity of man; that this world is without beginning, and consequently owes its existence neither to creator nor cause; and that Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Budra, and all the other gods, are mere creatures of fancy an fear, and never had a being, except in the imaginations of their worshippers. In short, the ancient Brahmimca Buddha, whether a manifestation of Vishnu according to [7:5:637]the Shaivas, or an incarnation according to the Vaishnavas, was the propagator of a system of universal scepticism, embracing not only a disbelief of all religion, but also a disregard for all virtue, and indeed for every thing except mere sensual gratification. He was a false teacher and impostor, who came to deceive and to mislead, in order to destroy; not a kind and merciful being, adorned with the attributes of wisdom and benevolence, and worthy to receive all praise and worship, as some have erroneously supposed. Moreover, his appearance was for a temporary and local purpose, namely, to render Divodasa the voluntary cause of his own downfal, and thus to gratify the malice of the deities who had conceived an aversion to that virtuous potentate. But the sceptical doctrines which he disseminated in the course of his delusive manifestation became afterwards blended and intermixed with a variety of others of a totally different description; so that, although Buddhism has ever continued more or less distinct from the faith of which originally it formed the negation, it is exceedingly difficult to trace its progress, and by no means easy to ascertain its precise character at any given period, of time. The rejection of the λ 7 edas, and of the religion founded upon them, seems, however, to be common to all forms of Buddhism; and although the Brahmins nevertheless recognise Buddha as an object of worship or reverence, it is only as a manifestation of Vishnu, one of the emanations of Brahm, or the Supreme Being, and not as a false teacher and an impostor, whose object was to deceive and delude, that he is acknowledged by the sacred caste of the Hindus. By not perceiving or not attending to this distinction, all the writers on the subject whose works we have consulted have entangled themselves in the mazes of inextricable perplexity and contradiction, and thickened the darkness which they laboured to dispel. M. Guigniaut, indeed, has attempted to cut the knot which he could not unloose. “Bouddha ne jouit d’aucun culte dans l’Inde,” says he; “ses temples, ses idoles y sont renversés ou abandonnés; one ténébreuse horreur, one ignorance feinte ou réelle, one haine non moins violente qu’irréfléchie, regnent chez les Brahmanes, sur tout ce qui concerne sa doctrine.” But in another part of his work (Religions de l , Antiquité, vol. i. p. 294), the same author admits that Buddha has not ceased to be revered by the Hindu nation; an admission wholly irreconcilable with the statement contained in the passage just quoted. This confusion of ideas, however, proceeds from incorrect notions as to the character of Buddha; for as long as he is considered merely as a manifestation of Vishnu, he is held to be an object of reverence, not as Buddha, but as the divinity who chose to appear in that form. The Hindus have never acknowledged him in any other character; and consequently all that has been written concerning him with reference to the religion of India, is wholly irrelevant, and foreign· to the subject.

According to the fable, Buddha, when he had effected the apostacy of Divodasa, was prevailed upon by the Brahmins and holy men to terminate the propagation of heretical doctrines, upon which he disappeared in a deep well at Gaya, leaving neither writings nor disciples behind him; and it is further believed, upon the credit of tradition, that no Buddhists were known in India, until their sect was established by Gautama or Godama, with whom Buddha is frequently confounded. Now, in this mythic account, which is supported by a legend in the Shiva Purana, we have the true genius of Buddhism displayed. Its character throughout is essentially negative. When reduced to its elements or first principles, it consists merely of the rejection of the Vedas and of the religion founded upon them. It is not the Hindu faith; but under this denomination of Buddhism there may be, and in point of fact there has been included the most various, not to say incongruous, tenets and superstitions which it is possible to imagine; and although its negative character is everywhere the same, its positive character differs in different countries. Hence the Buddhism of China, allied to the institutions, laws, and maxims of Fo and Confucius, is in many respects as different from the Buddhism of the Burman empire as the latter is from the system of religion founded on the Vedas and the Shastras. But, nevertheless, it has some positive general characteristics. The principles of this sect, as established by Gautama, its founder, about five hundred years before Christ, are unknown; but those now ascribed to him, and professed as his alleged revelations, may be very briefly stated. The doctrine and law of Gautama consist chiefly in observing five commandments, and abstaining from ten sins. The five commandments contain prohibitions against killing any animal whatsoever, from the meanest insect up to man; against the commission of theft; against the violation of another man’s wife or concubine; against falsehood; and against the use of wine, or any intoxicating liquor or drug, as opium: and an exemption from poverty, misfortune, and calamity is promised to those who keep these commandments during all successive transmigrations. The ten sins consist in the killing of animals, theft, adultery, falsehood, discord, contumelious language, idle and superfluous talk, covetousness, envy or malice, and the following of false gods: and he who abstains from all these sins is said to obtain Sila, while every one who observes Sila, in all successive transmigrations, becomes at last worthy of beholding a god, and of hearing his great voice, and is exempted from the four known miseries, namely, weight, old age, disease, and death. There are also certain positive good works which ought to be practised, such as Dana, which consists in giving alms, and Bavana, which consists in repeating solemnly the three words Aneizza, Docha, and Anatta; the first indicating liability to vicissitude, the second exposure to misfortune, and the third the impossibility of obtaining exemption from these evils. From this statement it appears that the two scales of commandments and prohibitions are singularly ill adjusted to each other; inasmuch as the duties enjoined are only half the number of the sins forbidden, and as the negative and the positive in morals are blended in both.

The worshippers of Buddha contend with the disciples of Brahma for the honour of a high antiquity; and this pretension has been countenanced by some European writers of high reputation. Sir William Jones, for instance, fixes the first appearance of Buddhism about a thousand years before Christ; but his argument rests upon very weak grounds, and, if the Puranas are admitted to be of any authority, it is wholly untenable; for whatever antiquity may be ascribed to Buddha, considered as a manifestation of Vishnu for the purpose of local and temporary delusion, there arc clearly no grounds, mythological, traditional, or historical, for placing the origin of this sect higher than the period of Gautama, or about five hundred years before Christ, as already mentioned. What we know with certainty is, that Buddhism, so called doubtless from its peculiar character, once predominated throughout a great part of India; that the doctrines and system of belief adopted by its votaries were in direct opposition to the religion founded on the Vedas; that a deadly hatred arose between the followers of Brahma and the Buddhists, which ended in the expulsion of the latter; that, nevertheless, the Brahmins continued to reverence Buddha as the manifestation of Vishnu, however much they might have detested the sect which called itself by his name; that Buddhism appears to have diffused itself over all the countries from Bengal to China inclusive; that in its character [7:5:638] and genius it is extremely flexible and accommodating; and that, in the different countries which it overspread, it appears to have become amalgamated with indigenous local superstitions of almost every description. (See Kennedy’s Researches into the Nature and Affinity of Ancient and Hindu Mythology, p. 248, et seqq. ; Transactions of the Bombay Literary Society, part iii. p. 532; Guigniaut, Religions de ι Antiquité, tom. i. p. 300; Heeren, Ideen über die Politik, &c. vol. viii. p. 127, 4th edit.; Asiatic Researches, vol. viii. p. 474.) . . (a.)