Index Page
New gods—All of them S’iva—A Mask of Buddhism
on some of them—Dhyâni or Heavenly Buddhas—Dhyâni Bodhisatwas—Conversion
of the Relic Cairn of Early Buddhism into S’iva's Lingam Disguised
as a Chaitya—Chaitya Worship at Mathura—S’iva Buddhism a Worship
of S’iva with "Left-handed" Tântrika Rites—It is to be
found in all Buddhist Kingdoms—Rapid survey.
The Mahâyâna movement introduced many new gods.
As a test question let us inquire who, according to the Mahâyâna
made the world?
The first answer is—"Îshwara or Âdi Buddha,"—the
"Cause of all existence." "From his Dhyâna the
universe was produced by him!" *
I copy this from Mr. Hodgson's extracts of the old Sanskrit
literature rescued in Nepal when Buddhism was driven from India.
Another name is mentioned by him—"Tathâgata." He also
made the world, for he is the same being as Adi Buddha. *
But the matter does not stop here:—
Îshwara being the Absolute, and being imaged as residing in
Nirvritti, the awful and untravelled haunts of divine repose, deputed
five Dhyâni or heavenly Buddhas to make the World.
Their names are:—
(1) Vairochana.
(2) Akshobhya.
(3) Ratna Sambhava.
(4) Amitâbha.
(5) Amoghasiddha.
But these seem to have passed on the work to five "Heavenly
Bodhisatwas." *
(1) Samantabhadra.
(2) Vajra Pâni.
(3) Ratna Pâni.
(4) Padma Pâni.
(5) Viswa Pâni.
Still, the number of divine beings credited with making the earth
is by no means exhausted:—
"I salute that Dharma (Durgâ) who is Prajnâ Pâramitâ (the
Wisdom of the Other Bank), pointing out the way of perfect tranquility
to all mortals, and leading them in the paths of perfect Wisdom; who
by the testimony of all the sages produced and created all
things." †
But even that does not exhaust the whole list.
"For the sake of obtaining Nirvritti I devote myself to the
feet of 'Sańgha,' who having assumed the three gunas created the
three worlds." ‡
But again the list is still unexhausted, for it appears that Sangha
in the work of creation is mixed up with Amitâbha.
But the creation of the world even after all this elucidation is
still a puzzle, for we learn that Sangha is another name for Padmapâni,
one of the "Bodhisatwas," and that Padmapâni is "Avalokitishwara,"
and "Maitreya," the coming Buddha. §
S’iva has got a thousand names, and if we concede that the Mahâyâna
was his Pantheism we might pass over this absurd and contradictory
catalogue of mythological phantoms without much comment. But literal
minds, when they discourse about Buddhism, treat all these phantoms as
real beings, and make the contradictions doubly contradictory.
Resolved into their ultimate these gods are two—Sîva, and Maitreya
Buddha or Sîva wearing the mask of Sâkya Muni.
What was S’ivism viewed from the outside? "His
worshippers," says Professor Hayman Wilson, "contented
themselves with flinging 'water, oil and faded flowers’ on his
emblem the Lingam."
What was early Buddhism viewed from the outside? Offerings to the
relics of Sâkya Muni, placed under a Tope or Stűpa? (heap).
Now S’iva Buddhism to harmonise these two ideas converted the
relic-mound or Chaitya from the curve taken by a heap of stones thrown
at random one upon the other to a dome like the lingam.
A rough sketch (Pl. 6) shows how this was
done. Above (Fig. 1) is an early cairn, like the Sanchi Tope. Then
(Fig. 2) I give the early Lingam, which was a large block of bed-rock,
left when excavating a cave-temple. Fig. 3 is a miniature dome-chaitya,
the old relic-mound made into S’iva's emblem. In Fig. 4 we get the
"Jew's harp," as it is called, the Lingam to be seen in
every bazaar.
When Mr. Brian Hodgson went as British Minister to Nepal he was
astonished to find an abundance of these lingams. The Chaitya, or
relic-mound, had been "metamorphosed into a lingam"; and, as
he tells us "its worship may now be seen in numerous instances in
Nepal, e.g., at Kâlî's temple, on the roadside near Tundi Khel." *
He applied to his teacher, Amirta Nanda Bandhya, who assured him that
the borrowing had been on the other way, the Hindus had taken the
Buddhist Chaitya and broken off the Chűla mani, or spire, from each,
and called it a S’iva lingam, but that is a gloss that we cannot
accept.
To build a sepulchral cairn to a dead saint or Buddha, and to
honour his relics with offerings and rotatory peregrinations is a
conceivable act, especially if, as with the Abbé Paris, strange cures
can be effected at his tomb. But to build a sepulchral Tope to a saint
who is not yet dead, nor even yet born, is a wild idea. Its object was
to banish Sâkya Muni to a Nirvâna of Nothingness, and to change the
worship of him and his relic-mounds to a worship of relic-domes
despoiled of relics but tenanted by Maitreya, and other Bodhisatwas
(monks of high spiritual progress that will one day be Buddhas).
The invaluable Chinese traveller, Hiouen Thsiang, describes in his
"history" *
the relic-mound worship at Mathurâ when he visited the city. The
early Buddhists, the disciples of the Little Vehicle, paid homage to
the relics of Śâriputra, Maudgalyâyana, Ânanda, and other
great Buddhist saints, who had each one a handsome stűpa in that
city, but the disciples of the Great Vehicle "worshipped the
Bodhisattwas" in their topes. Fa Hian bears a similar testimony. †
That traveller was nearly lost at sea, but he prayed to "Bodhisatwa
Avalokitiswara," and the storm abated. Hiouen Thsiang, on the
other hand, was caught by pirates on the Ganges, who proposed to
sacrifice him to Durgâ. He prayed to Maitreya Bodhisatwa, the coming
Buddha, and likewise escaped.
Now, the forcible intrusion of S’iva and his lingam—and also
his left-handed or Tântrika rites is what I call S’iva-Buddhism.
Let us make a hasty examination of the chief Buddhist kingdoms, one by
one, to see if the change was at all general.
TIBET.
The Tibetans have Tantric rites and human sacrifices, and many
writers maintain that these are only outside relics of the earlier, or
Bon, religion; but that is against all evidence. The Dalai Lâma
claims to be the head of the Buddhist movement. Avalokitishwara (S’iva
in person) is said to have brought Buddhism to Tibet. *
He is incarnate always in the Dalai Lâma. He is represented like
S’iva, with four arms. His wife Avalokitî, as the "White Târâ,"
is compared by Surgeon-Major Waddell to the Madonna, as regards her
benign influence in the community; but she transcends all that has
been hitherto imagined of cruel malignity and devilry as "Lha-mo,"
the "great Maharani." "She is credited with letting
loose the demons of disease, and her name is scarcely ever mentioned,
and only then with bated breath." †
Tibet is also furnished with an army of fiends, the demons of the
terrible Kâla-Chakra, as soberly organised as the army of gods and
Buddhas. Indeed, they may be described as that army daubed over with
Indian ink. Every god of the Brahmans has his counterpart presentment
in hell.
These are clothed for the most part in the richest China silks and
crapes, and wear pantomime
masks, and upon their stomachs human skulls, skulls richly
embroidered. And the celestial Buddhas figure as "demoniacal
Buddhas," Kâla-Chakra, Heruka, Achala, Vajra-vairabha, etc. The
"celestial Bodhisatwas" are also "ferocious and
bloodthirsty, and only to be conciliated by constant worship of
themselves and their female energies, with offerings and sacrifices,
magic circles, special mantras, charms." *
The "energies" of these demoniacal Bodhisatwas are the
"Dakkini fiendesses." All the Buddhist Lâmas crowd to the
festival of the "She-devil Devî," who is worshipped for
seven days like Devî, in India, to gain security from disease for the
coming year. †
Of the vast literature of orthodox Buddhist sorcery I will speak in
the next section.
NEPAL.
I have already dealt with S’iva worship in Nepal in treating of
the Chaitya. Mr. Hodgson found this worship of the Chaitya, or lingam
as he supposed it, everywhere. He also was astonished to find the
statue of S’iva in every temple, "even in the penetralia."
 The Buddhist Dharma, the Sophia of the Gnostics, has for one name
"S’iva Sakti," the wife or female energy of S’iva. One
of the holy books is called Trikand Sesh (the three-throated
Serpent—Sesh, S’iva's emblem). The initiation, or baptism, is
given by Mr. Hodgson:—
Several names of S’iva are used in this ritual, Avalokitisvara,
Visva Karma, Vajra Pâni, and the postulant vows to devote himself to
the worship of the Chaitya. "When the purely Buddhist ritual is
exhausted," says Mr. Hodgson, "the Tantric esoteric comes
on,—which consists of the worship of the Balis. Flesh, blood and
spirits are put into a conch shell. The celebrant wears a mask of
Bhairava, and holds his terrible pasá or noose. Nâgas, Yakshas, Râkhsasas,
devatas, have all their Balis. Many names are given including the Bali
of Mahâ Kâla himself—(S’iva as "great Time").
If the foulest Tantrik rites form the chief part of the initiation
of a Buddhist postulant, it seems quite plain
that they cannot be called mere barnacles on the outside of the ship.
When the Buddhist hierarchy was driven
northward from their monastery at Nalanda near Buddha Gaya, Nepal
received for safety a large portion of the esoteric Sanskrit
literature. A great number of these rituals are called Tântras, or
treatises setting forth the worship of the "left-handed"
gods. No less than seventy-four of these Tântras are catalogued by
Brian Hodgson, including the terrible Kâla Chakra. Great secrecy is
maintained concerning these books.
CHINA.
The Rev. Samuel Beal has told us that the divine being "Quan
Yin," was there sometimes worshipped as a female and sometimes
worshipped as a male. He has told us, too, that Quan Yin in Chinese is
the same as the Sanskrit word Avalokitisvara, or "S’iva looking
down." Quan Yin dominates the rituals.
And China, too, has the Kâla Chakra and all the Tântras or
esoteric works; and practises all the sorceries. These superstitions
are put down to local "Dragon worship" and
"Taoism"; but a great religion like Buddhism of old, which
has an imposing ecclesiastical centre, and many branch churches which have
each in its most secret penetralia some seventy-four cherished spell
books and grimoires, expounding secret esoteric rites to, let us say,
seventy-four different yakshas—such a church cannot be called a mere
prey to paltry local superstitions.
CEYLON.
A god with a white elephant at his feet is a popular print in
Ceylon. There are several in Mr. Upham's book. He tells us that this
god is Samana Deva Râjah, so called from  Samane Galle (Adam's Peak),
"where he is now living with his deities with power over
Ceylon." The white elephant is Buddha in a Nirvâṇa of
uselessness. I give a rough sketch of one of these from my sketch
book. A strange, spoon-shaped aureole or cadre surmounts all the
principal gods and demons in Ceylon prints, and each stands on a
stone,—aureole, god and stone making up the outline of a columnar
Lingam. Buddha is reported to have handed over this stone, the Minne
Phalange, or Stone of Supremacy, at the date of his death to Samane
Deva Râjah.
Sagittarius in the Indian Zodiac is called the Bow of S’iva.
Ceylon took a very prominent part in the present strange revival of
interest in the West of the Buddhist movement. Great credit is due to
the missionaries, who studied the language for their own purposes. And
in the records of the island they found it asserted that the Buddhism
of Ceylon was the earliest and genuine Buddhism. But since the travels
of the Chinese pilgrim Hiouen Tsiang have been disinterred, that idea
is no longer tenable. *
The great revolution called the Mahâyâna (Great Vehicle) included
Ceylon in its vortex. Indeed, one prominent Oriental scholar, Horace
Hayman Wilson, thought that the fusion of strict Buddhism with the
Indian religions came from Ceylon. †
Samana Deva Râjah, as his name implies, is Deva or S’iva, and
the Kappooism, or devil-dancing in Ceylon, is pretty well known. The
amount of devils to be conciliated is large, if according to Mr.
Moncure Conway, eighty-four thousand charms are required for the
purpose. It is urged that this sorcery is a reminiscence of the Naga
worship that prevailed in the island before it was converted to
Buddhism. Again we have the defence set up that these devils are mere
barnacles on the outside of the ship.
Much has been made of the fact that the names of some of the Mahâyâna
gods mentioned at the beginning of this chapter are not known in
Ceylon. From this it is argued that Ceylon knows nothing of the Mahâyâna
movement, but the names Tathâgatha, Sańgha as a god, Purusá,
Maitreya, are in all the rituals and holy hooks, and these are Mahâyâna
gods. The test name is "Maitreya," who according to
Professor Rhys Davids under the name of Nâth has his statue in almost
all the Wiharas. * In
the Mahâwanso it is announced that the Cingalese King Dhatuseno,
built a fine temple to Bodhisatto Mettęyyo and "invested his
image with every regal ornament." †
Guards to the distance of one yogana specially protected this temple.
Was this Mettęyyo an ordinary Bodhisattwa, i.e., a yokel ignorant as
yet of all spiritual illumination? If so, how did Dhatuseno know that
he was to be the next Buddha, and that his name was "Nâth."
If, on the other hand, this Maitreya was the clumsy subterfuge by the
aid of which the Mahâyâna sought to depose the worship of Śâkya
Muni, it is plain that King Dhatuseno was not altogether ignorant of
Mahâyâna teachings.
BURMAH.
If a Burmese is knocked down suddenly in the street, he cries out,
"Phra Kaiba" ("God help me"), but he does not
believe in any God at all. This is what we learn from Bishop Bigandet, ‡
who goes on to say that the "God" thus involuntarily invoked
cannot be Buddha, for folks there openly maintain that Buddha never
interferes in human affairs. For Tantrik rites, the Burmese are well
furnished with spirits called "Nats." Major Waddell believes
that this word is the Sanskrit "Nâth" (Lord), also applied
to the Spirits of the left-handed Tântrika. Major Phaire combats
this, and says it is an old local word for local demons. The Burmese
priests advise the laity to have recourse to the devil dancers when
they get ill. A wigwam is built up for the offerings, then the dancer
commences to dance softly, working up bit by bit to corybantic frenzy.
When she (for a woman is preferred) falls down exhausted and half
dead, she is consulted by the sorcerer about the malady, and the Nat
that is causing it.
This theory of a Buddha still intelligent, but no longer interested
in the cares of humanity, is plainly a version of the teaching of the
Seśvara Sankhya, which says the same thing of S’iva.
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