The Buddha Story

The Buddha story attracted me even in early boyhood, and I
was drawn to the young Siddhartha who, after many inner
struggles and pain and torment, was to develop into the Buddha.
Edwin Arnold's 'Light of Asia' became one of my favourite
books. In later years, when I travelled about a great deal in my
province, I liked to visit the many places connected with the
Buddha legend, sometimes making a detour for the purpose.
Most of these places lie in my province or not far from it. Here
(on the Nepal frontier) Buddha was born, here he wandered,
here (at Gaya in Bihar) he sat under the Bodhi tree and gained
enlightenment, here he preached his first sermon, here he died.
When I visited countries where Buddhism is still a living and
dominant faith, I went to see the temples and the monasteries
and met monks and laymen, and tried to make out what
Buddhism had done to the people. How had it influenced them,
what impress had it left on their minds and faces, how did they
react to modern life? There was much I did not like. The
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rational ethical doctrine had become overlaid with so much verbiage, so much ceremonial, canon law, so much, in spite of the Buddha, metaphysical doctrine and even magic. Despite Bud-dha's warning, they had deified him, and his huge images, in the temples and elsewhere, looked down upon me and I wonder-ed what he would have thought. Many of the monks were igno-rant persons, rather conceited and demanding obeisance, if not to themselves then to their vestments. In each country the national characteristics had imposed themselves on the religion and shap-ed it according to their distinctive customs and modes of life. Ml this was natural enough and perhaps an inevitable develop-ment. But I saw much also that I liked. There was an atmosphere of peaceful study and contemplation in some of the monasteries and the schools attached to them. There was a look of peace and calm on the faces of many of the monks, a dignity, a gentle-ness, an air of detachment and freedom from the cares of the world. Did all this accord with life to-day, or was it a mere escape from it? Could it not be fitted into life's ceaseless struggle and tone down the vulgarity and acquisitiveness and violence that afflict us? The pessimism of Buddhism did not fit in with my approach to life, nor did the tendency to walk away from life and its pro-blems. I was, somewhere at the back of my mind, a pagan with a pagan's liking for the exuberance of life and nature, and not very much averse to the conflicts that life provides. All that I had experienced, all that I saw around me, painful and distressing as it was, had not dulled that instinct. Was Buddhism passive and pessimistic? Its interpreters may say so; many of its own devotees may have drawn that meaning. I am not competent to judge of its subtleties and its subsequent complex and metaphysical development. But when I think of the Buddha no such feeling arises in me, nor can I imagine that a religion based mainly on passivity and pessimism could have had such a powerful hold on vast numbers of human beings, among them the most gifted of their kind. The conception of the Buddha, to which innumerable loving hands have given shape in carven stone and marble and bronze, seems to symbolize the whole spirit of Indian thought, or at least one vital aspect of it. Seated on the lotus flower, calm and impassive, above passion and desire, beyond the storm and strife of this world, so far away he seems, out of reach, unattainable. Yet again we look and behind those still, unmoving features there is a passion and an emotion, strange and more powerful than the passions and emotions we have known. His eyes are closed, but some power of the spirit looks out of them and a
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vital energy fills the frame. The ages roll by and Buddha seems
not so far away after all; his voice whispers in our ears and tells
us not to run away from the struggle but, calm-eyed, to face it,
and to see in life ever greater opportunities for growth and
advancement.
Personality counts to-day as ever, and a person who has impressed
himself on the thought of mankind as Buddha has, so
that even to-day there is something living and vibrant about
the thought of him, must have been a wonderful man—a man
who was, as Barth says, the 'finished model of calm and sweet
majesty, of infinite tenderness for all that breathes and compassion
for all that suffers, of perfect moral freedom and exemption
from every prejudice.' And the nation and the race which
can produce such a magnificent type must have deep reserves of
wisdom and inner strength.