Buddha

Sakyamuni, literally, 'the mighty in charity, seclusion and silence'.

The last of the Sapta Buddha, one of Sapta Tathagata, the 4^th of the 1,000 Buddhas of the Bhadra Kalpa. The name by which Chinese books refer to Gautama Buddha (Shi jia mu ni fo). The Lalitavistara and the popular aphorisms of Wang Pu tell the story of his life, which is an indispensable key to the understanding of Buddhist doctrines. Some 5,000 Djatakas are on record, in the course of which he worked his way up through as many different stages of transmigration, from the lowest spheres of life to the highest, practicing all kinds of asceticism and exhibiting in every form the utmost unselfishness and charity. Having attained to the state of Bodhisattva as Prabhapala, he was reborn in Tuchita and there considered where he ought to be reborn on earth to become Buddha.

The Sakya family of Kapilavastu was selected and in it Maya, the young wife of Suddhodhana, as the purest on earth. In the form of a white elephant he descended and entered through Maya's right side into her womb ( 8^th day of the 4^th moon B.C.E. 1028 or 622 ), where he was visited thrice a day by all the Buddhas of the universe, on the 8^th day of the second (or 4^th ) moon B.C.E. 1024 or 621, Maya, standing in Lumbini under an As'oka (or Sala) tree, painless gave birth to a son who stepped out of her right side, being received by Indra (the representative of popular religion) and forthwith baptized by Naga Kings. Thereupon the newborn baby walked 7 steps towards each of the 4 points of the compass and, pointing with one hand to heaven and with the other to earth, said, with a lion's voice “I have received the body of my final birth; of all beings in heaven above and beneath the heavens, there is none but myself to be honored.”

At the moment of his birth an Udambara flower sprouted up, and a series of 42 miraculous events (earthquakes, flashes of five coloured light, lotus flowers etc.) announced to the universe the birth of Buddha. His skin exhibited 32 fanciful tracings; on the soles of his feet there were 65 mystic figures, and his body possessed 80 forms of beauty, which were interpreted by Asita as the characteristic marks of Buddhaship. He was named Sarvarthasiddha. Maya having died 7 days after his birth, Maha pradjapati nursed him. When 3 years old, he was presented in a Shiva temple, when all the statues of Shivaitic deities did obeisance to the infant Buddha, who was then named Devatideva. When he was 7 years old, Arata Kalama and Rudrakarama taught him the Pantcha Vidya Sastras, and Kchanti deva taught him gymnastics. When 10 years old, he was peerless in strength, hurled an elephant to some distance, and opened an artesian well by the discharge of an arrow. He was married to Yas'odhara and took several concubines. When 19 years old, he was converted through S'uddhavasa deva who presented himself successively in the form of an old man, a sick man, a corpse, a religious mendicant, and excited in him disgust regarding domestic life.

His father sought to divert his mind, by sensual excitements and by proposing to him the career of a Tchakravartti as a military conqueror of the world, but strengthened by S'uddhavasa deva, he overcame the temptations of lust and ambition and fled from home in the night of the 8^th day of the 2^nd moon, B.C.E. 1003 or 597. Yakchas, Devas, Brahma, Indra and the Tchatur Maharadjas assisted him to escape. He cut off his locks and swore to save humanity from the misery of life, death and transmigration. After a brief attempt to resume study under Arata, he spent 6 years as a hermit on the Himalaya, testing the efficacy of Brahmanic and Shivaitic meditation. Dissatisfied with the result, he visited Arata and Rudraka and then repaired to Gaya, where he practiced ascetic self-torture. [ About this time his son Rahula was born.]

Having spent 6 years at Gaya, on a daily allowance of one grain of hemp and one grain of wheat, and seeing the uselessness of such fasting, he determines to strike out a new path henceforth.

Devas minister to the needs of his body, which threatens to break up, by bathing him with perfumes, and induce Nanda and Bala to nurse him with rice boiled in milk. Resting on a couch prepared by Indra under the Bodhidruma, he now gives himself up to Samadhi, whilst Mara and his armies endeavour, in vain, to tempt him in various disguises and finally through Mara's 4 beautiful daughters.

Unmoved he continues Samadhi, until he reaches at last the state of Bodhi, and becomes a Buddha, in the night of the 8^th day of the 12^th moon, B.C.E. 998 or 592. The spirits of the earth forthwith announce the glad tidings to the spirits of the atmosphere and those again report it to the spirits in the various heavens. Heaven and earth rejoice. Seven days afterwards two merchants, Trapus'a and Bhallika, passing by, presenting him with offerings of barley and honey. Soon he gathers round himself 5 disciples, Kaundinya, Bhadrika, Vachpa, As' vadjid and Mahanama. With them he starts from the Bodhidruma ( B.C.E. 997 or 592 ) and preaches his new gospel at Mrigadava, where his 5 disciples attain to the state of Arhat and 1,000 persons are converted. In the course of the following year, he preached chiefly to Naga kings ( i.e.against popular worship of snakes ). The year 995 or 589 B.C.E. is marked by the conversion of Sariputtra and Maudgalyayana with 250 others. In the course of the following year Anathapindika presented Buddha with the Djetavana. In the year 991 or 585 B.C.E., a victory having been gained over Shivaism by the conversion of Angulimalyia and his followers, Buddha ascended to Trayastrims'as in order to convert his mother, and stayed there 90 days.

Meanwhile Prasenadjit, frightened by his prolonged absence, ordered Maudgalyayana and the deva Visvakarman, transformed as artists, to ascend to Traiyastrims'as and to take a likeness of Sakyamuni.

They did so and carved, in sandal wood, a statue which thenceforth became an object of worship.

Here we have the origin of Buddhist idolatry. On Sakyamuni's return, the statue lifted itself into mid-air and saluted him, whereupon he uttered a prophesy which was fulfilled when Kas'yapa Matanga took that statue to China. In 990 (or 584 ) B.C.E. Sakyamuni visited Magadha and converted Vatsa. In the following year he predicted the future of Maitreya, and in the next year he revisited Kapilavastu, when he preached to his putative father. From the year 983 (or 577) B.C.E. to the time of his death, he gave particular attention to doctrinal exposition, delivering the Samyuktasantchaya in 983 (or 577) B.C.E., the Pradjnaparamita in 982 (or 576), the Suvarnaprabhasa and Saddharmapundarika in 950 (or 544), and the Parinirvana sutra in 949 ( or 543 ). Ananda was converted in 977 ( or 571 ) B.C.E. and Pradjapati admitted to rights of priesthood together with other women.

When Sakyamuni, in the year B.C.E. 949 or 543, felt his end drawing near, he went to Kus'inagara. Heaven and earth began to tremble and loud voices were heard, all living beings groaning together and bewailing his departure. On passing through Kus'inagara, he took his last meal from the bands of one of the poorest (Tchunda), after refusing the offerings of the richest. Declaring that he was dying, he went to a spot where 8 Sala trees stood in groups of two. Resting on his right side, he gave his last instructions to his disciples, reminding them of the immortality of the Dharma kaya, and then engaged in contemplation. Passing mentally through the 4 degrees of Dhyana, and thence into Samadhi, he lost himself into Nirvana and thus his earthly career was ended. His disciples put his remains into a coffin which forthwith became so heavy that no power on earth could move it. But his mother Maya suddenly appeared in the air, bewailing her son, when the coffin rose up, the lid sprang open and Sakyamuni stepped forth for a moment with folded hands to salute his mother. On attempting cremation, his disciples found that his body, being that of Tchakravartti, could not be consumed by common fire, when suddenly a jet of flame burst out of the Svastica on his breast and reduced his body to ashes.

If the above semi-legendary account is at all trustworthy, it indicates that Sakyamuni's mind is supposed to have gradually developed, departing step by step from the popular religions of his time, Brahmanism and Shivaism, until, without premeditation, he came to found a new religion, being even pushed to laying a sort of preliminary foundation of an ecclesiastical system. As a teacher, he appears to have been liberal and tolerant, countenancing, rather inconsistently, the worship of those deities which were too popular to be discarded, though he assigned to them a signally inferior position in his own system. Immoral sects, however, whether Brahmanic or Shivaitic, he fought resolutely, conquering generally through magic power rather than by disputations. He remodelled almost every Brahmanic dogma, substituting atheism for pantheism, and ethics for metaphysics. His teachings were in later years further developed by the Mahayana, Madhyimayana, Yogatcharya and other schools. The chronology of Buddhism is not yet sufficiently cleared up. The year when S'akyamuni entered Nirvana is, according to Chinese accounts, the 53^rd year of King Muh of the Chow dynasty, that is to say 949 or about 749 B.C.E., whilst southern Buddhist tradition fixed upon the year 543 B.C.E., but modern excavations, inscriptions and coins indicate the year 275 B.C.E. as the year of Buddha's Nirvana.

From: E. J. Eitel's Handbook of Chinese Buddhism, 1888.