Burmese Sketches - Khamkoo

igg BURMESE SKETCHES,
Cochin China belong to the Northern, while Ceylon, Burma,
and Siam belong to the Southern. There are several points of
difference between the two Schools. Sanskrit is the sacred
language of the Northern Buddhists, as Pali is of the Southern.
In the Northern School, the doctrine of the *' Western
Paradise ", where one may live for ^ons in a state of absolute
bHss, exempt from suffering, death, and sexual distinction, is
superadded to that of Nirvana or absorption into a passionless
state. The Northern cosmogony is more extensive than the
Southern, which is based on the Brahmanical system. The
Northern Buddhists acknowledge the existence of a supreme
Being, the Creator of the Universe, called Adi- Buddha ; while
in the Southern School, the central tenet is that man, without
any extraneous aid from any Superior Being, is capable of
attaining salvation, and that the Buddha is the highest type of
humanity. The Southern School favoured the purely human
and psychological ethics, while into the Northern was introduced
animistic and transcendental views tinged with Tantric doctrines
together with beliefs in the supernatural. The greatest distinction
between the two systems is, however, that the Northern
prides itself on its designation *'Maha Yana*' or the '' Great
Vehicle " because its ideal is Bodhisatship, which involves
a series of re-births for ^Eons, and a desire to save all living
creatures in the ages to come. The Southern is taunted as the
'*Hina Yana" or the ^'Lesser Vehicle," because its ideal is Arhat-
ship, or the attainment of Nirvana in this life by self-culture
and self-control. When Hiuen Tsiang visited India in the 6th
century A.D., two-thirds of the members of the Buddhist
Order still adhered to the older doctrine of the Southern
School ; but the great Chinese Pilgrim regarded himself as a
MahSySnist, took away many books of the Great Vehicle back
to China and became a founder of a long line of translators
into Chinese. In the new Encyclopcedia Britannica, Professor
Rhys Davids objects to the use of the terms '' Northern and
Southern " Schools of Buddhism as inaccurate and misleading.
He says :— " We have learnt that the division of Buddhism,
originating with Burnouf, into Northern and Southern, is
misleading. He found that the Buddhism in his PSli MSS.
which came from Ceylon, differed from that in his Sanskrit
MSS. which came from Nipal. Now that the works he used
have been made accessible in printed editions, we find that
wherever the existing MSS. came from, the original works
themselves were all composed in the same stretch of country,
that is, in the valley of the Ganges. The difference of the