The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA
nature-spirits of Dravidian origin that survive
even to-day in the popular cults of modern Hinduism.
This must account for the presence of
the yakshis and the nagas, the dryads and water
spirits who appear in all the monuments of early
Buddhist art. In order to explain the presence of
these demi-gods and the meticulous recording
of so many details of animal and plant life, it
might be said that early Buddhism, in its acceptance
of the doctrine of reincarnation, stressed
the unity of all life, the identification of man
with nature through the very forms of life
through which the Buddha and man had passed
before their final birth into the human world.
This seemingly intense feeling for nature is
something evoked by the idea of former births
in animal form, and is not in any sense a pantheistic
conception. Although occasionally in
the Buddhist hymns we encounter what seem to
be passionately lyrical writings on nature, the
mention of natural objects is only metaphorical,
like similar references to nature in the Psalms.
The mythology of Buddhism also came to
include a collection of moral tales purporting to
relate the events in the earlier incarnations of
Gautama when, in either animal or human form,
he was acquiring the merit that enabled him to
attain Buddhahood in his final earthly life. These
Jataka stories, which are extremely popular as
subjects of illustration in early Buddhist art, are
almost all of them ancient folk-tales, with or
without moral significance, that came to be
appropriated by Buddhism. Their absorption
into Buddhism suggests an influence of the
Yaishnavite concept of the god's avatars. Another
similarity to the mythology of Vishnu may
be recognized even in early Buddhism in the idea
of the Buddhas of the Past, who in earlier cycles
of world history came to earth to lead men to salvation.
In early Buddhist art these predecessors
of Sakyamuni are symbolized by the trees under
which they attained enlightenment or by the
relic mounds raised over their ashes. Primitive
Buddhism also included the belief in a Buddha
of the future, Maitreya, who will descend from
the Tushita Heaven to preach the Law at
end of the present kalpa or cycle of time. 9
the
Something should be said, too, of the position
of the Vedic gods in early Buddhism and its art.
The Buddha never denied the existence of these
deities. They are regarded as angels somewhat
above the mortal plane, who were just as subject
to the external order as men, and equally in need
of salvation. Time and again in the legend of
Buddha's life Indra and Brahma appear as subordinates
waiting upon the Enlightened One : it
is Brahma who implores the Buddha to make
his doctrine known to the world. It is not unusual
to find the Vedic gods as personifications
of various of the Buddha's powers, in much the
same way as in early Christianity pagan deities
served as allegories of Christ. 10
As has already been said, the doctrine preached
by Sakyamuni offered salvation through moral
discipline rather than by the easier way of worship
or sacrifice. A distinction should perhaps
be made between 'Primitive Buddhism', referring
to the doctrine as it existed in Sakyamuni's
lifetime, and 'Monastic Buddhism', which developed
following the master's death. Buddhism
in the time of Gautama was open to all, with no
distinction between clergy and laity, and the
possibility of salvation by following the Eightfold
Path accessible to every follower. When the
religion assumed a permanent character after
the Buddha's death, clergy and laity became
separate, and salvation was reserved for those
who could literally abandon the world to enter
the order. There is no suggestion of the possibility
of all
creatures attaining Buddhahood, nor
that they are possessed of the Buddha nature.
Such an anti-social solution, however impractical
for the man of the world, was probably not
regarded as at all unusual at a time when the idea
of monastic retreat was offered by many different
sects. In the early faith, nothing beyond the