The founder of this rational system of faith is known as Buddha, and is called by many names.* One of these is ´Sákyamuni, vulgarly pronounced Shákmúni. It is their belief that by the efficacy of a life of charity, he attained to the highest summit of wisdom, and becoming omniscient, secured the treasure of final liberation His father was Rája Sudhodana, prince of Behár, and his mother's name was Máyá. He was born by way of the navel* and was surrounded by a brilliant light, and the earth trembled, and a stream of the water of the Ganges showered down upon him. At the same time he took seven steps, uttered some sublime words, and said, “This will be my last birth.” The astrologers foretold that on his attaining the age of twenty-nine years and seven days, he would become a mighty ruler, institute a new religion, and accomplish his final liberation. At the very time foretold, be renounced the world and retired into the desert. For a short period he lived at Benares, Rájgir,* and other sacred places, and after many wanderings reached Kashmír.
Many of Hindu race, and from the coasts, and from Kashmír, Tibet and Scythia were converted by him. From the date of his death to the present time, which is the fortieth year of the Divine Era, two thousand nine hundred and sixty-two years have elapsed.* He possessed the gift of an efficacious will and the power of performing miracles. He lived one hundred and twenty years.* The learned among the Persians and Arabs, name the religious of this order Bhikshus;* in Tibet they are styled Lámas. For a long time past scarce any trace of them has existed in Hindustan, but they are found in Pegu, Tenasserim and Tibet. The third time that the writer accompanied His Majesty to the delightful valley of Kashmír, he met with a few old men of this persuasion, but saw none among the learned, nor observed anything like what is described by Háfiz A´bru and Banákati. The Bráhmans regard him as the ninth avatára, but do not accept the doctrine commonly ascribed to him, and deny that he is their author.
They hold the Deity to be undefiled by incarnation, and with the Sánkhya, Mímáṃsá, and Jaina systems, do not consider him the author of creation. The world, they deem to be without beginning or end, and the whole universe to be at one moment resolved into nothingness, and at another created again as before.* They accept the doctrine of the recompense of good and evil deeds, and of hell and heaven, and knowledge, according to them, is a quality of the rational soul. The ascetics of this religion shave their heads, and wear garments of leather and red cloth.
They are frequent in their ablutions, and refuse nothing that is given them as food, and hold all that dies of itself as killed by the act of God, and therefore lawful. They hold no commerce with women, and kill nothing that has life, and looking on plants as possessing it, they refrain from digging them up or cutting them.
Their spiritual energies are directed to six objects: the repression of anger, the pursuit of wisdom, soliciting alms,* true understanding of the worship of the Supreme Being, fortitude in austerities, perpetual commune with God. Three things are affirmed by them to be the source of goodness: knowledge, disinterestedness, freedom from envy; and twelve seats the source of good and evil, viz., the five senses, their faculties,* the common sensory, and intellect. These twelve, they term A´yatana (seats).
There are four objects of thought which in place of padártha (categories), they call (chaturvidha) A´rya-satya, four sublime truths. The first is Duḥka-satya reality of misery, which is of five kinds. (1). Vijṅnána, (sensation). (2). Vedaná, consciousness, the recompense of good or evil. (3), Sanjñá, name or denomination of things. (4). Sanskára, (impression), aggregate of merit and demerit. Some assert that since all things are in a state of momentary flux and reflux of existence, the intellectual consciousness thereof is designated by this term. (5). Rúpa (form), comprehends the five elements, and their evolutes, and because all these five produce bodily sufferance, they are distinguished under this head.*
The second, Samudaya-Satya (progressive accumulation of evil), is all that arises from desire and anger, and which under its influence says, ‘I am,’ or, ‘that is mine.’
The third is Márga-satya (reality of means), the habit of thought that the world is in momentary annihilation and reproduction. The fourth is Nirodha-satya (reality of annihilation) which they call Mukti or final liberation. Ten conditions are necessary to attain this degree: (I). Charity. (II). Abstention from evil and practising virtue, that is, to refrain from the following ten actions, viz., taking life, molesting, taking that which is not given, incontinence, falsehood, speaking ill of the good, irascibility, idle speech, evil intention, intercourse prohibited by religious precept. Seven duties are to be fulfilled. Respect for the religious guide and spiritual director; veneration of idols; observing the service of others;* praise of the good; influencing to good works by gentle speech; perseverance through success or failure in sustaining others in virtue: learning the duties of worship. (III). To be neither elated nor depressed by praise or blame. (IV). To sit in a particular posture. (V). To introduce an idol into a temple which they call chaitya. (VI). To regard the things of the world as they really are. (VII). To be zealous in the seven practices of Yoga prescribed in the Pátañjala system. (VIII). To acquire the habit of five duties: viz., a true and firm acceptance of the commands of the religious director; to be mindful of them and to carry them out: to reduce the body and spirit by rigid austerities; to efface from the heart all external impression; to keep the mind fixed only on the Supreme Being. (IX). To strengthen the bonds of knowledge so that they cannot be broken. (X). To enter upon the knowledge by which final liberation is accomplished. Pramáṇa, proof, with this sect, consists of pratyaksha (perception), and átman* (self), and there are two causes of knowledge, evidence of the senses, and demonstration. The first is four-fold, viz., apprehension by the five senses, or perception by the common sensory or apprehension of the knowledge of the things themselves, or when by reason of the mortification* of the senses, the non-apparent and the visible become identical.
In regard to inference and the exposition of the external percipibile* their argumentation is lengthy and extremely subtile.
The Bauddhas are divided into four sects.
1. The Vaibháshikas, like the Nyáya school, believe in separate indivisible atoms for each of the four elements but perceptible by the eye; and with them existence is predicable of two entities, cognition and its objects, the latter being apprehended by the senses.
2. The Sautrántikas affirm that objects are cognised by inference.
3. The Yogácháras admit only intellect which produces the forms of objects.
The Mádhyamikas hold both cognition and objects to be void (śúnya Hindi sun) and confound existence and non-existence.*
Many treatises have been written on each of these divisions and there is considerable variance of opinion on questions of objective and subjective existence. Three sciences are regarded by them as important; the science of proof: the science of administratiou: the science of the interior life.