CHRISTOPHER DAWSON ON THE RELIGION AND CULTURE OF INDIA
by Edward V. King
This is the third installment of the project to which Mr. Edward
V. King has devoted himself over the last several years. That is, of
identifying the nature of the work of the scholars of the Oriental
religious and cultures upon whom Christopher Dawson relied in
forming his own interpretation of the significance of these
cultures.
The two preceding installments in this project of Mr. King were
published in The Dawson Newsletter of Volume VII, No. 2 -
"Christopher Dawson and the Great European Orientalists" and
the issue of Volume VII, No. 4 - "China in the Thought of
Christopher Dawson." This current issue contains the first part of
Installment three of this project.
Part I
THE WORLD OF SCHOLARSHIP--THE TRANSLATORS AND HISTORIANS
"The world of true Being which is man's spiritual home is the
world that knows no change. The world of time and change is the
material world from which man must escape of he would be saved.
For all the works of men and the rise and fall of kingdoms are
but the fruits of ignorance and lust - <mala vitae cupido> - and
even the masters of the world must recognize in the end the
vanity of their labours like the great Shogun Hideyoshi who
wrote on his deathbed:
'Alas, as grass I fade
As the dew I vanish
Even Osaka castle
Is a dream within a dream.'"
('The Kingdom of God and History' in H.G. Woods et al, <The
Kingdom of God and History,> 1938, p. 200-201).
We are fortunate in that the world of the Western Indologists
has been explored to a greater degree than that of the Western
sinologists who studied Chinese culture.
1. Pere Henri de Lubac S.J. has traced the history of the impact
of Buddhist thought on the West over a two thousand year period in his
study, <La Recontre du Bouddhisme et de L'Occident> (1952).[1] An American
scholar, Guy Richard Welbon in his book, <The Buddhist Nirvana and its
Western Interpreters> (1968), has chapters on some of the key scholars
upon who Dawson relied in his study of Buddhism - F. Max Mueller, H.
Oldenberg,[2] T.W. Rhys Davids & L. de la Vallee Poussin.
The period 1780 - 1880 in Europe has been studied in depth by
Raymond Schwab in his classic work, <La Renaissance Orientale> (1948),
which has been recently translated into English by two American scholars,
<The Oriental Renaissance> (1984).[3] Finally another American professor
Carl T. Jackson, does for America in the 19th century what Schwab did for
Europe, with less focus on the world of scholarship and more on the
literary and theological writers - <The Oriental Religions and American
Thought: The Nineteenth Century> (1981). in both books the word 'oriental'
refers mostly to the religion and philosophy of India.
II - The translators on whom Dawson relied in his reading on the
Hindu and Buddhist texts were all distinguished scholars in England.
Friedrich Max Mueller (1823-1900) was the editor of the <Sacred Books of
the East> and translated the volumes on the Vedic hymns, some of the
Upanishads and the <Dhammapada> from the Pali Buddhism.[4]
Thomas William Rhys Davids (1848-1922), founded the Pali Text
Society in 1881 and also translated for the <Sacred Books of the East>
some of the key Pali texts of Buddhism. In addition, his wife Carolyn was
a noted Buddhist scholar.[5]
Lionel David Barnett (1871-1960), had a vast knowledge of Indian
languages and dialects which he put to use as administrator and
bibliographer at the British Museum. He taught Sanscrit at University
College London from 1906 to 1917 and subsequently at the London School of
Oriental Studies from 1917 to 1948. Most of his translations were from the
Sanscrit texts and these were the ones used by Dawson. His son Richard
David followed in his footsteps.[6]
III - In his personal library Dawson's historical guides were all
very cautious scholars who refused to generalize beyond the sources,
whether from art, archeology, coins, or inscriptions, etc.
During the period of study - 1912 to 1930 - he had acquired
Vincent Arthur Smith's (1848-1920) <The EarlyHistory of India from 600
B.C. to the Muhammedan Conquest> (third edition, 1914). Like so many
British indologists Smith had a background in the Indian Civil Service
where he had a chance to study Indian art and archeology at first hand.[7]
Edward James Rapson (1861-1937), was a leading authority on
Indian coins and medals which he drew upon in his book. <Ancient India:
from Earliest Times to the First Century, A.D.> (1916). He also edited the
first volume of the <Cambridge History of India Series - Ancient India>
(1922).
Finally, Dawson also bought Louis de la Vallee Poussin's (1869 -
1938) first of three volumes on India in the series <Histoire du Monde>
entitled, <Indo Europeans et Indo - iraniens: L'Inde jusque vers 300 avant
J.C.> (1924). La Vallee Poussin's field was Buddhist philosophy and
religion from which he "submitted the ancient history of India to his
Nagarjunian criticism."[8]
During the later period - 1946 to 1960 - he acquired three
pioneer works of synthesis on Southeast Asia and South India. Geoges
Coedes (1887-1969), was the great French authority on Southwest Asia, the
director of the Ecole Francaise de L'Extreme Orient, whose first general
work of synthesis appeared in 1948, <Les Etats Hindouises d'Indochine et
d'Indonesie,> covering the period 100 B.C. to 1600 A.D..[9]
Nilakanta Sastri (1892-1975), summed up a lifetime of regional
studies on South Indian history in his study, <A History of South India>
(1955). Unfortunately I was unable to locate any information on his life
and where he taught.
Finally, D.G.E. Hall (1891-1979), who had taught courses on the
history of Asia at the University of Rangoon in Burma during the twenties,
was appointed in 1949 to the newly established chair of the History of
South East Asia in the University of London. <A History of South East
Asia> (1955), was the first attempt in any language to cover all the
cultures of this area. In 1959 he was invited to teach on South East Asian
history at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.[10] [11]
ENDNOTES
1. In his library, Dawson has his book <Aspects of Buddhism> (1953,
English trans.), three chapters, notes and glossary.
2. Dawson has two of his books: <La Religion du Veda> (1903, French
trans.); <Die Lehre der Upanischaden und die Anfange des Buddhismus>
(1923).
3. The English edition has an excellent bibliography which is also the
case with Jackson's study.
4. Dawson has the two Max Mueller translations from the Upanishads, vols.
I & XV in the <Sacred Books of the East> (1900).
5. Dawson quotes from Rhys David's translation in the first set of
Gifford lectures, <Religion and Culture> (1948).
6. Dawson has his books: <Brahma Knowledge: Outline of the with
Philosophy of the Vedanta> (1911); <The Heart of India: Sketches in
the History of Hindu Religion and Morals> (1913).
7. Also in his library is Smith's <Asoka. The Buddhist Emperor of India>
(1909, 2nd edition).
8. H. Durt in his article on Poussin in M. Eliade (ed.) <The Encyclopedia
of Religion> (1987), vol. 8, 462.
9. There is an English translation of the second revised edition of 1964,
<The Indianized States of Southeast Asia> (1968) with a short
editor's note by W.F. Vella. In 1962 Coedes published <Les Peuples
de la Peninsule Indochinoise> which was translated in 1966 with the
misleading title, The Making of South East Asia. It brings the
history of the Indo Chinese cultures up to the nineteenth century.
10. There is an interesting biographical sketch of Hall by C.D. Cowan
in: C.D. Cowan & O.W. Wolters (eds.) <Southeast Asian History and
Historiography. Essays Presented to D.G.E. Hall,> pages 11-23. It
includes a photograph of him.
11. Information on the other English orientalists from Max Mueller to
Rapson can be found in the <Dictionary of National Biography.>
PART II
THE INDOLOGISTS AND THE STUDY OF INDIAN CULTURE
A. The Period 1912 to 1932
"The Indians picture the whole life process as an endless wheel
of lives and deaths gripped in the claws of the monster Kama or
desire; to be freed from that wheel is the end of their effort.
'Through birth and rebirth's endless round,
Seeking in vain, I hastened on,
To find who framed this edifice;
What misery! Birth incessantly.'
"But how can man escape from the domination of this power
which seems the very power of life itself? Only, it was said, by
turning his back on life, by seeing in the whole sensible world
nothing but illusion, and by leaving the finite and the known for
the unknown infinite....
"The classical expression of this attitude to life is found in
Buddhism, which excelled all other Indianreligions in the
simplicity of its reasoning and in the austerity of its morals.
`Two things only do I teach,
sorrow and the ending of sorrow,'
said the Buddha, rebuking those who would know whether
Nirvana was existence or non-existence." (The Nature and Destiny
of Man, 1920).
From the period 1920 to 1932 there are numerous references in
Christopher Dawson's writings to the history and religious
experience of India - especially the era of the Upanishads and the
Buddha. These writings can be classified in the following manner:
I - PARTS OF GENERAL PHILOSOPHICAL - HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND BOOK REVIEWS:
A) Extended discussion.
1) 'The Nature and Destiny of Man', 1920, (most of section II of
this essay; it includes two quotations; it is found on pages 322- 326 in
<Enquiries into Religion and Culture,>1933).
2) Book reviews of A.B. Keith, 'The Religion and Philosophy of
the Veda and the Upanishads' and P. Dahlke, 'Buddhism and Its Place in the
Mental Life of Mankind' (<The Dublin Review,> October, 1928, No. 367,
pages 293-296).
3) 'The Revolt of the East and the Catholic Tradition', (<The
Dublin Review,> July, 1928, No. 366, especially pages 5-7 & 12- 14. There
is a quote from Sir C. Eliot, <'Hinduism and Buddhism',> vol I, page ix.).
4) 'The Dark Mirror', (<'The Dublin Review',> October, 1930, No.
375, especially pages 187-190. One quotation.)
5) 'The Claim of Christianity', chapter III in his book,
<'Christianity and the New Age',> 1931, pages 51-58 & 82-84. (four
quotations).
B) Brief mention.
1) 'Progress and Decay in Ancient and Modern Civilization', <'The
Sociological Review',> January, 1924, vol xvi, No. 1, especially pages
7-8.
2) 'Civilization and Morals', <'The Sociological Review',> July,
1925, vol. xvii, No. 3, page 177. (Quotes Ananda Coomaaraswamy, <'The Arts
and Crafts of India and Ceylon',> 1911, page 59.)
II - HISTORICAL OUTLINES AND STUDIES OF CULTURAL GROWTH AND DIFFUSION.
A) 'The Life of Civilization', <'The Sociological Review',> 1922,
vol. xiv, (the section on Ages III & IV).
B) Book reviews of W.J. Perry, <The Children of the Sun> and G.
Slater. <"The Dravidian Element in Indian Culture".> (<The
Sociological Review, >April & October, 1924, pages 158-161 &
364-365.).
C) 'Religion and the Life of Civilization', <'The Quarterly
Review,'> January, 1925, vol. 244, (the section on 'The Coming of
the World Religions').
d) <'The Age of the Gods',> 1928, chapters II, IV, V, VIII.
III - DETAILED SOCIOLOGICAL - PHILOSOPHICAL - HISTORICAL ANALYSIS.
A) 'The Rise of the World Religions', chapter VI in <'Progress
and Religion',> 1929.
B) <The Civilization of the East Aryan Peoples in India and
Persia: The Vedas and the Stages of Indian Religion.> (16 page
lecture, 1929?). A condensed version is in J. Oliver & C. Scott
(eds.) <'Religion and World History',> 1974, Part One, chapter 5,
'Mysticism in India'.
Amongst all these writings I think four are worth focusing on -
I) the 'Chronological Chart'; II) <'The Age of the Gods';> III) The
sixteen page lecture, and IV) 'The Rise of the World Religions'
chapter.
The Chronological Chart which accompanies Dawson's lecture on
'The Life of Civilization' is important because it is the only outline we
have giving us his view of the different significant cultures in the
history of India, and the diffusion of Indian civilization in relation to
his theory of cultural growth and decay. It appeared in 1922, the same
year that saw the publication of one of the great works of the European
orientalists on the earlier history of India - "Ancient India", edited by
E.J. Rapson - the first volume of the <Cambridge History of India.>
AGE III - 1200 B.C. TO 580 A.D..
A) <Period of Growth:> 1200-580 B.C.
Proceeding on the chart from West to East, India is the only section
left blank.
B) <Period of Progress:> 600-25 B.C.
1 - The Intellectual Awakening:
- The Early Upanishads, 7th & 6th centuries.
- Buddha.
- Rise of Indian Philosophy.
2 - The Expansion of the West (corresponds with):
- The Maurya Dynasty from 321
- Asoka, 269-227. Spread of Buddhism.
- Contacts with Hellenism.
3 - Era of Imperialism:
- The Greeks in the Punjab 200-25 B.C..
C) <Period of Maturity:> 30 B.C. - 580 A.D..
1 - Rise of the World Religions: 30 B.C. - 250 A.D..
- Indo Scythian Empire: 40-226 A.D.
- Rise of Mahayana Buddhism and Neo Hinduism.
2 - Flowering of Religion Cultures: 250-550 A.D..
- Gupta Empire: 320 to 6th century.
- Religious Art / the drama / the Great Buddhist Doctors / the Puranas.
3 - Material Decline and Barbarian Invasions:
- The White Huns / Fall of Gupta Empire.
AGE IV: THE MODERN WORLD: 500 - PRESENT
a) <Period of Growth or Middle Ages:>
1 - Fertilization of the Daughter Cultures: 500-750 A.D..
- Rise of Rajput and Dravidian Kingdoms.
- Extension of Indian culture to Cambodia and Java.
2 (A) The First Flowering of the Daughter Cultures. 9th century
etc..
- Early Medieval Period.
(i) Temples of Ellura, Elphanta and Orissa.
(ii) Sankara the Philosopher, 9th century.
2 (B) The Second Flowering of the Daughter Cultures.
12th century etc..
- Later Medieval Period:
(i) The Great Temple Building Period, 11th & 12th centuries.
(ii) Ramanuja the Philosopher, (d. 1137).
(iii) Angkor Wat in Cambodia, 12th century.
3 - Ruin of the Ancient (Age 111) Culture Centres.
- 1190-1206. Moslem Conquest of North India.
B) <Period of Progress. Decline of the Religion Cultures.>
1 - The Intellectual Awakening, 1350-1600.
- The Mughal Renaissance in India; Akbar to Shah Jahan (1550-1660).
- Mughal Architecture & Art.
2 - The Expansion of the West, 1500-1750. Progress of Science.
- European Influence in India.
- Hindu Reaction to Islam.
3 - The Era of Revolution, 1750-1900. Economic Change.
Conquest and Exploitation.
- British Conquest and Administration.
The Crisis of the New Order and the Reawakening of the East.
- Indian Nationalism.
**********
In his first published book, <The Age of the Gods> (1928), Dawson
situates India in relation to a series of different cultures and their
diffusions, which fill in the blank shown on his 'Chronological Chart'
before the first millennium B.C.. The first of these is the Hunting
Culture of the Paleolithic Age which was subsequently diffused through
India to Southeastern Asia and Australasia and through Siberia to North
America - (Chapter II, 39- 40 and chapter IV, 65). Another is the
mysterious megalith culture which also has a wide extension from the West
of Europe to the far East of Asia. Its settlements were situated mostly in
Central and Southern India as well as in Assam and Manipur -
(chapter III, 51 and chapter IX, 195,206).
Then there is the pastoral nomadic warrior culture of the Indo
European invaders - the Aryans - whose rapid diffusion spread over the
vast continental region between Northern Europe and India and East
Turkestan - (chapter XI, 254-257).
Finally there are the Higher city civilizations which Dawson,
following W.J. Perry, calls the 'Archaic Culture', They span the area from
the Mediterranean to India and seem to possess a fundamental community
alike in type and in origin - (chapter VI, 117-118). In three chapters, IV
V and VI, Dawson discusses India's relation to this movement. The
important discoveries made in 1924 revealed the existence of an ancient
civilization in the Indus valley dating back at least to the early part of
the third millennium. It was not a peasant culture but rather a true city
civilization resembling that of the Sumerians - (chapter IV, 68-70, 72-74,
80).
"Certainly it is in India alone that the sacred city, like the
religion of the Mother Goddess, has survived down to the present
day, so that the temples of Puri, and Madura and Benares, seem
to carry us back four or five thousand years to the House at
Erech, or the temple of the Lord of the Earth at Nippur." (page
117).
This mention of the Religion of the Mother Goddess does situate
India in relation to the peasant culture since she is worshipped in the
villages no less than in the temple cities of the South. There is a
wonderful quote from a modern Bengali poet to show that the worship of the
Great Mother sometimes tends to supersede the other great Hindu deities -
(chapter V, 104).
"I have searched the Vedas and the Vedantas, the Tantras and the
Mantras, yet nowhere I found thy fulness. As Rama thou dost take
the bow, as Sayama the Black (Krishna) thou dost seize the
sword....
O Mother, Mother of the Universe, art thou male or female? Who
can say? 'Who knows thy form? Nilkantha's mind ever thinks of
thee as chief of Creators." **********
"This doctrine of unity - of non dualism - as the Hindus call it,
is the fundamental teaching of the Upanishads and indeed of all the later
religion of India. As professor de la Vallee Poussin has said, 'It was the
great discovery which has remained for at least twenty five centuries the
capital and most cherished truth of the Indian people' (<The Way of
Nirvana, >p. 27).
"The man who cannot understand this, cannot understand the
religion of India nor the civilization with which it is so intimately
connected." (`The Civilization of the East Aryan Peoples...." page 11).
In his lecture on <'The Civilization of the East Aryan Peoples in
India and Persia: The Vedas and the Stages ofIndian Religion',> he gives a
detailed analysis of the religion and society of the Vedic Age (6 pages)
and the Age of the Upanishads (10 pages), the latter which he labels, 'The
Rise of Brahmanism."
"Unfortunately we know nothing, Dawson says, of the early history
of India, but we do have the literature of that time." (page 2). Basing
his lecture on the literary and archeological evidence and using extensive
quotations from the former, Dawson proceeds to describe the religion and
culture of the two ages - the Veda and the Upanishads. The sociological
picture of the Vedic Age is that of a pastoral warrior society living in
villages in conflict with the ancient city civilization of the Archaic
culture and the natives of 'Rig Veda' is a polytheistic nature religion in
which we find the powers of nature personified. It provides many parallels
with the same type of religion in ancient China and Greece and Dawson
provides many quotes from Greek literary sources.
Two important deities are associated with the priestly class -
Agni, the sacrificial fire and Soma, the sacred drink. It is this class
which determines the course of the religious development of India from the
nature worship of the Vedic period to the Brahmanism of the Upanishads.
The rise of Brahmanism is connected with a concentration on
ritual in which the sacrifice overshadows the gods and becomes the
ultimate force in the world. This development is due to a new class, the
ascetics or hermits who withdraw from society into the forest to study the
inner meaning of rites and legends and to practice austerities and
penance.
They seem to be non - Aryan and come from the native Indian
culture; they become the most characteristic figure in Indian religion up
to the present: the muni, the sannyasi, the Sadhu, the Yogi.
The sacred writings known as the Upanishads reveal the higher
stage of Indian religion. They are known as 'Vedanta' - the end of the
Vedas. Their date is uncertain but they are closely connected with the
Brahamanas and they are earlier than Buddhism - i.e. previous to 500
B.C.. They are due to a new movement of thought connected with some great
personalities.
This movement was inspired by a desire to attain absolute
reality; not merely to get behind the material world, but to get beyond
the personal gods of the Vedic age, and even to transcend the sacred rites
as interpreted by the Brahamanas,
<'so as to reach the one essence
that alone is true, that alone IS."> - (p. 9, his emphasis).
Two words describe this ultimate reality: Brahman (Mind) and
Atman (Self) and he quotes from the <'Aitrayana',> <'Chandogya'> &
<'Brihadaryanaka'> Upanishads to illustrate their meaning.
In addition to this development there marks the first appearance
in Indian literature of the idea of reincarnation and the idea of karma
which were to govern the whole future of Indian thought. The concept of
reincarnation is not in the Rig Veda nor the Brahamanas but is rather to
be found in the beliefs of the aboriginal population. In the Upanishads it
first received philosophical treatment and was completed by the ideas of
'karma' and 'moksha' (retribution and deliverance). It is at this point
that Dawson inserts the quotation from de la Vallee Poussin which I have
used to introduce this lecture.
Then he devotes a section of the lecture to the discussion of the
difficulty of the Western mind in understanding the Vedanta, which was the
main subject of his review of Keith's book, <the Religion and Philosophy
of the Veda and the Upanishads'; (Dublin Review,> October, 1928). The root
of the problem is the fact that the religious development of the West has
followed such a totally different course. The modern Western conception of
religion is ethical and personalist in contrast to the intellectual and
impersonal conception of the Indian tradition,
<"the most abstract and metaphysical type of religion
that the world has ever seen.">
Consequently many Westerners regard the Indian development as a
retrograde one, a rejection of ethical theism in the interests of an
intellectualist pantheism. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that
the Western admirers of Indian thought like Schopenhauer and Deussen
regard the Upanishads as pure philosophic monism, similar to that of
modern Western metaphysicians.
Nevertheless, it is misleading to interpret the Vedanta along
these lines. The non-dualism of the Vedenta is a religious absolutism in
which only God exists and Dawson quotes from Sankara to back up his point:
<"Though difference be none, I am of Thee
Not Thou, O Lord, of Me;
For the sea is verily the wave,
Not of the wave the sea." >(p. 13, transl. Barnett).
It teaches a way of spiritual deliverance, not a philosophic
theory of knowledge and resembles the 'Via Negativa' of the Christian
mystics rather than the metaphysics of Western idealist philosophers.
In the same way the ethical aspect of the Upanishads is that of
the mystic rather than the practical man - the flight of the Alone to the
Alone:
"Herein the father is no father, the mother
no mother, the worlds no worlds, the Gods no Gods,
the Vedas no Vedas;
herein the thief is no thief, the murderer no
murderer, the outcaste no outcaste, the ascetic no
ascetic.
Good attaches not, evil attaches not;
for then he has overpast all the griefs of the heart."
(p. 15, quoting the Brihadaryanaka Upanishad, 1V;
1V. transl. Max Mueller).
Nevertheless they are the most intellectualist of all forms of
mysticism and are exposed to the characteristic dangers of this type of
thought. The following period witnessed the rise of rationalism and the
denial of the objective reality of absolute being which was the essence of
the teaching of the Upanishads. Dawson sums up the danger in a typically
lucid sentence:
"The theory of knowledge is apt to be mistaken for the knowledge
itself, and that which was a spiritual experience becomes an
intellectual formula" (p. 16).
**********
In 'The Rise of the World Religions' which forms chapter VI in
his book <Progress and Religion,> a considerable portion is devoted to the
Indian tradition. The religion of the Vedic age forms part of the movement
which saw the transformation of the sacred ritual order in the Archaic
culture into a moral law of justice and truth. Then he devotes seven pages
to the search for the absolute in the Upanishads and Buddhism, (127-133).
He introduces and concludes the four pages on Taoism by showing the
parallel with Indian thought, (134,137). This is followed by a description
of the way the worship of the Mother Goddess and the archaic temple cultus
together with primitive forms of animism and magic tend to reabsorb the
higher forms of Indian religion, (138-139). Finally, he draws the parallel
between the Indian higher religions and the Greek view of the world as
exemplified in the Orphic and Pythagorean teachings, Empedocles and Plato,
(139-142).
In reading these passages one is struck by the aptness of
Dawson's quotations from the Upanishads and Buddhism which illustrate
their attitude to reality and their view of life.
I - The search for the absolute in the Upanishads and the
identification with the Atman or Self:
<"He who, dwelling in the earth, is other than the earth, whom
the earth knows not, whose body the earth is, who inwardly
rules the earth, is thyself, the Inward Ruler, the Deathless."
"He who, dwelling in the mind, is other than the mind, whom
the mind knows not, whose body the mind is,
who inwardly rules the mind,
is thyself, The Inward Ruler, the Deathless."
"He unseen sees, unheard hears, unthought thinks,
uncomprehended comprehends.
There is no other than he who sees.
There is no other than he who hears,
there is no other than he who thinks,
there is no other than he who comprehends.
He is thyself, the Inward Ruler, the Deathless.">
(Pages 129-130, quoting from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad,
III, vii, tr. L.D. Barnett).
It can only be described by negatives:
<"Neti, Neti, not thus, not thus," for
"the Atman is silence."> (p. 129, no source given).
II - The resultant ethic which alone can free man from the penalty
of rebirth:
"As is a man's desire, so is his will,
and as is his will so is his deed,
and whatever deed (Karma) he does
that will he reap."....(page 130, from the Brihad-aryanaka
Upanishad, IV, iv, tr. Max Mueller).
"Knowing Brahman a man becomes a saint;
hermits wander forth seeking him for their world.
Understanding this the ancients desired not offspring, 'what
is offspring to us who have this Self for our world.'
So having departed from desire of sons,
from desire of substance and desire of the world,
they went about begging." (page 130, Op. cit. IV, iv,22)
III - Buddhism as the highest expression of the ascetic ideal in
which deliverance is the one vital issue:
<"One thing only do I teach, O Monks,"
said the Buddha,
sorrow and the ending of sorrow."
"As the sea has everywhere one taste,
the taste of salt,
so my teaching has one flavour,
the flavour of Deliverance."> (page 132. Dawson gives no
source, but I managed to track it down to the book in his library
by K.J. Saunders, <'The Heart of Buddhism',> 1914, page 9).
The unreality of the cosmic order as seen in the external course
of nature:
<"The wheel of existence is empty
with a twelvefold emptiness."> (page 133, no source given).
The sorrowful wheel of existence driven round by ignorance
and lust and the path of moral deliverance - the VIA NEGATIVA:
<"In the mind of him who realizes the insecurity of this
transient life arises the thought: All on fire is this ceaseless
flux, a blazing flame! Full of despair it is and very fearful!
Oh that I might reach a state where Becoming is at an end!, How
calm, how sweet would be that end of all defects, of all craving
and passion - that great Peace - this Nirvana!
"Yes, O King, virtue is that place."> (page 133, from
<'Milinda Panha',> The Questions of King Menander).
Taken from the Winter 1994 issue of "The Dawson
Newsletter." For subscriptions send $8.00 to "The Dawson
Newsletter", P.O. Box 332, Fayetteville, AR 72702. John J. Mulloy,
Editor
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