File:Buddha and the gospel of Buddhism (1916) (14778697201).jpg

Identifier: buddhagospelofbu01coom (find matches)
Title: Buddha and the gospel of Buddhism
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish, 1877-1947
Subjects: Buddha and Buddhism
Publisher: New York, G. P. Putnam's sons
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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that had set them free. Wehave a glimpse of this point of view in one of AsokasEdicts, where the Emperor says: Certain phrases have been uttered again and again byreason of the honeyed sweetness of such and such a topic,in the hope that the people may act up to them.The early Buddhists had no wish to make their scripturesinteresting, and it is very true that they have but onetaste. At the same time it is most likely that thisextremely serious and indeed heavy style, made eloquentonly by its very seriousness—it is not to be deniedthat the method of line upon line has a certain cumulativeimpressiveness, a kind of noble austerity and patience, asublime monotony*—really reflects the manner of speechof the Buddha himself. For Gautama is not—like Jesus—a poet and a mystic, but a psychologist: * he does not 1 If Gautama was indeed a mystic, as the Mahayanists claim, it is thento Buddhaghosha and other of the Pali authors whom we must regard aschiefly responsible for Pali Buddhism.274
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374 THE BUDDHA TEACHING Gilt bronze, Laos, in Gupta style, but probably mediaeval Collection of Mr Victor Golonbew The Pali Canon speak to uneducated fishermen, but to practised meta-physicians, and in an atmosphere of controversy: hemakes no personal appeal, he speaks with well-consideredpurpose rather than enthusiasm or fervour, and he isconcerned to leave no loophole for possible or deliberatemisunderstandings. He feels, indeed, some apprehensionlest in future the most profound sermons should beneglected in favour of more artistic and attractive com-positions : Some there are, he says, who hearken willingly tothe works of followers of mine who are poets, poetasters,litterateurs, or mystics . . . and who allow the sermonsof the Tathagata, of profound import, transcendent, anddevoted to the doctrine of the Void, to be forgotten.We may thus believe that the more poetical and literarybooks were only little by little and with some difficultyadmitted to the canon; and this is probably th

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