Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by Some Points in the History of Indian Buddhism

THE PLACE OF BUDDHISM I1ST THE DEYELOPEMENT OF BELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

Bight and Wrong Uses of the Comparative Study of Religious Beliefs.

IT would be a hopeless task to attempt in six Lectures, that is to say, in six hours, to give any adequate account of that great movement which has influenced the greater portion of the human race during the lapse of so many centuries. It is therefore matter for congratulation that the task allotted to us is a much lighter one, — to discuss those points in the history of Buddhism which appear likely to throw light on the origin and growth of religious belief. This means, as I understand it, the origin and growth of religion outside, as well as inside, the circle of the Buddhist beliefs themselves. What we have to do is, in a word, to apply a particular method, the comparative method, to the study of the facts revealed to us by the history of Buddhism.

There is indeed a way of comparing religions one with another which leads to mere truisms, or even to erroneous conclusions. It is not uncommon, even now, to find such comparisons made with the object of evoking interest in other religions than our own, by showing that they teach some things which are also held among us. The Singhalese have an epithet which they apply in good-humoured sarcasm to Europeans, and which means “fellows with hats, hat fellows” (Toppi-karayo). These fellows with the hats, and eighty-ton guns, and other signs of artistic and spiritual pre-eminence, are sometimes gifted with a sublime and admirable self-complacency which leads them to be surprised when they find fundamental truths of morality, or good sense in philosophy, taught among peoples who are not white and who go bare-headed. And being thus surprised, they are led to produce any evidence of such things, as if they were remarkable and interesting phenomena.