Sangha

“ Though theoretically the Sangha of Buddha was the ideal unit, practically it never became so. After his decease there was no central governing power to direct and inspire the whole organisation. The patriarchs, of whom a long succession is given, were not hierarchs in the Greek or Latin sense. [293] They were simply outstanding Arhats, the heroic defenders and apostles of the system. Primitive Buddhism was represented not by one but by many Sanghas, for each brother as he went forth became the centre of a new fraternity. ”

“ Not only is she endowed with philosophising talents, but she stands on equal footing with man. Among the fifty-three philosophers or leaders of thought visited by Sudhana in his religious pilgrimage, he interviewed many women in various walks of life, and some of whom were even courtesans. They all wisely discoursed with the insatiable seeker of truth. What a different state of affairs this was when compared with the reluctant admission of women into the Sangha in the early days of Buddhism! ”

“ The word Hyang is also heard in the word Guriangor mountain spirit. Sang is no doubt also derived from Sanscrit; it appears to imply holy, sacred, and may have the same etymon as the Greek and Latin Sanctus. Thus in Sunda, the word is placed before simple Polynesian words, when in Pantuns, it is meant to endue some mere animal with supernatural power. Thus they say Sang-kĕbo or Sang-monyét, the divine buffaloe or the divine monkey. Sangha in Singhalese, C. 688, means multitude, number, collection; the Buddhist priesthood ”

“ Though the Sangha as founded by the Buddha did not claim, still less exact, anything from the laity, yet it was their duty, their most obvious and easy method of acquiring merit, to honour and support monks, to provide them with food, clothes and lodging and with everything which they might lawfully possess. Strictly speaking a monk does not beg for food nor thank for what he receives. He gives the layman a chance of doing a good deed and the donor, not the recipient, should be thankful. ”

“ Something similar may be found in Lamaism, but it forms no part of Gotama's original institution nor of the Buddhist Church as seen to-day in Burma, Siam and Ceylon. The members of the Sangha are not priests or mediators. They have joined a confraternity in order to lead a higher life for which ordinary society has no place. They will teach others, not as those whose duty it is to make the laity conform to their standard but as those who desire to make known the truth. ”

“ The Sangha, or Monastic Community, is the third treasure of Buddhism, and the satisfaction of the Buddhist laity with the monastic body is said to be very great. At any rate, the cause of education in Burma owes much to the monks, but it is hard to realize how the Monastic Community can be in the same sense a 'refuge' from the miseries of the world as the Buddha or Dharmakâya. ”

“ But the order thus reconstituted was aristocratic and exclusive: only members of the highest caste were admitted to it and the wealthy middle classes found themselves excluded from a community which they were expected to honour and maintain. This led to the despatch of an embassy to Burma in 1802 and to the foundation of another branch of the Sangha, known as the Amarapura school, distinct in so far as its validity depended on Burmese not Siamese ordination. ”

“ The fact that in the very year of his death and at various times subsequently, conventions and councils of the Sangha were held, for the verification of the actual teachings of the Founder, and the handing down of those verified teachings from teacher to pupil, to the present day.
(6) After his cremation his relics were divided among eight kings and a stūpa was erected over each portion. The portion given to King Ajātashatru, and by him covered with a stūpa at Rājagrha, was taken, less than two centuries later, by the Emperor Asoka and distributed throughout his Empire. ”

“ The only difficulty in the use of “monks” is caused by the members of the sect in Japan which, since the middle of the fifteenth century, has abolished the prohibition against marrying on the part of its ministers, and other prohibitions in diet and dress. Sang and sang-kea represent the Sanskrit sangha, constituted by at least four members, and empowered to hear confession, to grant absolution, to admit persons to holy orders, &c.; secondly, the third constituent of the Buddhistic Trinity, a deification of the communio sanctorum, or the Buddhist order. ”

“ In 1886, when the British annexed Burma, the Head of the Sangha forbade monks to take part in the political strife, a prohibition which was all the more remarkable because King Thibaw had issued proclamations saying that the object of the invasion was to destroy Buddhism.
In essentials monastic life is much the same in Burma and Ceylon but the Burmese standard is higher, and any monk known to misconduct himself would be driven out by the laity. ”

“ I therefore think it probable that he became a lay Buddhist soon after the conquest of Kalinga, that is in the ninth or tenth year after his accession, and a member of the Sangha two and a half years later. On this hypothesis all his edicts are the utterances of a Buddhist.
It may be objected that no one could be a monk and at the same time govern a great empire: it is more natural and more in accordance with Indian usage that towards the end of his life an aged king should abdicate and renounce the world. ”

“ The more studious monks are not merely schoolmasters but can point to a considerable body of literature which they have produced in the past and are still producing [181] . Indeed among the Hinayanist churches that of Burma has in recent centuries held the first place for learning. The age and continuity of Sinhalese traditions have given the Sangha of Ceylon a correspondingly great prestige but it has more than [Pg 71] once been recruited from Burma and in literary output it can hardly rival the Burmese clergy. ”

“ So long, O bhikkhus, as the brethren hold full and frequent assemblies, meeting in concord, rising in concord, and attending in concord to the affairs of the Sangha; so long as they, O bhikkhus, do not abrogate that which experience has proved to be good, and introduce nothing except such things as have been carefully tested; so long as their elders practise justice; so long as the brethren esteem, revere, and support their elders, and hearken unto their words ”

“ Neither is it possible, by mere technical analysis of this kind, to discover the deeper meaning of any art, or to relate the monuments of a past age to the life and times of the people who built them.
The stūpa, as is well known, was a relic shrine and a symbol of the passing of the Buddha into Pari-Nirvāna, the boundless Ocean of Eternity. In Buddhist history it was primarily the funeral monument of the royal monk, the Prince of the Sākyas, who taught the four Aryan truths, the Aryan Eightfold Path, and founded the Sangha, organised after the customs and traditions of an Aryan clan. ”

“ But though Asoka greatly increased the number of master-builders in the imperial service by the employment of foreigners, even he could not command sufficient labour for his colossal building projects, [1] so that the stūpa-houses of the Sangha continued for the most part to be built of wood and thatch. But it was in his reign that the royal craftsmen of India began the great series of rock-cut stūpa-houses and monasteries for which Kārlē, Nāsik, Kenheri, Ajantā, Ellora, and other places are famous. ”

“ In the last chapter we have tried to trace the evolution of the Indian sikhara chapel back to the patriarchal times when the Kshatriya chieftain officiated as high priest at the Aryan tribal sacrifices, and the Kshatriya householder had no need of a Brahman to direct the worship of his lares et penates. We have also seen how the memorial chapel of the dead Aryan chieftain was appropriated to Buddhist worship, and used as the Assembly-hall of the Sangha. It remains now to explain the subsequent evolution of the stūpa shrine in Hindu temple architecture. ”

“ For he said: "The "bhikkhus who side with the expelled brother form a different communion from those who pronounced the sentence. There are venerable brethren in both parties. As they do not agree, let them keep Uposatha and perform official acts separately."8
And the Blessed One reprimanded the quarrelsome bhikkus saying to them:9
"Loud is the voice which worldlings make; but how can they be blamed when divisions arise also in the Sangha? Hatred is not appeased in those who think: 'He has reviled me, he has wronged me, he has injured me.'10
"For not by hatred is hatred appeased. ”

“ Edict he recommends for study a series of scriptural passage which can be identified more or less certainly with portions of the Pali Pitakas. In the Sarnath Edict he speaks not only as a Buddhist but as head of the Church. He orders that monks or nuns who endeavour to create a schism shall put on lay costume and live outside their former monastery or convent. He thus assumes the right to expel schismatics from the Sangha. He goes on to say that a similar edict (i.e. an edict against schism) is to be inscribed for the benefit of the laity who are to come and see it on Uposatha days. ”

“ Entering the mouth of the valley, and going west, he found Buddha’s Sanghali, (11) where also there is reared a vihâra, and offerings are made. It is a custom of the country when there is a great drought, for the people to collect in crowds, bring out the robe, pay worship to it, and make offerings, on which there is immediately a great rain from the sky.
South of the city, half a yojana, there is a rock-cavern, in a great hill fronting the south-west; and here it was that Buddha left his shadow. ”

“ I told Sangala I should force my way up. Sangala and all his people shouted with all their might that there should be war; Sangala, as he got up to say so, reared and tumbled down, he was so drunk.
So I left Sangala. By that time it rained so hard that no one followed us. It is wonderful how a crowd is dispersed by a shower of rain.
A great palaver was looming up; the excitement had spread over the country. In the meantime I had succeeded in going to Ranpano's village, situated up the river, five or six miles above Elindé. Ranpano gave me as much land as I wanted. ”

“ Between the times of the Planetary Prince and Adam, India became the home of the most cosmopolitan population ever to be found on the face of the earth. But it was unfortunate that this mixture came to contain so much of the green, orange, and indigo races. These secondary Sangik peoples found existence more easy and agreeable in the southlands, and many of them subsequently migrated to Africa. The primary Sangik peoples, the superior races, avoided the tropics, the red man going northeast to Asia, closely followed by the yellow man, while the blue race moved northwest into Europe. ”

“ APPENDIX The Story of the Descent of Ganga (the Ganges) , as related in the “Ramayana”
In ancient times lived Sangara, a virtuous king of Ayodhya. He had two wives but no children. As he and his consorts longed for offspring, the three of them went to the Himalayas and practised austerities there. When they had been thus engaged for a hundred years, a Brahman ascetic of great power granted this boon to Sangara; that one of his wives should give birth to a son who should perpetuate his race and the other should be the mother of sixty thousand manly and high-spirited sons. ”

“ When this occurred the deities and Gandharvas began to worship the angry Jahna, who, being propitiated by their attentions, allowed the river to flow off through his ears. Proceeding again in the wake of Bhagiratha’s chariot, Ganga, having reached the ocean, entered the under-world where the ashes of the sixty thousand sons of Sangara still lay. Her sanctifying waters flowed over their earthly remains and their spirits ascended to heaven. ”

“ It is very noticeable with these Sangley people that they intermix with any other people who are here, in a very singular fashion; for at once they intermarry with the women of these nations, adopt their customs, and live like Indians. These are not the only evils connected with the said settlement of the said natives remaining there, but there are even other injuries, perhaps greater, at any rate as great. ”

“ The headlands drip with the unceasing spray, and at their feet are twin whirlpools that go down to the very bowels of the earth, according to tradition, and wash the feet of Sangjang, ruler of Hades, himself. Certain it is that nothing ever cast into the whirlpools has returned; certain it is, too, say the people of Bulungan, that the Sang-sangs, good spirits, have never brought back any word of the souls of men lost in the foaming waters. ”

“ As there is a superabundance of population in China, and the wages and profits there are little, they regard as of importance whatever they get in the Filipinas.
Very great annoyances result from this; for, not only can there be little security to the country with so many infidels, but the Sangleys are a wicked and vicious race. Through intercourse and communication with them, the natives improve little in Christianity and morals. And since they come in such numbers and are so great eaters, they raise the price of provisions, and consume them. ”

“ The half-breeds, or people of mixed Chinese and Indian blood, known by the name of Sangleys, are usually permitted, in districts where their number is considerable, to elect a Major from among their own class, whose power over them is exactly similar to that of the captain of the village where they reside over the aboriginal Indians: they do not interfere with each other, and are quite independent of any one save the alcalde of the province. When there are two gobernadorcillos in the same village, they each look after their own class, whether Mestizos or natives. ”