Philosophies of India

SR No.: 007309
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Publication Year: 1953
Total Pages: 709
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 34 MB

Page 523

BUDDHISM
the present world: "Let all joy be in effort," states the king, "because that avails for both this world and the next.' "36"The ceremonial of piety is not temporal; for even if it fails to attain the desired end in this world, it surely begets eternal merit in the other world." "And for what do I toil? For no other end than this, that I may discharge my debt to animate beings, and that while I make some happy here, they may in the next world gain heaven." 38 "Even the small man can, if he choose, by exertion win for himself much heavenly bliss." " And again: “His Majesty thinks nothing of much importance save what concerns the next world." 40
This is the attitude of bhakti, and points to a profound change at least in the style of the teaching of the doctrine. Buddhist art, which suddenly appears in Aśoka's time, depicts multitudes of earth-divinities, gods and goddesses, serpent kings and queens, tree nymphs, and pious animals, paying obeisance to the various consecrated shrines of the Buddhist community, guarding them, rejoicing in the Enlightenment of the Buddha, and otherwise displaying themselves to the faithful in attitudes of devotion. Stūpas, altars, sacred trees, miraculous events, episodes from the "earlier lives" of the Buddha, clerical processions, and all the classic paraphernalia of popular cult, are depicted in the vividly rendered works of sculpture, together with standing portraits of the wealthy donors and their wives, reverently regarding their own donations. The Enlightened One himself is never depicted in these monuments; as we have observed," the place of his presence is represented by vacuity; or it can be symbolized by the Buddha's footprints, the Wheel of the Doctrine, the Bo Tree it
36 Rock Edict XIII; Smith, op. cit., p. 21.
3 Rock Edict IX; Smith, op. cit., p. 15.
38 Rock Edict VI: Smith, op. cit., p. 12.
39 Minor Rock Edict I (Rūpuath Text); Smith, op. cit., p. 3.
40 Rock Edict XIII; Smith, op. cit., pp. 20-21.
41 Cf. supra, pp. 472-473.
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