Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3Eliot, Charles
Religion
Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3
Eliot, Charles
Asia -- Religion; Buddhism; Hinduism
For 200 years, that is from about 1060 A.D. until the later decades of
the thirteenth century, Pagan was a great centre of Buddhist culture
not only for Burma but for the whole east, renowned alike for its
architecture and its scholarship. The former can still be studied in
the magnificent pagodas which mark its site. Towards the end of his
reign Anawrata made not very successful attempts to obtain relics from
China and Ceylon and commenced the construction of the Shwe Zigon
pagoda. He died before it was completed but his successors, who
enjoyed fairly peaceful reigns, finished the work and constructed
about a thousand other buildings among which the most celebrated is
the Ananda temple erected by King Kyansithâ.[152]
Pali literature in Burma begins with a little grammatical treatise
known as Kârikâ and composed in 1064 A.D. by the monk Dhammasenâpati
who lived in the monastery attached to this temple. A number of other
works followed. Of these the most celebrated was the Saddanîti of
Aggavaṃsa (1154), a treatise on the language of the Tipiṭaka
which became a classic not only in Burma but in Ceylon. A singular
enthusiasm for linguistic studies prevailed especially in the reign of
Kyocvâ (_c._ 1230), when even women are said to have been
distinguished for the skill and ardour which they displayed in
conquering the difficulties of Pali grammar. Some treatises on the
Abhidhamma were also produced.
Like Mohammedanism, Hinayanist Buddhism is too simple and definite to
admit much variation in doctrine, but its clergy are prone to violent
disputes about apparently trivial questions. In the thirteenth century
such disputes assumed grave proportions in Burma. About 1175 A.D. a
celebrated elder named Uttarâjîva accompanied by his pupil
Chapaṭa left for Ceylon. They spent some years in study at the
Mahâvihâra and Chapaṭa received ordination there. He returned to
Pagan with four other monks and maintained that valid ordination could
be conferred only through the monks of the Mahâvihâra, who alone had
kept the succession unbroken. He with his four companions, having
received this ordination, claimed power to transmit it, but he
declined to recognize Burmese orders. This pretension aroused a storm
of opposition, especially from the Talaing monks. They maintained that
Arahanta who had reformed Buddhism under Anawrata was spiritually
descended from the missionaries sent by Asoka, who were as well
qualified to administer ordination as Mahinda. But Chapaṭa was not
only a man of learning and an author[153] but also a vigorous
personality and in favour at Court. He had the best of the contest and
succeeded in making the Talaing school appear as seceders from
orthodoxy. There thus arose a distinction between the Sinhalese or
later school and the old Burmese school, who regarded one another as
schismatics. A scandal was caused in the Sinhalese community by
Râhula, the ablest of Chapaṭa's disciples, who fell in love with an
actress and wished to become a layman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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