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Updated: May 1, 2025
It hath been heard by us that persons born in the Kashatriya order have become Brahmanas. The foremost of all wielders of weapons, the preceptor Drona hath been born in a waterpot and Kripa of the race of Gotama hath sprung from a clump of heath. Your own births, ye Pandava princes, are known to me.
Yajnasena sends to propose an exchange of prisoners, but Agnimitra haughtily rejects the stipulation, and sends orders to his brother-in-law, Virasena, to lead an army immediately against the Raja of Viderbha. This affair being disposed of, he directs his attention to domestic interests, and employs his Vidushaka or confidant, Gotama, to procure him the sight of Malavika.
In the Majjhima-Nikâya we find a story about Kakusandha and his disciples and Gotama once gave an extended account of Vipassî, whose teaching and career are represented as almost identical with his own. Different explanations have been given of this common element. There is clearly a wish to emphasize the continuity of the Dhamma and the similarity of its exponents in all ages.
To which the Buddha replies that his language is a concession to those who cannot stomach the doctrine of the negation of reality in all its austerity. Some of the best known verses of Gauḍapâda compare the world of appearance to the apparent circle of fire produced by whirling a lighted torch. A real affinity unites the doctrine of Śankara to the teaching of Gotama himself.
At last Gotama yielded—perhaps the only instance in which he is represented as convinced by argument—but he added "If, Ânanda, women had not received permission to enter the Order, the pure religion would have lasted long, the good law would have stood fast a thousand years. But since they had received that permission, it will now stand fast for only five hundred years ."
From the latter he probably did, if not in flesh at least in spirit. To that spirit antiquity was indebted, as modernity is equally, for the doctrines of a teacher known variously as Gotama the Enlightened and Sakya the Sage. Whether or not the teacher himself existed is, therefore, unimportant. The existence of the Christ has been doubted. But the doctrines of both survive.
The long arms may be compared with the Persian title rendered in Latin by Longimanus and it is conceivable that the protuberances on the head may have been personal peculiarities of Gotama.
But with Mohammed comparison, or rather contrast, is easier. Both were seekers after truth: both found what they believed to be the truth only when of mature years, Gotama when about thirty-six, Mohammed when forty or more: both lived to be elderly men and possessed great authority. But there the analogy ends. Perhaps no single human being has had so great an effect on the world as Mohammed.
Gotama Buddha was not a "savior" in the sense of bloody sacrifice for the sins of the people. On the contrary, he was an example to mankind a man who through moral purification and a life of self-abnegation had prepared himself for this holy office. Mythologically, or astrologically, he was the new sun born at the close of the cycle.
They were called indifferently Buddha, Jina, Arhat, etc., and it was only after the constitution of the Buddhist church that these titles received fixed meanings. Closely connected with the idea of the Buddha or Jina is that of the Mahâpurusha or great man. Such a prediction is said to have been made respecting the infant Gotama and all previous Buddhas.
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