DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45392#0288
Buddha & the Gospel of Buddhism
nothing in Buddha’s attitude generally which could be
regarded by his contemporaries as unusual, he had not to
introduce anything fundamentally new; on the contrary,
it would have been an innovation if he had undertaken
to preach a way of salvation which did not proceed on
a basis of monastic observances.” 1
The first systematic expression of such an ‘innovation,’
of which the source and sanction are to be found in the
already old doctrine of the identity of This and That,
Becoming and not-Becoming, is in the Bhagavad, Gita.
This is variously dated as between 400 b.c. and a.d. 200,
but whatever remodelling it may have undergone it can
hardly be doubted that its essential thought is the recog-
nition of Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga side by side with
Jnana Yoga as ‘ means ’ of salvation:
“ It was with works that Janaka and others came into
adeptship; thou too shouldst do them, considering the
order of the world ... as do the unwise, attached to
works, so should the wise do, but without attachment,
seeking to establish order in the world.”
“ He who beholds in Work No-work, and in No-Work
Work, is the man of understanding amongst mortals ; he
is in the rule, a doer of perfect work. . . . Free from
attachment to the fruit of works, everlastingly contented,
unconfined, even though he be engaged in Work he does
not Work at all.”
“ Casting off all thy Works upon Me with thy mind on
the One over Self, be thou without craving and without
1 Buddha, English translation, ed. 2 (1904), p. 119. It is true that the
layman Arahat is not altogether unknown to Early Buddhism (twenty-
one are mentioned in the Anguttara Nikaya, iii, 451, and Suddhodana,
Gautama’s father is also specially mentioned), but the fulfilment of
worldly duties, however selflessly, was never preached as a way of
salvation.
212
nothing in Buddha’s attitude generally which could be
regarded by his contemporaries as unusual, he had not to
introduce anything fundamentally new; on the contrary,
it would have been an innovation if he had undertaken
to preach a way of salvation which did not proceed on
a basis of monastic observances.” 1
The first systematic expression of such an ‘innovation,’
of which the source and sanction are to be found in the
already old doctrine of the identity of This and That,
Becoming and not-Becoming, is in the Bhagavad, Gita.
This is variously dated as between 400 b.c. and a.d. 200,
but whatever remodelling it may have undergone it can
hardly be doubted that its essential thought is the recog-
nition of Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga side by side with
Jnana Yoga as ‘ means ’ of salvation:
“ It was with works that Janaka and others came into
adeptship; thou too shouldst do them, considering the
order of the world ... as do the unwise, attached to
works, so should the wise do, but without attachment,
seeking to establish order in the world.”
“ He who beholds in Work No-work, and in No-Work
Work, is the man of understanding amongst mortals ; he
is in the rule, a doer of perfect work. . . . Free from
attachment to the fruit of works, everlastingly contented,
unconfined, even though he be engaged in Work he does
not Work at all.”
“ Casting off all thy Works upon Me with thy mind on
the One over Self, be thou without craving and without
1 Buddha, English translation, ed. 2 (1904), p. 119. It is true that the
layman Arahat is not altogether unknown to Early Buddhism (twenty-
one are mentioned in the Anguttara Nikaya, iii, 451, and Suddhodana,
Gautama’s father is also specially mentioned), but the fulfilment of
worldly duties, however selflessly, was never preached as a way of
salvation.
212