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WE are now in the midst of the Asiatic world of two thousand and sixteen hundred years ago. In India, in Afghanistan, and in Turkestan, Buddhist priests had entered actively on that pilgrim life to which monasticism inevitably gives origin. With the object either of instructing, or of worshipping at some celebrated shrine, travelers were constantly seen on each foot-worn mountain path proceeding to some distant monastery. Such scenes as the following, illustrating the beliefs of the time and locality, would not seldom occur.



A wayfarer in the country of the Getæ (Jats) (Afghanistan) knocks at the door of a Brahman family. A young man within answers; “There is no one in this house." The traveler was too well taught in Buddhism not to know the meaning of this philosophical nihilism, and at once answered, "Who is no one?" The young man, when he heard this, felt that he was understood. A kindred spirit was outside. Hurriedly he opened the door, and invited the stranger to enter. The visitor was the patriarch of the time (seventeenth), with staff and rice bowl, travelling to teach and make new disciples.



On his entrance, he at once proceeded to utter a statement that this young man was the object of a long foretold destiny. A thousand years after Buddha's death, a distinguished teacher would appear in the country of the Getæ, who would reform his contemporaries, and follow up the work of illustrious predecessors. This meant that he was to become patriarch. He is eighteenth in the series.



A patriarch is represented as one who does not look at evil and dislike it; nor does he, when he sees that which is good, make a strong effort to attain it. He does not put wisdom aside and approach folly; nor does he fling away delusion and aim at comprehending truth. Yet he has an acquaintance with great truths which is beyond being measured, and he penetrates into Buddha's mind to a depth that cannot be fathomed. His lodging is not with the sage, nor with the common class. Because he is above every one else in his attainments, he is called a patriarch.



A patriarch has magical powers. He can fly through the air, cross rivers on a boat of leaves, rain milk 1 at will from the air, and enter into a very great variety of trances or Samadhi.



A patriarch has the keenest intellectual perception. He can dive into men's thoughts, and explain the meaning of the longest and most obscure compositions. The superiority of his mental faculties to those of common men is most marked. He can accomplish intellectual feats where others fail. Possessed of such gifts and qualifications as these, a patriarch is the chief defender of Buddhism against the heretics and opposes of his time. Selected by the last patriarch from the crowd of common disciples, he takes the chief place ever after as champion of the Buddhist law and discipline. He cares nothing for luxurious living or social rank. He lives poorly, is meanly clad, and keeps up the dignity of his position by the influence of mind, of character, and of supernatural acts.



The succession was broken at the fifth Chinese patriarch, and has never been restored.

The rank of patriarch could be the more easily discontinued because he had no ruling power. He was simply a defender, teacher, and example of the Buddhist doctrine and life.

The following paragraphs are taken from papers I wrote many years ago.



After the death of Shakyamuni, or, to speak honorifically, his entrance into the Nirvâna at Kushinagara, a series of thirty-three patriarchs, if we include five Chinese holders of the dignity, superintended in succession the affairs of the religious community he had founded. Remusat has given an abstract of the biography of the patriarchs taken from a Japanese encyclopædia. He says, Buddha, before his death, committed the secret of his mysteries to his disciple, Maha Kashiapa. He was a Brahman, born in the kingdom Magadha, in Central India. To him was instructed the deposit of esoteric doctrine, called Cheng fa-yen-tsang, "the pure secret of the eye of right doctrine.