Note 20 — Chapter II

Buddha had so much at heart the conversion of the heretic Thoubat, that the earnest desire of performing this great and meritorious action was one of the three motives that induced him to select the comparatively insignificant city of Koutheinaron for the last stage of his existence. Particulars regarding that personage would prove interesting, because he is the last convert Buddha made. From what has been alluded to in some Buddhistic writings regarding Thoubat, it is certain that he was of the caste of pounhas or Brahmins. He had studied in some of the numerous schools of philosophy, at that time so common in India. From his way of addressing Buddha, there is no doubt but he was acquainted with the principal theories upheld by the most renowned masters in those days. It is related of Thoubat that, in a former existence, he was tilling a field with one of his brothers, when some Rahans happened to pass by. His brother gave abundant alms to the holy personages, whilst Thoubat showed less liberal dispositions. When, then, Buddha appeared, the law was announced to the generous donor, and in company with eighteen koudes of Brahmas he obtained the state of Thautapan. The rather parsimonious Thoubat obtained the favour of conversion at the eleventh hour. He must have, however, subsequently atoned for this offence, as his dispositions seem to have been of the highest order when he came into Buddha’s presence. In a few hours he had gone over the four ways leading to perfection, and had become a Rahanda.

In the days of Buddha, the philosophical schools of India seem to have had six eminent teachers, whose doctrines exhibited on some points a considerable variance. In a book of religious controversy between a Christian and a Buddhist, composed more than a hundred years ago by a Catholic priest at Ava, the writer had the chance of meeting with a faint outline of the leading tenets maintained by the six teachers, so often alluded to in this compilation. One of them maintained the existence and agency of numberless genii, who, at their will, could favour man with fortune and every possible temporal benefits, as well as visit him with their displeasure, by depriving him of all happiness and heaping misery and all sorts of calamities over his head. Geniolatry was the necessary consequence flowing from such a principle. A second teacher denied at once the dogma of metempsychosis, and maintained that every being had the innate power of reproducing by way of generation, &c., another being of similar nature. A third one had singular notions regarding the nature of man. He said that he had his beginning in the womb of his mother, and that death was the end and destruction of his being: such a destruction he called Neibban. A fourth teacher taught that all beings were without beginning and ending, and that there existed no influence of good and bad deeds. A fifth doctor defined Neibban, a long life like that of Nats and Brahmas. He saw no harm in the killing of animals, and he asserted the existence of a state of reward and punishment. The last teacher boldly asserted the existence of a Supreme Being, creator of all that exists, and alone worthy of receiving adorations.

Thoubat’s mind was rather perplexed by so many contradictory and opposite opinions and doctrines. He had lived, it appears, in a state of doubt and uncertainty, fluctuating, as it were, between conflicting theories which could not carry conviction to his soul. He had heard of Buddha and wished to see him, hoping that perhaps he might fall in with the truth he was so ardently panting after. With these dispositions, he came to the spot where Buddha was lying on his couch, in the hope of easing his mind from the state of doubt and fixing it in truth. Like a man of consummate abilities in the way of arguing and convincing his adversary, Buddha sets aside all that was put forward by his antagonist, and, coming at once to the point, preaches to him the true doctrine. As light dispels darkness, so truth disperses the mist of error. Thoubat, seeing truth, at once embraced it, gladly ridding himself of the burden of errors that had hitherto weighed down his soul. All his doubts vanished away, and he found himself, on a sudden, safely anchored in the calm and never-agitated harbour of perfect truth.

Next to the conversion of Thoubat, follows an interesting instruction delivered to Ananda and the assembled Rahans. Here Buddha displays the superiority of his lofty mind. Clinging to the principles of abstract truth, he has no regard for persons or things. This material world, man included, is, in his opinion, a mere illusion, exhibiting nothing real, but only an uninterrupted succession of changes, which exclude the idea of immutable fixity. He apparently has no wish to infuse consolation into the afflicted souls of his disciples. He supposes that, being all initiated in the knowledge of truth, and having entered in the ways of perfection, they must know that the person of a Buddha is subjected to the law of mutability, and, therefore, to destruction or to death. He says plainly to them that his absence from among them is a circumstance scarcely worth noticing: by his doctrines contained in the Abidama, the Thoots and the Wini, he will ever be present among them. In these sacred writings they will possess something more valuable than his material being: they will have and enjoy the truth that was in him, and that he has communicated to them by his oral instructions. He earnestly invites them to lay stress only on that doctrine which they have received from him.

It is hardly necessary to notice a serious anachronism made by the unskilful compiler of this legend on this occasion. We know that Buddha wrote nothing, and that the compilation of his doctrines with its division in three distinct portions was the work of the three great councils held after Gaudama’s death or Neibban. How could the dying originator of Buddhism speak of compilations of his doctrines, which were not as yet existing?