THE GOSPEL OF BUDDHA

COMPILED FROM ANCIENT RECORDS

BY

PAUL CARUS

ILLUSTRATED

BY

O. KOPETZKY

CHICAGO and LONDON

THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY

1915

[Pg v]

Table of contents

PREFACE.

This booklet needs no preface for those who are familiar with the sacredbooks of Buddhism, which have been made accessible to the Western worldby the indefatigable zeal and industry of scholars like Beal, Bigandet,Bühler, Burnouf, Childers, Alexander Csoma, Rhys Davids, Dutoit, Eitel,Fausböll, Foucaux, Francke, Edmund Hardy, Spence Hardy, Hodgson, CharlesR. Lanman, F. Max Müller, Karl Eugen Neumann, Oldenberg, Pischel,Schiefner, Senart, Seidenstücker, Bhikkhu Nyānatiloka, D.M. Strong,Henry Clarke Warren, Wassiljew, Weber, Windisch, Winternitz &c. To thosenot familiar with the subject it may be stated that the bulk of itscontents is derived from the old Buddhist canon. Many passages, andindeed the most important ones, are literally copied in translationsfrom the original texts. Some are rendered rather freely in order tomake them intelligible to the present generation; others have beenrearranged; and still others are abbreviated. Besides the threeintroductory and the three concluding chapters there are[Pg vi] only a fewpurely original additions, which, however, are neither mere literaryembellishments nor deviations from Buddhist doctrines. Wherever thecompiler has admitted modernization he has done so with dueconsideration and always in the spirit of a legitimate development.Additions and modifications contain nothing but ideas for whichprototypes can be found somewhere among the traditions of Buddhism, andhave been introduced as elucidations of its main principles.

The best evidence that this book characterizes the spirit of Buddhismcorrectly can be found in the welcome it has received throughout theentire Buddhist world. It has even been officially introduced inBuddhist schools and temples of Japan and Ceylon. Soon after theappearance of the first edition of 1894 the Right Rev. Shaku Soyen, aprominent Buddhist abbot of Kamakura, Japan, had a Japanese translationmade by Teitaro Suzuki, and soon afterwards a Chinese version was madeby Mr. Ohara of Otzu, the talented editor of a Buddhist periodical, whoin the meantime has unfortunately met with a premature death. In 1895the Open Court Publishing Company brought out a German edition by E.F.L.Gauss, and Dr. L. de Milloué, the curator of the Musée Guimet, of Paris,followed with a French translation. Dr. Federigo Rodriguez hastranslated the book into Spanish and Felix Orth into Dutch. Theprivilege of translating the book into Russian, Czechic, Italian, alsointo Siamese and other Oriental tongues has been granted, but of theselatter the publishers have received only a version in the Urdu language,a dialect of eastern India.[Pg vii]

Inasmuch as twelve editions of the Gospel of Buddha have been exhaustedand the plates are worn out, the publishers have decided to bring out anédition d