The Modern Buddhist

Abstract

THIS is an extremely interesting little book. The minister whose views it records—Chao Phya Thipakon—conducted the foreign affairs of his country from 1856 till two years ago, when he was stricken with blindness and was obliged to retire into private life. It was then that he published the work—“a book explaining many things”—the more important parts of which are here translated. We need scarcely say that, looked at from our point of view, some of his beliefs are sufficiently strange, and that he sometimes expresses opinions on subjects which are altogether beyond the range of science. At the same time he has in many respects advanced far beyond the great mass of his co-religionists. He will accept nothing merely because it has been handed down by tradition, but demands proofs which will stand the test of rigid examination. In endeavouring to explain such phenomena as rain, epidemic diseases, the tides, &c., he will have nothing to do with spirits, good or bad; he takes his stand on observed facts, and although his explanations may sometimes be inadequate, they are generally quite in the spirit of modern Western investigation. So far as he understands them, he heartily accepts the European doctrines of astronomy. All this strikes a European reader as very incompatible with certain aspects of the Buddhist religion; but Chao Phya Thipakon is convinced that Buddha knew quite well the truth about the real order of the world, and that he accommodated his language to the prevailing conceptions of his time, only that he might be the more free to proclaim his doctrines on higher subjects. Hence it is proclaimed lawful for a modern Buddhist to open his mind readily to all the results of modern research. Some of the semi-religious customs of his countrymen the ex-minister rationalises in a most amusing way. For instance, the beating of gongs and firing of guns which take place on the occasion of an eclipse, are by no means what they are generally represented—an effort to frighten the dragon who holds the sun in his jaws, so as to make him drop it; they are the expressions of the popular pride and pleasure that the mathematicians of the country are able to predict the time when the eclipse shall occur! With the strictly theological portions of this book, we have, of course, nothing to do here; but we may state that in comparing the different religions of the world with his own, Chao Phya Thipakon is as far removed as possible from a fanatical spirit. He expounds his views calmly, and appears always ready to accept new light from whatever quarter it may come. The objections he raises to the Christian theory of the world betoken a thoughtful and inquiring mind, although, unfortunately, those from whom he derived his ideas of Christianity seem to have been exceptionally poor representatives of their cause. The ethical conceptions of the book are generally of a very noble character. In one point—the proper treatment of the lower animals—the writer, of course, carries his doctrine too far, and he certainly bases it on grounds with which Westerns can have no sympathy; but there can be no doubt that he is practically far nearer the truth than the great mass of Europeans of our own day. On the whole, this book may be accepted as a good omen for the future of the East. It proves that amongst the best minds a genuine spirit of inquiry has been aroused, and that the old cosmogonies and superstitions are already beginning to give way before more scientific conceptions of man and the world.

The Modern Buddhist:

being the views of a Siamese Minister of State on his own and other Religions. Translated, with remarks, by Henry Alabaster., Interpreter of H.B.M. Consulate-General in Siam. (London: Trübner and Co., 1870.)