On the other hand this same Vinaya of the Mulasarvastivadins probably gives us a fragment of history when it tells us that the Buddha had three wives, perhaps too when it relates how Rahula’s paternity was called in question and how Devadatta wanted to marry Yasodhara after the Buddha had abandoned worldly life[656].  The Pali Vinaya and also some Sanskrit Vinayas[657] mention only one wife or none at all.  They do not attempt to describe Gotama’s domestic life and if they make no allusion to it except to mention the mother of Rahula, this is not equivalent to an assertion that he had no other wife.  But when one Vinaya composed in the north of India essays to give a biography of the Buddha and states that he had three wives, there is no reason for doubting that the compiler was in touch with good local tradition.

CHAPTER XIV

MEDITATION

Indian religions lay stress on meditation.  It is not merely commended as a useful exercise but by common consent it takes rank with sacrifice and prayer, or above them, as one of the great activities of the religious life, or even as its only true activity.  It has the full approval of philosophy as well as of theology.  In early Buddhism it takes the place of prayer and worship and though in later times ceremonies multiply, it still remains the main occupation of a monk.  The Jains differ from the Buddhists chiefly in emphasizing the importance of self-mortification, which is put on a par with meditation.  In Hinduism, as might be expected in a fluctuating compound of superstition and philosophy, the schools differ as to the relative efficacy of meditation and ceremonial, but there is a strong tendency to give meditation the higher place.  In all ages a common characteristic appears in the most divergent Indian creeds—­the belief that by a course of mental and physical training the soul can attain to a state of bliss which is the prelude to the final deliverance attained after death.

1

We may begin by examining Brahmanic ideas as to meditation.  Many of them are connected with the word Yoga, which has become familiar to Europe.  It has two meanings.  It is applied first to a definite form of Indian philosophy which is a theistic modification of the Sankhya and secondly to much older practices sanctioned by that philosophy but anterior to it.

The idea which inspires these theories and practices is that the immaterial soul can by various exercises free itself from the fetters of matter.  The soul is distinguished from the mind which, though composed of the subtlest matter, is still material.  This presupposes the duality of matter and spirit taught by Jainism and the Sankhya philosophy, but it does not necessarily presuppose the special doctrines of either nor do Vedantists object to the practice of the Yoga.  The systematic prosecution of mental concentration and the idea that supernatural powers