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The abridged version of THE BUDDHIST CATECHISM which appears on this site is compiled
from various editions which followed it's first publication in 1881 by Col. Henry Steel Olcott, providing not only an excellent introduction
to Buddhist history and practice, but also the fundamental beliefs shared in common by all Buddhists.
[1] Q: How do Buddhist Bhikkhus differ from the priests of other religions?
A: In other religions the priests claim to be intercessors between men and God, to help obtain pardon of sins; the Buddhist Bhikkhus do not acknowledge or expect anything from a divine power.
[2] Q: But why then was it worth while to create this Order, or Brotherhood, or Society, apart from the whole body of the people, if they were not to do what other religions do?
A: The object in view was to cause the most virtuous, intelligent, unselfish and spiritually minded persons to withdraw from the social surrounding where their sensual and other selfish desires were naturally strengthened, devote their lives to the acquisition of the highest wisdom, and fit themselves to teach and guide others out of the path leading towards misery, into the path that leads to true happiness and final liberation.
[3] Q: Besides the Eight, what two additional observances are obligatory upon the Bhikkhus?
A: The precept to abstain from dancing, singing, and unbecoming shows; and the precept to abstain from receiving gold or silver.*
Note: The whole Dasa, or Ten Precepts (Bhikkhu Sila), are binding on all Bhikkhus and novices (Samaneras), but optional with lay devotees.
[4] Q: Are there separate Rules and Precepts for the guidance and discipline of the Order?
A: Yes. There are 250 Rules and Precepts, divided into four sections: principal disciplinary rules (Patimokkha Samvara Sila); observances for the repression of the senses (Indriya Samvara Sila); regulations for justly procuring and using food, diet, robes, ect., (Paccaya Sannissita Sila); directions for leading an unblemished life(Ajivapari Suddha Sila).
[5] Q: What are some of the crimes or offences that Bhikkhus are particularily prohibited from committing?
A: Real Bhikkhus abstain from: destroying the life of beings; stealing; false exhibition of "occult" powers to deceive anybody; sexual intercourse; falsehood; the use of intoxicants and eating at unreasonable times; dancing and singing; using garlands, scents, perfumes, ect.; using high and broad beds, couches or seats; receiving presents of gold, silver, raw grain and meat, ect.; defaming; using harsh and reproachable language; idle talk; reading and hearing fabulous stories and tales; carrying messages to and from laymen; buying and selling; cheating, bribing, deception, and fraud; imprisoning, plundering, and threatening others; the practice of specified magical arts and sciences, such as fortune-telling, astrological predictions, palmistry, and other sciences, that go under the name of magic. Any of these would retard the progress of one who aimed at the attainment of Nirvana.
[6] Q: What are the duties of Bhikkhus to the laity?
A: Generally, to set them an example of the highest morality; to teach and instruct them; to expound the Law; to recite the Paritta (comforting textx) to the sick, and publicly in times of public calamity, when requested to do so; and unceasingly to exhort the people to virtuous actions. They should dissuade them from vice; be compassionate and tender-hearted, and seek to promote the welfare of all beings.
[7] Q: What are the rules for admission into the Order?
A: The candidate is not often taken before his tenth year; he must have the consent of his parents; be free from leprosy, boils, consumption and fits; be a free man; have no debts; and must not be a criminal or deformed or in royal service.
[8] Q: As a novice, what is he called?
A: "Samanera", a pupil.
[9] Q: At what age can he be ordained as a monk, as a Sramana?
A: Not before his twentieth year.
[10] Q: What happens when he is ready for ordination?
A: He is presented before a meeting of the Bhikkhus by a fellow Bhikkhu (as his introducer), who states that the candidate is qualified, and the candidate then requests the Upasampada (ordination) ceremony. His introducer then recommends that he be admitted, after which he is accepted.
[11] Q: What then?
A: He puts on the robes and repeats the Three Refuges (Tisarana) and the Ten Precepts (Dasa Sila).
[12] Q: What are the two essentials to be observed?
A: Poverty and Chastity.
[13] Q: What about the public confession of faults?
A: Once every fortnight, a Patimokka (Disburdenment) ceremony is performed, when every Bhikkhu confesses to the assembly such faults as he has committed and takes such penances as may be prescribed.
[14] Q: What daily routines must he follow?
A: He rises before daylight, washes, sweeps the vihara, sweeps around the Bo-tree that grows near every vihara, brings the drinking water for the day and filters it; retires for meditation, offers flowers before the dagoba, or relic-mound, or before the Bo-tree; then takes his begging-bowl and goes from house to house collecting food --- which he must not ask for, but receive in his bowl as given voluntarily by the householders. He returns, bathes his feet and eats, after which he resumes meditation.
[15] Q: Must we believe that there is no merit in the offering of flowers (mala puja) as an act of worship?
A: The act itself is without merit, a mere formality, but if one offers a flower as the sweetest, purest expression of heartfelt reverence, then, indeed, the offering is an act of ennobling worship.
[16] Q: What does a Bhikkhu do next?
A: He pursues his studies. At sunset he again sweeps the sacred places, lights a lamp, listens to the instructions of his superior, and confesses to him any fault he may have committed.
[17] Q: On what are his four earnest meditations (Sati-patthana) made?
A: On the body (Kayanapassana); on the feeling (Vedananupassana); on the mind (Chittanupassana); and on the doctrine (Dhammanupassana).
[18] Q: What is the aim of the four Great Efforts (Sammappadhana)?
A: To suppress one’s animal desires and grow in goodness.
[19] Q: For the perceptions by the Bhikkhus of the highest truth, is "reason" said to be the best or "intuition"?
A: Intuition --- a mental state in which any desired truth is instantaneously grasped.
[20] Q: And when can that development be reached?
A: When one, by the practice of Jnana, comes to its fourth stage of unfolding.
[21] Q: Are we to believe that in the final stage of Jnana, and in the condition called Samadhi, the mind is a blank and thought is arrested?
A: Quite to the contrary. It is then that one’s consciousness is most intensely active, and one’s power to gain knowledge correspondingly vast.
[22] Q: Try to give me a simile or comparison?
A: In the ordinary waking state, one’s view of knowledge is as limited as the sight of a man who walks on a road between high hills; in the higher consciousness of Jnana and Samadhi it is like the sight of an eagle poised in the upper sky and overlooking the whole country.
[23] Q: What do our books say about the Buddha’s use of this faculty?
A: They tell us that it was his custom, every morning, to glance over the world and see where there were persons ready to receive the truth. He would then contrive, if possible, that it should reach them. When persons visited him he would look into their hearts, read their secret motives, and then preach to them according to their needs.
[24] Q: In regard to the number of followers, how does Buddhism compare with other religions?
A: Buddhism is the fourth largest religion in the world.
[25] Q: What is the estimated number?
A: Estimates vary between 230 and 500 million, but in 1997 the generally accepted number was 362 million, not including the new asian sects and humanists of Buddhist orientation which could push the total number well beyond 500 million.
[26] Q: Have there been great battles or blood spilt in the name of Buddha-Dharma?
A: History does not record one crime or cruelty as having been committed in the propagation of the Buddha-Dharma.
[27] Q: What is the secret to its spread?
A: It can be nothing other than its self-evident basis of truth, its sublime moral teaching, and its sufficiency for all human needs.
[28] Q: How was it propagated?
A: The Buddha, during the forty-five years of his life as a Teacher, traveled widely in India and preached the Dharma. He sent his wisest and best disciples to do the same throughout India.
[29] Q: When did he send his pioneer missionaries out in the world?
A: On the full moon day of the month Wap (October).
[30] Q: What did he tell them?
A: He called them together and said: "Go forth, Bhikkhus, go and preach the law to the world. Work for the good of others as well as for your own... Bear ye the glad tidings to every man. Let no two of you take the same way."
[31] Q: How long before the Christian era did this happen?
A: About six centuries.
[32] Q: What help did Kings give?
A: Besides the lower classes, great Kings, Rajas, and Maharajas were converted and gave their influence to the spread of the Buddha-Dharma.
[33] Q: What about pilgrims?
A: Learned pilgrims came in different centuries to India and carried back with them books* and teachings to their native lands. So, gradually, whole nations gave up their own faiths and became Buddhists.
Note: The teachings and discourses of the Buddha were transmitted orally in the beginning and, by the time the discourses were first written down in Pali by the monks of the Tamrashatiya School in Sri Lanka, there were eighteen or twenty different schools, each with its own oral version of the teachings. Two of these versions exist today; the Tamrashatiya canon (or the Southern Transmission, the "Teachings of the Elders") and the Sarvastivada canon (the Northern Transmission).
[34] Q: To which person, more than any other, is the world indebted to for the permanent establishment of the Buddha-Dharma?
A: To the Emperor Ashoka, surnamed the Great, sometimes Piyadasi, sometimes Dharma-soka. He was the son of Bindusara, King of Magadha, and grandson of Chandragupta, who drove the Greeks out of India.
[35] Q: When did he reign?
A: In the third century B.C., about two centuries after the Buddha’s time. Historians disagree as to his exact date, but not with any great variation.
[36] Q: What made him great?
A: He was the most powerful monarch in India’s history, as a warrior and as a statesman; but his noblest characteristics were his love of truth and justice, tolerance of religious differences, equity of government, kindness to the sick, to the poor, and to animals. His name is revered from Siberia to Ceylon (known today as Sri Lanka).
[37] Q: Was he born a Buddhist?
A: No; he converted to Buddhism in the tenth year after his anointment as King, by Nigrodha Samanera, an Arhat.
[38] Q: What did he do for Buddhism?
A: He drove out bad Bhikkhus, encouraged the good ones, built monasteries and dagobas everywhere, established gardens, opened hospitals for men and animals, convened a council at Patna to revise and re-establish the Dharma, promoted female religious education, and sent out embassies to five Greek kings, his allies, and to all the sovereigns of India, to teach the Buddha-Dharma. He also built the monuments at Kapilavastu, Buddha Gaya, Isipatana and Kusinara, our four chief places of pilgrimage, besides thousands more.
[39] Q: What absolute proffs exist as to his noble character?
A: Within recent years there have been discovered, in all parts of India, fourteen Edicts of his, inscribed on rocks, and eight on pillars erected by his orders. They fully prove him to have been one of the wisest and most high-minded sovereigns who ever lived.
[40] Q: What character do these inscriptions give to Buddhism?
A: They show it to be a religion of nobel tolerance, of universal brotherhood, of righteousness and justice. It has no taint of selfishness, sectarianism or intolerance. They have done more than anything else to win for it the respect in which it is now held by many the great pandits of Western countries.
[41] Q: What most precious gift did Dharma-soka make to Buddhism?
A: He gave his beloved son, Mahinda, and daughter, Sangamitta, to the Order, and sent them to Ceylon to introduce the religion.
[42] Q: Is this fact recorded in the history of Ceylon?
A: Yes; it was recorded in the Mahavansa by the keepers of the royal records who were alive then and saw the missionaries.
[43] Q: Is there still some visible proof of Sanghamitta's mission?
A: Yes; she brought with her to Ceylon a branch of the very Bodhi tree under which the Buddha sat when he became Enlightened, and it is still growing.
[44] Q: Where?
A: At Anuradhapura. The history of it has been officially preserved to the present time. Planted in 306 B.C., it is the oldest historical tree in the world.
[45] Q: Who was the reigning sovereign at that time?
A: Devanampiyatissa. His consort, Queen Anula, had invited Sanghamitta to come and establish the Bhikkhuni branch of the Order.
[46] Q: Who came with Sanghamitta?
A: Many other Bhikkunis. She, in due time, admitted the Queen and many of her ladies, together with 500 virgins, into the Order.
[47] Q: Can we trace the effects of the foreign work of the Emperor Asoka's missionaries?
A: His son and daughter introduced Buddhism into Ceylon. His monks gave it to the whole of Northern India, to fourteen Indian nations outside its boundaries, and to five Greek Kings, his allies, with whom he made treaties to admit his religious preachers.
[48] Q: Can you name them?
A: Antiochus of Syria, Ptolemy of Egypt, Antigonus of Macedon, and Alexander of Epirus.
[49] Q: Where do we learn this?
A: From the Edicts of Asoka the Great, inscribed by him on rocks and stone pillars which are still standing and can be seen by anyone who chooses to visit the places.
[50] Q: When were Buddhist books first introduced into China?
A: As early as the second or third century B.C. Five of Dharmasoka's monks are said (in the Sammnta Pasadika and the Sarattha Dipani) to have been sent to the five divisions of China.
[51] Q: From where did the Buddha-Dharma reach Korea?
A: From China, in the year 372 A.D.
[52] Q: And Japan?
A: From Korea, in 552 A.D.
[53] Q: Where and when did it reach Cochin China, Formosa, Java, Mongolia, Yarkand, Balk, Bokhara, Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries?
A: Apparently in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D.
[31] Q: From Ceylon, where did the Buddha-Dharma spread?
A: To Burma, in 450 A.D., and then gradually into Arakan, Kambodia, and Pegu. In the seventh century (638 A.D.) it arrived in Siam where it is now, as it always has been since then, the state religion.
[32] Q: From Kashmir, where else did it spread besides China?
A: To Nepal and Tibet.
[33] Q: Why is it that Buddhism, which was once the prevailing religion throughout India, now almost extinct there?
A: Buddhism was at first pure and noble, the very teaching of the Tathagata; its Sangha were virtuous and observed the Precepts; it won all hearts and spread joy through many nations, as the morning light sends life through the flowers. But after some centuries, bad Bhikkhus got ordaination (Upasampada), the Sangha became rich, lazy, and sensual; the Dharma was corrupted and the Indian nations abandoned it.
[34] Q: Did anything else happen to cause its downfall?
A: Yes. It is said that the Muslims invaded and conquered large areas of India in the nineth or tenth century A.D.
[35] Q: What cruel acts are they charged with doing?
A: They burnt, pulled down or otherwise destroyed the viharas, slaughtered the Bhikkhus, and consumed with fire the religious books.
[36] Q: Was the literature completely destroyed?
A: No. Many Bhikkhus fled across the borders into Tibet and other safe places of refuge, carrying with them their books.
[37] Q: In which country is it believed that the sacred books of primative Buddhism are best preserved and less corrupted?
A: Ceylon. The Encyclopaedia Britannica states that this island has, for specific reasons, "retained almost its pristine purity to modern times."
[38] Q: Has any revision of the text of the Pitakas been made in modern times?
A: Yes. A careful revision of the Vinaya Pitaka was made in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in the year 1875 A.D., by a convention of the most learned Bhikkhus, under the presidency of H. Sumangala, Pradhana Stavira.
[39] Q: Has there been any friendly intercourse in the interest of Buddhism between the peoples of the Southern and those of the Northern Buddhist countries?
A: In the year 1891 A.D., a successful attempt was made to get the Pradhana Nayakas of the two great divisions to agree to accept fourteen propositions as embodying fundamental Buddhistic beliefs recognized and taught be both divisions. These propositions, drafted by Henry Olcott, we carefully translated into Burmese, Sinhalese, and Japanese, discussed one by one, unanimously adopted and signed by the chief monks, and published in January 1892.
[40] Q: With what good result?
A: As the result of the good understanding now existing, a number of Japanese Bhikkhus and Samaneras have been sent to Ceylon and India to study Pali and Sanskrit.
[41] Q: Are there signs that the Buddha-Dharma is growing in favor in non-Buddhistic countries?
A: There are. Translations of our more valuable books are appearing, many articles in reviews, magazines and newspapers are being published, and excellent original treatises by distinguished writers are coming from the press. Moreover, Buddhist and non-Buddhist lecturers are publicly discoursing on Buddhism to large audiences in Western countries. The Shin Shu sect of Japan, among many others, have actually opened missions in Honolulu, San Francisco, Sacramento, and other American cities.
[42] Q: What two leading ideas of Buddhism are taking hold upon the Western mind?
A: Those of Karma and Rebirth. Their acceptance has been very surprising.
[43] Q: What is believed to be the cause of this?
A: Because of their appeal to the natural instinct of social justice, their evident reasonableness, and the ability to separate blind faith from blind ignorance.
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