Buddhist eschatology


Buddhist eschatology, like many facets of modern Buddhist practice and belief, came into existence during its development in China, and, through the blending of Buddhist cosmological understanding and Daoist eschatological views, created a complex canon of apocalyptic beliefs. These beliefs, although not entirely part of Orthodox Buddhism, form an important collection of Chinese Buddhist traditions which bridge the gap between the monastic order and local beliefs of Imperial China.
Although the main source of writings describing eschatological beliefs in Chinese Buddhism are so called “apocryphal” texts, these are an invaluable source of information in the study of Buddhism as it was actually practiced, as the available monastic sources depicting Buddhism are merely the tip of an iceberg, of which the body is still mostly submerged and hidden from view. These eschatological Buddhist groups began to appear in China from 402 CE on, and escalated in number and intricacy from the Sui until the Song dynasty. Therein is where many lay-clerical groups such as the White Lotus Society and Amida Buddhist clergy appeared and took to propagating eschatological scriptures.
There are two major points of Buddhist eschatology: the appearance of Maitreya and the Sermon of the Seven Suns.

Maitreya

Buddha described his teachings disappearing five thousand years from his passing, corresponding approximately to the year 4600 CE. At this time, knowledge of dharma will be lost as well. The last of his relics will be gathered in Bodh Gaya and cremated. There will be a new era in which the next Buddha Maitreya will appear, but it will be preceded by the degeneration of human society. This will be a period of greed, lust, poverty, ill will, violence, murder, impiety, physical weakness, sexual depravity and societal collapse, and even the Buddha himself will be forgotten. This will be followed by a new golden age.
The earliest mention of Maitreya is in the Cakavatti Sutta in Digha Nikaya 26 of the Pali Canon.
Maitreya Buddha is then foretold to be born in the city of Ketumatī in present-day Benares, whose king will be the Cakkavattī Sankha. Sankha will live in the former palace of King Mahāpanadā, but later will give the palace away to become a follower of Maitreya.
In Mahayana Buddhism, Maitreya will attain bodhi in seven days, the minimum period, by virtue of his many lives of preparation. Once Buddha, he will rule over the Ketumati Pure Land, an earthly paradise associated with the Indian city of Varanasi or Benares in Uttar Pradesh. In Mahayana Buddhism, Buddhas preside over a Pure Land.
At this time he will teach humanity of the ten non-virtuous deeds and the ten virtuous deeds. He is described by Conze in Buddhist Scriptures: He currently resides in Tushita, but will come to Jambudvipa as successor to the historic Śākyamuni Buddha. Maitreya will achieve complete enlightenment during his lifetime, and following this reawakening, he will bring back the timeless teaching of dharma to this plane and rediscover enlightenment.

Sermon of the Seven Suns

In the Sattasūriya sutta in the Aṅguttara Nikāya of the Pali Canon, the Buddha describes the ultimate fate of the world in an apocalypse that will be characterized by the consequent appearance of seven suns in the sky, each causing progressive ruin until the Earth is destroyed:
The canon goes on to describe the progressive destruction of each sun. A third sun will dry the mighty Ganges and other great rivers. A fourth will cause the great lakes to evaporate, and a fifth will dry the oceans. Finally the final suns will appear:
The sermon completes with the planet engulfed by a vast inferno.

Developments

Buddhists believe that the historical Buddha Shakyamuni is only the latest in a series of Buddhas that stretches back into the past. The belief in the decline and disappearance of Buddhism in the world has exerted significant influence in the development of Buddhism since the time of the Buddha. In Vajrayana Buddhism and various other forms of esoteric Buddhism, the use of tantra is justified by the degenerate state of the present world. The East Asian belief in the decline of the Dharma was instrumental in the emergence of Pure Land Buddhism. Within the Theravada tradition, debate over whether Nirvana was still attainable in the present age helped prompt the creation of the Dhammayutt Order in Thailand.
In China, Buddhist eschatology was strengthened by the Daoist influence: the messianic features of Maitreya are widely emphasized. The figure of Prince Moonlight 月光童子 obtains prominence unknown in the Sanskrit sources. Thus, one of the Tang dynasty apocrypha predicts his rebirth in the female form, thus creating religious legitimacy for the Wu Zetian Empress's usurpation. Furthering the Daoist associations, the "Sutra of Samantabhadra" portrays Prince Moonlight dwelling on the Penglai Island in a cave.
Buddhism believes in cycles in which life span of human beings changes according to human nature. In Cakkavati sutta the Buddha explained the relationship between life span of human being and behaviour. As per this sutta, In the past unskillful behavior was unknown among the human race. As a result, people lived for an immensely long time — 80,000 years — endowed with great beauty, wealth, pleasure, and strength. Over the course of time, though, they began behaving in various unskillful ways. This caused the human life span gradually to shorten, to the point where it now stands at 100 years, with human beauty, wealth, pleasure, and strength decreasing proportionately. In the future, as morality continues to degenerate, human life will continue to shorten to the point where the normal life span is 10 years, with people reaching sexual maturity at five.
Ultimately, conditions will deteriorate to the point of a "sword-interval," in which swords appear in the hands of all human beings, and they hunt one another like game. A few people, however, will take shelter in the wilderness to escape the carnage, and when the slaughter is over, they will come out of hiding and resolve to take up a life of skillful and virtuous action again. With the recovery of virtue, the human life span will gradually increase again until it reaches 80,000 years, with people attaining sexual maturity at 500. According to the Pali Canon, it is at the zenith of this new golden age that Maitreya will appear.
According to Tibetan Buddhist literature, the first Buddha lived 1,000,000 years and was 100 cubits tall while the 28th Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama lived 80 years and his height was 20 cubits. This is on par with the Hindu eschatology which says this age to be the 28th Kaliyuga.
In other traditions, such as Zen, a somewhat utilitarian view is taken. The notion often exists that within each moment in time, both birth and death are manifest. As the individual "dies" from moment to moment, they are equally "reborn" in each successive moment, in what one perceives as an ongoing cycle. Thus the practitioner's focus is shifted from considerations regarding an imagined future endpoint, to mindfulness in the present moment. In this case, the worldview is taken as a functional tool for awakening the practitioner to reality as it exists, right now.

Causes of the End of True Dharma

Due to the notion of the three stages of Dharma as taught by the Sakyamuni Buddha, eschatological thought is inherent to Buddhism in that non-permanence affects the sangha and Dharma teachings, just as it affects all other facets of the visible world. What differentiates eschatological groups from orthodox clergy, however, is the belief that the period of the decline of the Dharma has already begun, and that the end of Dharma is close at hand. These teachings, often propagated by self-appointed messianic figures, run counter to the state approved Buddhist teachings, as they often criticize or deplore the “current” state of affairs both within the government and the people. There are of course many sources for this eschatological belief, and throughout the history of Buddhism in China, there have been various calculations determining the beginning of the decline of Dharma. While the True Dharma period was originally said to last 1000 years, one of the first sources of anxiety within the clergy was the acceptance of women in the monastic order, which was said to have reduced the time of True Dharma to 500 years. This is accounted for in the tale of Mahapajapati, in which a woman devoutly follows the Buddha after having been refused entry into his order, until Ananda convinces the Buddha to allow her to join the other disciples. He then tells Ananda:
When asked to explain why the acceptance of women into the clergy would have such an impact, it is said that he explained as such:
Thus it seems that women in the clergy, for one reason or another, were seen as a factor which sped up the process of the decline of Dharma. Otherwise, and more importantly, the cessation of Dharma was seen as being caused by the “moral laxity of the disciples, and be recovered if the disciples reform”. This is where a divide appears in eschatological groups: while some believe that the True Dharma can be recovered through more assiduous practice and a return to correct transmission, understanding and application of True Dharma, other groups believed that it was due to incorrect political practice from the state, and that a Saviour was required in order to overthrow the established order and set up a new era of peace and True Dharma. These ideologies were of course frowned upon by the court and such apocryphal texts, deemed dangerous, heretical, and subversive, and were a source of inspiration for the burning of apocryphal scripture. Of these saviours, one Bodhisattva in particular was eventually linked with China and so is an ideal candidate for the study of these anti-establishment groups: the Bodhisattva which came to be called Yueguang, or Prince Moonlight.

Eschatology During the Song Dynasty

Due to the historically tenuous relationship between Buddhism and the Confucian State, and to lead the people in accordance with proper Dharma, many eschatological groups appeared during the Sui and Tang dynasty and preached that the declining Dharma cycle had begun due to moral laxity or failures of the state. Among these, many groups which preached a greater devotion to the Dharma teachings as a method of salvation were deemed harmless, and so some of their apocryphal scriptures survived the burning of heretical texts. By the Southern Song dynasty, however, the Buddhist Monastic order was under heavier and heavier restraints, such as the “control of ordination, prohibition of preaching and itinerant evangelism by monks, and restraining the economic power of the monasteries”. This caused the appearance of many non-monastic groups, which were often led by laymen who had hair and might disregard other monastic rules and which preached an eschatological message, typically through one of five standard apocalyptic scenarios: The return of Maitreya, the Amida Pure Land, the Manicheaen Chen Chün, or the Confucian Enlightened Emperor. Of these groups, a particularly influential one is the White Lotus Sect. Its influence is clear in that the State later referred to any Eschatological or unorthodox Buddhist sect as “White Lotus”.
Formed by Mao Tzu-Yüan in 1133, the White Lotus sect placed an emphasis on the strict dietary restrictions of its disciples, such that they were not allowed to drink wine and had to eat a vegetarian diet. Despite these dietary restrictions which mirrored those which the monastic order should also be following, the White Lotus were led by married clergy men who “wrote their own scriptures and ritual texts in the vernacular”, and the group also allowed female disciples. Mao’s relationship with the state also changed throughout his life, as White Lotus was attacked by Buddhist monks soon after its founding due to its “rejection of celibacy” and by the government for its “popularity among the people”. Exiled in 1131 because of the growing popularity of his movement, Mao was quickly pardoned and in 1133 began to preach at the emperor’s court. He was, however, exiled again in 1157 because of his sect’s popularity and similarity to Manicheaens, another vegetarian sect. His sect nonetheless continued to spread until the 20th century.

Eschatology in Nichiren Buddhism

Nichiren, a messianic Buddhist leader of Kamakura era Japan, is an ideal figure to observe when discussing Buddhist Eschatology. Born in 1222, Japan during Nichiren’s time was plagued by natural disasters such as floods, storms, earthquakes, famines, landslides, tidal waves, and comets, so it is no surprise that he believed that the period of Declining Dharma was already unfolding. While Buddhist, he strongly disagreed and criticized the preachings of Amitabha and Pure Land Buddhist schools, and argued instead that the calamities were tied to human behaviour, and that only human righteousness could prevent natural disasters. He described the situation as such:
Nichiren instead preached that only a return to the teachings of the Lotus Sutra would save the country from destruction. Indeed, his adamant preaching of the Lotus Sutra, as well as his disparagement of Honen Buddhist groups, were met with much resistance, and he was imprisoned or exiled several times during his life. During one such occasion, he was nearly executed, but was saved by miraculous circumstances in which the sky was “suddenly ablaze with lightning” and the executioner became dizzy and fell. Because of the miraculous nature of his survival, Nichiren would come to believe that his body had died, only to begin his second spiritual life. This only served to strengthen his self-image as a messianic saviour of Japan, and he would preach the Lotus Sutra until his death in 1282.
One interesting aspect of Nichiren’s belief system was his explication of the Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281. Because of his belief that the apocalypse was coming due to the moral deprivation of the population of Japan, Nichiren saw the coming Mongols as a natural force sent to eradicate the incorrect beliefs and practices of the Honen monks and local religious practitioners in order to instate the True Dharma in their aftermath. He believed, even after both invasions failed, that only a “complete and sudden conversion” would save the country from the destruction created by the monks of other sects and faiths.

Prince Moonlight

Prince moonlight, or Yueguang Tongzi, was originally a relatively small Bodhisattva in pre-Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, but due to the combination of Daoist eschatologcial beliefs, the concept of Mofa, and the notion of a supernatural saviour, Yueguang Tongzi developed into an important figure in Buddhist apocalyptic lore.
The original story of Yueguang is as such: Yueguang is born to a deplorable householder named Srigupta, who at the demand of “heretical masters” invites the Buddha to a meal while setting a trap aimed at taking his life. Yueguang, now 16, pleads with his father to forgo this wrongdoing, but Srigupta turns a blind eye to his son’s pleas. When the Buddha arrives, being all-seeing, he turns the trap, a fire-pit, into a lotus pond. Srigupta, from his shame, is converted immediately and enlightened. In a Sui dynasty text named the Shenri Jing, however, Yueguang takes on a higher importance.
After enlightening Srigupta, the Buddha delivers a prophecy concerning Yueguang, stating that he will later be born as a saintly ruler and that he will revive the True Dharma during a time when it is about to fade away. Thus we see that Yueguang takes up the role not of a Buddha rediscovering the True Dharma, but rather of a saviour of the people sent to avoid the apocalyptic cataclysm of the end of Dharma and kelpa. Instead of reigniting Dharma teaching in a new cycle of time, Yueguang will now simply postpone the end of the current cycle until it once again fades away. In this sense he is a “great revivalist” and not a messiah figure. Indeed, in the Sutra of the Annihilation of the Doctrine, he states that “at the time of the disappearance of Doctrine, it will be like an oil-lamp, that shines even more brightly when it is about to expire - and then it is extinguished”.
Another reference to Yueguang is found in a 583 CE text translated by Narendrayasa, in which Yueguang is said to reincarnate during the final Dharma period as Da Xing, a ruler on the continent of Jambudvipa. Here, it is said that he will make Buddhism flourish again by “the reproduction and spread of holy texts, the making of Buddha images of every kind, and the establishment of countless Buddhist sanctuaries in all parts of the empire”. This interpretation, however, seems to be directly referencing the Sui emperor Wendi, who in the year 601 CE built hundreds of relic-shrines throughout his kingdom.