Thailand

Bangkok—Buddha’s Mission

We reached Bangkok in the afternoon. The friend who was to meet us here and arrange for our stay was away in India. However, we managed to get accommodation in a hotel called Park Hotel. Our stay in Bangkok was not eventful. There were no meetings and no contact with the Siamese people. God perhaps wanted us to visit Bangkok only to see three images of Buddha in three different places—one in a reclining posture, the other sitting and the third standing. These images were huge in size. The reclining one was about 145 feet long and the standing one was of the same height. The sitting Buddha was the finest in shape and appearance. We stood before this gigantic figure and gazed at it with wonder mixed with reverence. It is in the nature of man, whenever he holds anyone in the highest reverence and estimation and wants him to be permanently enshrined in the heart as such, to make images of him of extraordinary size. Greatness is associated with gigantic proportions. The simple human mind works always along this line, conceiving of persons or things which it worships as having abnormal dimensions.

Among the Jains in India we find that Mahaveera, Thirthankar and other Digambaras are represented in huge images carved out of rock as high as 60 or 80 feet, standing erect as though waiting for the worship of their innumerable devotees. In the making of these idols, the devoted sculptor had to play an important part. It is evident his hand with chisel must have moved through the inspiration received by him from the supreme object of his adoration. Some of the works of these artists are of such excellence that we stand before them, our hearts aglow, for these divine works of art and the rare skill coupled with the devotion of the sculptor cannot but move us to wonder and admiration.

We watched the ways and habits of the people of Bangkok. They were in many respects similar to those of the people of Hongkong and Japan. Buddhism has left a stamp upon these people who are unconventional and free from the irksome distinctions and divisions formed by class and caste. Buddha’s ideal was a society in which such distinctions are absent and all hearts are filled with compassion and inner illumination born of the release from the bondage of the flesh. All know Buddha was an Indian who was recognised by Hindus as an Avatar of God. He came at a time when India’s Vedic religion had degraded to mere external rites and ceremonies breeding various kinds of evils and thereby creating confusion and misery among the people of the time. To wash away these evils and establish Dharma based upon truth, love, fair-play and righteousness, Buddha came. His mission was a unique one. His great enlightened personality was like the sun rising to dispel darkness.