Buddhism — Inside the Classic

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Authors: Small, Annie H., 1857-1945 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2025 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Buddhism Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 15,166

Reading time 66 min

Text sections 14

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #76869

Annie H. Small's 1905 study examines Buddhism through a Christian lens, focusing on the Eightfold Path, self-mastery, and Nirvana. The preface frames the work as a comparative exercise, while the text draws on scripture and poetry to explore Buddhist doctrine.

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suffering world possessed him. It was not in the nature of Gautama to desire publicity; but he could not rest with this new-found gospel of release from misery through the conquest of Desire. He went in search of his old Brahman teachers; but they were dead. He then found the five companions of his ascetic life, who received him at first with doubt; but when he made plain to them in a wonderful sermon, the experience through which he had passed, they gladly received the new gospel. The rest of his busy life was spent in telling his gospel, and in sending out his disciples on preaching tours. Before many months had passed, he was able to send out sixty disciples; and in the course of a very few years his followers numbered many thousands. From the high and the low, and especially from the troubled, they gathered around him, and many entered upon the Way. For forty years he carried on his gentle and loving ministry; travelling from place to place, eating the food which the rich and the poor vied with each other in providing for his own and his followers’ need, and then teaching those who gathered around him. When the Rainy Season came round, he retired with his disciples to some quiet retreat, and talked with them of the great things of the “Kingdom of righteousness.”

♦Death♦ His long life was spent thus in the open air, a simple and sweet and unselfish life; and when he died, at Kusi-Nagar, his body was burned and the ashes were divided, and carried for reverent burial to those parts of the land where there were the largest number of his followers. Gautama died in the year 480 B.C.

THE FOURFOLD SACRED TRUTH.[1]

♦The sum of the teaching♦ “Now this, O recluses, is the noble truth concerning suffering. Birth is painful, and so is old age; disease is painful, and so is death. Union with the unpleasant is painful, painful is separation from the pleasant; and any craving that is unsatisfied, that, too, is painful....”

“Now this, O recluses, is the noble truth concerning the origin of suffering. Verily it originates in that craving thirst which causes the renewal of becomings, is accompanied by sensual delight, and seeks satisfaction now here, now there--that is to say, the craving for the gratification of the passions, or the craving for a future life, or the craving for success in this present life.”

“Now this, O recluses, is the noble truth concerning the destruction of suffering. Verily it is the destruction in which no craving remains over, of this very thirst; the laying aside of, the getting rid of, the being free from, the harbouring no longer of, this thirst.”

“Now this, O recluses, is the noble truth concerning the way which leads to the destruction of suffering. Verily it is this Eight-fold noble path; that is to say: Right Views, Right Aspirations, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Rapture.”

[1] From the Sermon preached at Benares to the five companions of his hermit life upon his return after attainment of Buddha-hood. From Prof. Rhys David’s translation, by permission.

“_A great epoch was exhausted, and passing away to give place to another, the first utterances of which had already been heard in the north, and which awaited but the_ INITIATOR _to be revealed_.”

“_He came. The soul the most full of love, the most sacredly virtuous, the most deeply inspired by God and the future, that men have yet seen on earth; Jesus. He bent over the corpse of the dead world, and whispered a word of faith. Over the clay that had lost all of man but the movement and the form, He uttered words until then unknown_, LOVE, SACRIFICE, A HEAVENLY ORIGIN. _And the dead arose. A new life circulated through the clay, which philosophy had tried in vain to re-animate. From that corpse arose the Christian world, the world of liberty and equality. From that clay arose the true Man, the image of God, the precursor of Humanity._”--MAZZINI.

♦The Story of Israel♦ “Suff’rance is the badge of all our tribe” is the sum of the history of the isolated, unsuccessful,[2] little Semitic nation of Israel.

[2] Unsuccessful, that is to say, as a nation.

But she has been made great--against her will indeed--by the fact that she sheltered a unique succession of patriotic men who were impelled by the miserable little ideals and ambitions of their nation, to raise their voices in expostulation, or solemn warning, or hot indignation, each according to his time and his manner.

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Annie H. Small opens her study with a striking juxtaposition: a poetic excerpt from Sir Edwin Arnold’s The Light of Asia, depicting Siddhartha’s compassionate vision of a suffering world, followed by a prose account of India’s religious yearning. This pairing sets the tone for a work that moves between lyrical quotation and analytical exposition. Small’s preface makes clear her Christian perspective, stating the book is written for those of the Christian Faith to sit at the feet of the great Indian Sage. Yet she warns that this is a slight sketch, not an attempt to tell the whole. The reader is thus prepared for a selective, comparative treatment rather than a comprehensive survey.

Poetry as a Doorway

Small does not confine herself to doctrinal summary. She opens the first chapter with over twenty lines of verse from Sir Edwin Arnold, using poetry to evoke the emotional and spiritual atmosphere of Gautama’s awakening. The poem’s repetition—Since pleasures end in pain, and youth in age, / And love in loss, and life in hateful death—drives home the cyclical suffering that Buddhism addresses. This choice of a poetic voice, rather than a dry historical account, signals that Small values affective engagement over mere fact. The verse is not glossed; it stands as a kind of invocation, inviting the reader to feel the weight of the problem before considering the solution. Later, she returns to aphoristic sayings from Buddhist texts, such as Noisy go the small waters, silent goes the vast ocean, maintaining a texture of quoted wisdom throughout.

The Eightfold Path as a Strenuous Discipline

Small’s treatment of the Eightfold Path emphasizes difficulty and rigor. She quotes the Buddha’s own warning: Let no man think that this path is one easy to be trodden. The path is presented as a sequence of steps—Right Views, Aspirations, Speech, Conduct, Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness, Rapture—but Small quickly moves to the Hindrances, a list of ten fetters that must be broken. Her language is concrete: Each of these fetters which bind to the Self-life is loosened only at the cost of long strenuous discipline. She notes that only a monk is competent to practice it, grounding the ideal in a specific way of life. The section is structured as a series of enumerated obstacles, giving the reader a clear, almost procedural sense of the Buddhist path as a demanding inner battle.

Self-Mastery and the Final Goal

Small devotes a distinct section to self-mastery, drawing on pithy verses: Self is the lord of self, self is the refuge of self. She contrasts this with the Christian emphasis on grace, but her focus here is on the Buddhist ideal of self-conquest. The quotations she selects stress individual responsibility—By oneself is evil done, by oneself one suffers—and the superiority of conquering oneself over conquering others. The section culminates in the Buddha’s last message: Be ye lamps unto yourselves. Small then describes the goal of Nirvana as emancipation from suffering, achieved through the thirty-seven stages. Her prose remains restrained, letting the quoted texts carry the weight. The overall effect is a portrait of Buddhism as a path of solitary, strenuous self-discipline leading to serene release.

Small’s book is best read as a thoughtful, early-20th-century Christian engagement with Buddhist ideas. Readers interested in comparative religion will note how she selects and arranges material to highlight points of contrast with Christianity, while still granting Buddhism its own coherence. The frequent quotations from Buddhist scriptures and poetry give the work a devotional texture, but the analytical framework remains firmly comparative. Those seeking a neutral introduction should be aware of the Christian lens; those interested in the history of interfaith dialogue will find this a valuable document.

That quiet ache for something steady — I felt it again in Buddhism — Inside the Classic, how Small lingers on self-mastery like a held breath. It reminded me of another old friend’s voice, one that traces devotion through Deuteronomy’s patient laws. Both ask what it means to walk a path, not just see it. That longing stays with me, softly, like The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Deuteronomy — Story, Setting & Ideas might for you.