Intolerance

In Manhattan and the surrounding suburbs live some 5,000 Buddhists. They go about their business much as the members of other religions except that they do not broadcast their holy services over the radio or issue weekly advertisements announcing what topics their priests will preach about. Last week, however, two Buddhists-- C. Juandoo and Fernand E. Querroy--called on the Commissioner of Parks, one Francis D. Gallatin. They asked him if he would permit them to erect a shrine to Buddha in Central Park. They had with them handsome plans for the shrine, designed by another member of their group, Jules Laget. The Commissioner of Parks was impressed. He agreed to submit the proposal to the Municipal Art Commission. The press got hold of the story, published a small item--and immediately, from a dozen pulpits and synagogs, came some amazing demonstrations.

Some dominies were humorous. Buddha, they readily grasped, was something to joke about--a funny cross-legged little figure like a Billiken. Others were taciturn, others sorrowful, others inspired to righteous wrath; but on one point all were agreed -- it would be a horrible thing to permit the effigy of so noted an infidel to appear in the midst of a Christian city. It would be like reminding men of the lost rites of Astarte, like resurrecting the god, Priapus, or setting up the image of the Golden Bull of Tyre.

Dr. Christian F. Reisner of the Methodist Church said:

"It is ridiculous. This is a Christian land. No religion on earth teaches the brotherhood of man but the Christian religion. No one would think of permitting this. A sect that decrees its girl babies to be thrown into ash cans! Moreover, we put up statues of our saints as reminders. But a statue of Buddha is a shrine to be worshiped."

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise was one of those who lightly indulged his wit:

"I wonder whether the proposal to erect a statue in Central Park to Buddha comes from Will Rogers. It is quite worthy of his fertile wit. Buddha! What's the matter with Mahomet? What's the matter with Confucius, to say nothing of Bab? And there is a sect called the Mormons, and there was Mrs. Eddy. What's the matter with any or all of these?

"Let's have a nice, quiet lane in Central Park to be set apart for the figures of religious founders from Buddha to the Bab, and let the devotees of these masters meet in friendly disputation with the soon- to-be ex-Mayor Hylan as umpire or Comptroller Craig as alternate.

"We have a Hall of Fame. Why not have the mall--not hall--occupied by the figures we have made, and over it all be there invoked the spirit of Mark Twain or Oliver Wendell Holmes (father, not son) to do the irenic company ample justice.

"Three cheers for Buddha!"

The Rev. Dr. J. Lane Miller, pastor of the Hanson Place Methodist Episcopal Church (Brooklyn), viewed the incident as a challenge to Christians of the U. S. to consider "how their own country is drifting."

Monsignor John L. Belford, rector of the Roman Catholic Church of the Nativity (Brooklyn) said: "I think we should keep the statue of Buddha out of the park by all means."

These statements of well-known prelates -- rather extraordinary statements, when one considers the pettiness of the issue--led wondering readers of the press to recall what they had forgotten about Buddha.

His name was Siddartha Gautama. He was born in a small republic in Bengal somewhere between 500 and 600 B. C. Until he was 29 he lived the conventional life of an Eastern aristocrat of his period. His world was a world of sunlight sleeping in ageless gardens; his occupations hunting and lovemaking; he passed from gratification to gratification, looking for the answer to a question he had never phrased. Sometimes, when he traveled over his estates, he saw unpleasant things--a man dreadfully undone by age, a body scabrous with disease, a corpse putrefying in a field--but Channa, his charioteer, had a comment which illumined all such offensive testimonials of hu- man mortality. "That is the way of life," said Channa.

Gautama had been married at 19 to a beautiful cousin. When she was delivered of his first-born son, his village held a great feast and a nautch dance, but late in the night when the torches were out, Guatama awoke in great agony of spirit, "like a man who is told that his house is on fire." He stepped through the vestibule where the nautch girls were lying in darkness striped like a tiger's skin with moonlight. He called for his horses and rode away.

At dawn, on the edge of a jungle, he cut off his long hair with a sword, exchanged clothes with a wretched mendicant, and betook himself with five disciples to a gorge in the Vindhya Mountains, where he gave himself up to fasting and terrible penances. His fame spread "like the sound of a great bell hung in the canopy of the skies." One day he decided that to attempt to reach God through the emptiness of his belly was preposterous. He ate a healthy meal; refused to continue his morti- fications. His disciples left him. For a long while he wandered, alone and gloom-benighted, beleaguering in the darkness of his mind the fortress of eternal knowledge.

He had seated himself under a great tree by the side of a river to eat, when the secret defenses which he had been besieging fell; the answer came to him, and he saw life plain. For a day and a night he sat in profound thought, and then arose to impart his secret to the world: "Whoso loseth his life shall find it. . . "

*Located at Kamakura (17 miles south of Tokyo), it is visited by thousands of worshiping natives and gawking tourists annually. Dimensions: Height 49 feet, 7 inches; circumference of thumbs 3 feet; eyes (pure gold) 4 feet long. It was cast in 1252 A. D.