{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_48028/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_48028","id":"gutenberg_48028","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48028","summary":null,"tags":["Buddhism","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity","Christianity and other religions -- Buddhism"],"text":"THE METAPHYSIC\n\n    OF\n\n    CHRISTIANITY\n\n    AND\n\n    BUDDHISM.\n\n    _A SYMPHONY._\n\n    BY\n    MAJOR-GENERAL DAWSONNE M. STRONG, C.B.\n    (_Late Indian Army_),\n\n    AUTHOR OF \"SELECTIONS FROM THE BOST\u0100N OF S\u00c2DI,\n    TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE.\"\n\n    \"Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.\"--_Bible._\n\n    LONDON:\n\n    WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET ST.\n\n    1899.\n\n\n\n\n    LOVINGLY DEDICATED\n\n    TO\n\n    MY WIFE\n\n    IN MEMORY OF OUR SOJOURN\n\n    IN\n\n    THE EAST.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n  CHAP.                                         PAGE\n\n  INTRODUCTION                                   vii\n\n  I. JESUS AND GOTAMA                              1\n\n  II. GOD AND THE KOSMOS                          33\n\n  III. SOUL, SELF, INDIVIDUALITY, AND KARMA       55\n\n  IV. HEAVEN AND NIRVANA                          82\n\n  V. SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS                     103\n\n  AT THE MALAGAWA TEMPLE, CEYLON                 113\n\n  APPENDIX:--METRICAL ADAPTATIONS OF BUDDHISTIC\n  LEGEND AND SCRIPTURE:--\n\n    1. The Last Words of Gotama Buddha to his\n    Favourite Disciple Ananda                    115\n\n    2. Sams\u00e2ra and Nirvana                       116\n\n    3. Rejoice                                   118\n\n    4. The Goal                                  120\n\n    5. Buddha and the Herdsman                   123\n\n    6. Buddha and the King                       126\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n \"Si notre foi diff\u00e8re quant \u00e0 la forme et aux dogmes, nos \u00e2mes restent\n toujours d'accord sur un principe \u00e9ternel et divin.\"--GEORGE SANDS.\n\n\nAn immense difficulty has to be encountered by those who have been\ndeeply impressed by the value and beauty of Christianity when they are\ncalled upon to consider the claims of other faiths. Anyone who has had\nwithin his experience and under his observation such an exceptional\ncase as that of a sincere Christian who, from childhood to old age,\nhas set before him the ideal Christ and the Christian conception of an\nall-compassionate Father--a Christian whose inner light has been so\npure that no darkness of doubt has ever dimmed it, and no doctrinal\nwarfare has ever stained its radiance--he, I contend, has an almost\ninsuperable obstacle to overcome when he attempts to associate holiness\nand purity, of the same supreme order, with the followers of other\nreligious systems which have been formulated for the comfort and\nsalvation of humanity.\n\nIt is doubtful if any ordinary adherent of the Christian faith, however\nextensive his sympathies towards persons outside his own flock, has\never been able to pass this barrier, which always seems to interpose\nitself when search is made for a common bond of union with an alien\nbelief.\n\nA man may have lived many a year in the East, and witnessed there, with\ndeep appreciation, the purity, the endurance, the touching self-denial\nof the devout peasantry, and the beautiful charity of the poor towards\nthe poor; or he may have associated with saintly ascetics in India,\nand with the yellow-robed and gentle _religieux_ of Ceylon; he may\nhave surveyed the famous temple of that fair island, in the intense\nstillness of a tropical night, till all identity of self seemed to\nvanish in the solemnity of the surroundings, and the only sound was\nthat of a monk's intoning voice heard from within the dungeon-like\napertures of the building, and the only light that of the fitful\nfireflies amid the lofty and drooping foliage;--yet, in each and all of\nthese experiences, that aroma of holiness, so perceptible at times in\nour own religious atmosphere, would somehow seem strangely absent to\nthe unacclimatized senses, and no halo would be distinguishable by a\nvision which had been restricted by prejudice.\n\nStill more difficult is it to rise to the same height of reverence\nfor a saintly and surpassing personality if it is presented in\nsacred records other than those to which one has owned a prior\nallegiance. Nevertheless, the discovery in other religious systems of\na correspondence with one's own particular persuasion must assuredly\ntend towards the attainment of that attitude of mind commended by St.\nPaul of \"being all things to all men.\" To pave the way towards the\nacquisition of this mental posture in relation to religious concepts is\nthe main object I have had in view in composing this small book.\n\nIt has been said that no age has more needed a departure in this\ndirection than our own. \"On the one hand, sectarian hatred and\ndogmatism almost obscure the great truths _common_ to all mankind; on\nthe other, merciless and destructive criticism, in undermining much\nthat used to be generally accepted, seems at times to threaten even the\nfoundations of truth.\"\n\nSome people, however, maintain that there is an appreciable value\nto be attached to all dogmatic declarations, and that those who are\nworking in strictly-confined theological grooves are contributing, as\nspecialists, to a knowledge of the whole. Even if these workers are\npossessed of all the uncharitable qualities sometimes attributed to\nthe narrow-minded, yet they may be held deserving of encouragement\nin view of the probability that the more their limited ideas become\nexposed to the light by their enthusiastic endeavours to assert them as\nfinal truth, the sooner will their imperfections be obliterated. The\nfragmentary opinions they cling to will then be discovered to possess\nno value except as constituent elements of the whole.\n\nOthers go the length of advocating that the flames of bigotry should be\nfanned to furnace-heat in order that the feeding fuel may be the more\nrapidly consumed.\n\nIn any case, the more apparent it becomes that every religion worthy\nof the name springs from a root common to all, and is really, at\nbottom, the one true cosmic religion, and that the variations are\nsuperficial and unimportant in themselves, the greater will be the\nadvantages accruing to humanity in the political, social, and moral\nspheres. In other words, the advantage to be derived from the study of\nthe obscure phases of religions lies in this--that, in so doing, our\nminds are better able to grasp the solidarity of religious thought and\naspirations throughout the world. We are enabled to see more clearly\nthat all religious forms, and even formless philosophies, however crude\nand idolatrous the former may appear to people of wide culture, and\nhowever mystical and evasive the latter may be regarded by those of\nnarrow vision, are but the effects of one cause common to all.\n\nWhen we have got rid, Buddhistically, of the idea of separateness,\nor, in a Christian sense, have exercised self-suppression, we can\nthen proceed to eliminate the notion of separateness in religions and\nphilosophies. Thus, whether we are Determinists or Indeterminists,\nwe shall experience the sensation that, according to the law of\ndevelopment, it is in the scheme of things for us to struggle forward\non our several paths, not in antipathy to, but hand in hand with, those\nwho make use of different modes of progression towards one identical\ngoal.\n\nMissionary propagandism, under these conditions, will have the same\n_raison d'\u00eatre_, and our cherished symbolisms will in no wise suffer.\nHolding this view, I have felt no misgivings as to the propriety of\nplacing side by side, as it were, the historical and radiant figures of\nJesus the Christ and Gotama the Buddha, and of indicating an analogy\nbetween the essential features of the two systems of religion which\nthese great deliverers of a world on earth have fashioned and commended\nfor the acceptance of their fellow creatures.\n\nIndeed, Buddhism should occupy a very large place in the affections\nand admiration of all true Christians on account of the many points of\nresemblance discernible in the characters and gospels of Gotama and\nJesus.\n\nSt. Augustine, the great vindicator of Christianity, clears the ground\nfor an assimilation of the two systems. He writes: \"For the thing in\nitself which is now called the Christian religion really was known to\nthe ancients, nor was wanting at any time, from the beginning of the\nhuman race until the time that Christ came into the flesh, from which\nthe true religion which had previously existed began to be called\nChristian; and this in our day is the Christian religion--not as having\nbeen wanting in former times, but as having in later times received\nthis name.\"\n\nK\u00f6ppen says: \"As, from the standpoint of Buddhism, all men--nay, all\nbeings--are brothers, children of one sin, sons of the same nonentity,\nthus all religions of the globe appear to it as related, as sprung from\none source; all pursuing the same end, and arriving at the same goal.\nThe religious views, creeds, etc., etc. ... of all nations, Churches,\nschools, sects, and parties, however diverse they may seem, are hence,\naccording to the conception of the believing Buddhist, not alien,\nbut inwardly akin. They are merely peculiar forms, modifications,\nobscurations, degenerations of the same truth--of one law, one faith,\none redemption. For him there is only one doctrine and one Way; and\nall religions belong, in one way or another, to this doctrine, and are\nall on that Way.\"\n\nAmong the things that can never be shaken are the foundations of\nChristianity, Islam and Buddhism, and other cognate religious\nsystems. Here and there, perchance, a steeple may come down with\na crash, a minaret may fall, a pagoda crumble into dust; but the\nfoundation-stones, laid beneath the surface, buried in mystery, and\nencompassed by darkness, remain irremoveable, changeless, and eternal.\n\nIt is, then, in this brooding darkness which envelopes their occult\nsources that we must take our stand; and not until we have grown into\nand become one with the encircling gloom, and been subjectively steeped\nin it, can we hope to understand or pronounce a fair judgment upon what\nis the less obscure and objective.\n\nThe comparative study of religions requires approach with an open and\nreceptive mind, and a large amount of intuitive sympathy with all. It\ncannot be fairly undertaken if the initial object of investigation is\nto mould the one or the other to the shape of personal fancy.\n\nMr. Arthur Lillie, a most interesting exponent of Buddhism in relation\nto Christianity, says that the study of an ancient religion is not\nphilosophy, but pure history. This may be true, in a sense; but, at\nthe same time, it is necessary that the records of the past should be\nstudied in a philosophical and synthetic spirit, with an Impressionist\nrather than a pre-Raphaelite tendency. Mr. Lillie hardly makes due\nallowance for the measure of failure which must accompany all human\nefforts to do justice to a great idea, and perhaps overstrains the\ntheory that literary and philological analysis have had their day, and\nthat arch\u00e6ology and history should now reign supreme.\n\nIn connection with the placing of too great a reliance upon the\n\"letter\" of venerated records, a warning--serious enough if we\nappropriate it to ourselves--has issued from the pen of the Rev. Spence\nHardy, who, in a passage of his book, entitled _Eastern Monachism_\n(p. 166), emphasizes with tremendous force the precarious position of\nthose who take their stand solely upon sacred books. \"The priests of\nIndia,\" he writes, \"are encompassed by weapons that may be wrested\nfrom their hands and used to their own destruction. When it is clearly\nproved to them that their venerated records contain absurdities and\ncontradictions, they must of necessity conclude that their origin\ncannot have been divine; and, the foundations of the system being thus\nshaken, the whole mass must speedily fall, leaving only the unsightly\nruin as a monument of man's folly, when he endeavours to form a\nreligion from the feculence of his own corrupt heart or the fancies of\nhis own perverted imagination.\"\n\nIt may be apposite here to demonstrate how far short of the Pauline\nstandard the cultivated European critic falls, by referring to some\nremarks of the Rev. Prof. Bruce in one of his Gifford Lectures[A] of\nlast year, in which he treats of Gotama's views concerning the moral\norder of the universe. Of the two leading doctrines of Buddhism, Karma\nis called by him \"fantastic\" and Nirvana \"morbid\"; and, not content\nwith such a contemptuous dismissal of these remarkable conceptions, he\nproceeds to say: \"The well-being of the race demanded warriors, brave\nin the field of battle against evil, not monks, immured in cloisters\nand passing their lives in poverty, wearing the yellow robe of a\nmendicant order.\"\n\n [A] _Vide Glasgow Herald_, January, 1898.\n\nThis rhetorical flourish may have sounded very effective and convincing\nas a peroration, and have produced the desired result of clearing\nthe lecturer from any possible imputation of sympathy with Buddhism,\nexcept as an ethical system of considerable excellence; but such a\nsumming-up of Buddhism is neither more nor less than a throwing of\ndust in the eyes of beholders, and is, in my opinion, very far removed\nfrom the dispassionate survey one would expect from a Gifford Lecturer.\nAlighting on such a misrepresentation of his religious system, a\nBuddhist would naturally feel aggrieved, and his belief in our\nself-adopted reputation for fair-play all round might be rudely shaken.\n\n\"Karma\" is undoubtedly one of the so-called mysteries of Buddhism; but\nis it in any sense more fantastic than any other religious mystery? Is\nthis theory of the transmigration of character (as it has been somewhat\nloosely described) more fanciful in its conception than that of the\ntransmigration of the soul, a \"vaguely-apprehended, feebly-postulated\nego,\" to a dim locality such as heaven? Then, again, it may be asked,\nwhat is there so objectionable in a quiet, unobtrusive resistance to\nevil, that it should prompt the lecturer to magnify the importance of a\ncrude aggressiveness?\n\nIt is by no means true that Buddhist monks are usually immured in\ncloisters; they, in fact, move about freely as examples, within human\nlimits, of the highest morality, and they chiefly occupy themselves\n(as in Burma) with the education of children.[B] General Forlong, in\nhis _Short Studies in the Science of Comparative Religions_, says:\n\"Gotama's religion widened from Jaino-Buddhism into one of work and\nduty towards his fellows; his instructions to the order of monks were\nto the following effect: that they were not to _beg_ from door to door,\nbut only to accept gifts in return for services performed; and this was\ntheir service--to be an example to all men.\"\n\n [B] Those who have not yet read that pathetically beautiful book, _The\n Soul of a People_, by H. Fielding, are referred to chapters x. and\n xi., wherein are set forth the true characteristics, functions, and\n aspirations of the Buddhist monkhood in Burma.\n\nCondemnation of these monks for passing their lives in poverty sounds\nstrangely inappropriate coming from the lips of a Christian professor;\nand, as to the well-being of the race not demanding the wearing of\nyellow garments, one might reasonably ask if it demanded the wearing\nof a black gown. We must, in all fairness, I think, credit Gotama with\npossessing a large measure of that \"Light which lighteth _every man_\nthat cometh into the world.\"\n\nSir Edwin Arnold, I believe, refers to the mysteries of Buddhism as\n\"blank abstractions,\" but I do not suppose he regards them as more\n\"blank\" than the mysteries of other religions. All mysteries are, in\na sense, blank abstractions, and the blanker they are the nearer the\ntruth; and what religion is without them? It may be conceded, however,\nthat such a conception as \"Ultimate Reality\" upon which to fall back in\ntime of need might prove to some minds a more comfortless one than that\npresented by the \"Compassionate Father\" of the Christian God-idea. But\neven this Christian symbolism has an element of mystery in it.\n\nThen there is the poetic phase of anthropomorphism, which is not\naltogether to be despised from an \u00e6sthetic point of view. Such as the\nMohammedan Allah, who is described with exquisite imagery in the Bost\u0101n\nof S\u00e2di as a beautiful cup-bearer at Sufistic banquets,\n\n  \"So fair, They spill the wine and stare,\"[C]\n\nwhich recalls the anthropomorphic Deity of the Psalms:--\n\n  \"In His hand is a cup, and the wine is red.\"\n\n  [C] Author's translation of _Bost\u0101n of S\u00e2di_.\n\nAnother picture of great poetical merit is that of the Incarnate\nSaviour of the Mexicans, who does not ascend to heaven on his departure\nfrom the earth, but sets forth upon the wide ocean in a wizard bark of\nserpent skins for the fabled shores of the kingdom of his Father.\n\nDr. Paul Carus, in his preface to _The Gospel of Buddha_, says: \"A\ncomparison of the many striking agreements between Christianity and\nBuddhism may prove fatal to a sectarian conception of Christianity,\nbut will in the end only help to mature our insight into the essential\nnature of Christianity, and so elevate our religious convictions.\nIt will bring out that nobler Christianity which aspires to be the\ncosmic religion of universal truth.... It will serve both Christians\nand Buddhists as a help to penetrate further into the spirit of their\nfaith, so as to see its full width, breadth, and depth.\"\n\nThe theological formation which has gradually developed into what may\nbe called the crust of creeds, and which has probably now reached\nits limits of hardening, is seen, from day to day, under varying\ninfluences, to be cracking into wider and deeper fissures. The curious\ninquirer now possesses ample opportunities of looking below the surface\nand observing some of the conditions that have, in the course of ages,\ngiven rise to the accretions.\n\nThe deeper we look, or the further our horizon recedes, the greater\nperhaps is the sense of bewilderment and isolation; yet so to wander\nis, at any rate, to be free; and we need not just at present fear\nthat ultimate knowledge is nescience, when our vision will no longer\nbe bounded by any horizon, and when even vision itself will at last\ndisappear.\n\nAs it has been stated of science, so it may be affirmed of all inquiry,\n\"that at a certain stage of its development a degree of vagueness best\nconsists with fertility.\"\n\nChristianity and Buddhism possess three prominent features--\"the\nmetaphysical,\" \"the ethical,\" and \"the biographical.\" As the two\nlatter have been so exhaustively contrasted in connection with these\nsystems, I have confined myself in the following pages chiefly to a\nconsideration of their mystical relationship.\n\n  D. M. S.\n\n _Caledonian United Service Club, Edinburgh.\n   February, 1899._\n\n\n\n\nSANSCRIT AND PALI TERMS USED.\n\n\n               {Includes everything of which impermanence may be\n               {predicated, or, which is the same thing, everything\n  SAMSK\u0100RA     {which springs from a cause. (Childers.)\n  SANKH\u0100RA     {Gestaltungen--Oldenberg's _Buddha_, German edition.\n               {Conformations--English translation of Oldenberg's\n               {_Buddha_.\n\n  SKANDHAS     The five attributes or elements of being--form, sensation,\n               perception, discrimination, and consciousness.\n\n  BHIKKHU      {Mendicant, monk, friar.\n  BHIKSHU      {\n\n  AK\u0100SA        Space.\n\n               {The ocean of Birth and Death, transiency, worldliness,\n  SAMS\u0100RA      {the restlessness of a worldly life, the agitation of\n               {selfishness, the vanity fair of life. (Paul Carus.)\n\n  MAH\u0100Y\u0100NA     The great vehicle--viz., of salvation.\n\n  HIN\u0100Y\u0100NA     The little vehicle--viz., of salvation.\n\n  KARMA        Action, work, the law of action, retribution, results of\n               deeds previously done, and the destiny resulting\n               therefrom. (Paul Carus.)\n\nERRATUM.\n\nFor Professor Oldenberg's _Buddhism_ read everywhere Professor\nOldenberg's _Buddha: His Life, His Doctrine, His Order_.\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nJESUS AND GOTAMA.\n\n\"For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos;\nare ye not carnal?\"--BIBLE.\n\n\nIn any attempt to appreciate the relationship of Christianity to\nBuddhism it is important to bear in mind, not only the differences\nwhich have characterized the process of their evolution, but also to\nrecognize that the two religions are, in their origin, distinct as\nto time and _locale_; that they developed on different soils, and\nhave borne fruit of very different kinds; and that the races which\nsubsequently appropriated them as religious systems were in many\nrespects dissimilar, and lived under widely divergent conditions.\nOnly by regarding these religions as growing apart, and in no manner\nconnected in this sense, can we ultimately arrive at a just and logical\nestimate of the character of the founders.\n\nIt is not by confounding their sources at the start, or by attempting\nto prove that the one system is a product of the other, that we can in\nthe end draw closer the bonds which seem to unite them. A consideration\nof almost equal weight is that of the dual nature of the great\npersonalities of Jesus and Gotama. We must not confuse the significance\nof the term \"God\" with the man Jesus, nor the mystical principle\nembodied in the title \"Buddha\" with the personal and human Gotama. Both\nJesus as God and Gotama as Buddha are dual personalities, and combine\nin themselves tangible and intangible realities. The former is to be\nregarded as man and God, the latter as Gotama and Buddha.\n\nBut, while wishing to emphasize the fact of the independent origin of\nChristianity and Buddhism, I have no intention of combating the fact\nthat a spurious Buddhism had, in the garb of Essenism, established a\nfooting in Palestine at a date anterior to the Christian era, and that,\nunder the influence of St. John the Baptist, the recognized leader of\nthe Essenes, a way was prepared and made ready for the great light\nwhich was to shine forth afresh in the majestic humanity of Jesus. The\npresence of Essene Buddhists in Palestine at that date is a matter\nof history, and has been clearly established by prominent Oriental\nscholars. Moreover, the Church of England itself has, through the\nmedium of some of its most reliable authorities, openly acquiesced in\nthe fact.\n\nThe Essenes, who were, from the second century before Christ\nonwards, domiciled in the Holy Land, although virtually Buddhists, do\nnot seem to have preserved intact the tenets of Gotama, though the\nethics remained unadulterated. They retained many of the qualities\nof the monastic Buddhists, such as asceticism, brotherly love, a\nrare benevolence towards mankind in general, and the still rarer\nconsideration for animal life. Nor was any departure made from the vows\nof chastity, the belief in the transitory nature of things, and in\ntheir attitude of non-resistance to evil. It was rather with regard to\nmetaphysical obscurities that they wandered from the strict teaching of\nGotama; and we cannot wonder that such was the case when we remember\nthe doubts, difficulties, and uncertainties that must have beset\nthe paths of these followers of Gotama when they had no longer the\nEnlightened One to point to them the way of truth.\n\nEspecially do they seem to have gone astray in the matter of the\ndoctrine of the soul. This they described \"as coming from the subtlest\nether, and as lured by the sorcery of nature into the prison-house of\nthe body.\" The Essenes derived their Buddhistic tenets and practices\ndirectly from Gnosticism, which is said to have prevailed in Alexandria\ntwo centuries before the birth of Christ, and its existence in that\ncity owed its origin to the importation of Buddhism from India,\nconstant communication having been established in those days between\nEgypt and the West Coast of India as far north as the mouths of the\nIndus.\n\nFurther, the edicts of King Asoka go to prove that at about this time\nhe was on intimate terms and in frequent correspondence with the\nGreeks; also, that during his reign and under his royal patronage\nBuddhist missionaries found their way to Egypt, and there scattered the\nseed from which arose the Gnostics, or Therapeuts, and the kindred sect\nof the Essenes.\n\nMr. Arthur Lillie, in his _Buddhism in Christendom_, p. 75, writes:\n\"The most subtle thinker of the modern English Church, the late\nDean Mansel, boldly maintained that the philosophy and rites of the\nTherapeuts of Alexandria were due to Buddhist missionaries who visited\nEgypt within two centuries of the time of Alexander the Great. In this\nhe has been supported by philosophers of the calibre of Schelling\nand Schopenhauer and the great Sanscrit authority Lassen. Renan, in\nhis work _Les Langues S\u00e9m\u00e9tiques_, also sees traces of this Buddhist\npropagandism in Palestine before the Christian era. Hilgenfeld, Mutter,\nBohlen, King, all admit the Buddhist influence. Colebrooke saw a\nstriking similarity between the Buddhist philosophy and that of the\nPythagoreans. Dean Milman was convinced that the Therapeuts sprung from\nthe 'contemplative and indolent fraternities' of India.\"\n\nWhen we travel back from Essenism to Gnosticism we approach nearer\ngeographically and conceptionally to the source from which they both\noriginated. Gnosticism, however, presumes to tell us more than Gotama\nchose to reveal as to the beginnings of things, and enters into details\nabout various spiritual emanations which are at variance with any\ninferences that can be legitimately drawn from early Buddhism.\n\nIn the _Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_, under \"Gnosticism,\" we read: \"The\nSupreme Being, according to Gnosticism, was regarded as wholly\ninconceivable and indescribable; as the Unfathomable Abyss; the\nUnnameable. From this transcendant source existence sprang by emanation\nin a series of spiritual powers. It was only through these several\npowers that the Infinite passed into life and activity, and became\ncapable of representation. To this higher world was given the name of\nPleroma, and the divine powers composing it in their ever-expanding\nprocession from the Highest were called \u00c6ons.\"\n\nJesus, according to the Gnostic conception, was one of these higher\n\u00c6ons or Buddhas \"proceeding from the Kingdom of Light for the\nredemption of this lower Kingdom of Darkness.\"\n\nIf the above was whittled down to the bare statement that the\nBoundless, to be made perceptible, had to become active and creative,\nand that thus it happened that the Boundless was manifested by and in\nthe universe, Gnosticism, on this point, would not greatly differ from\nwhat was probably in the mind of Gotama when he pointed out that the\nUncreated or Unproduced must have existence, otherwise the created, the\nproduced, could not be.\n\nIn face of the historically-established fact that Buddhism had reached\nPalestine before the Christian era had commenced, and that Buddhistic\ninfluences were widely disseminated throughout the Holy Land when Jesus\narose upon the scene, I wish to maintain that Jesus, although nurtured\nin the mixed society of ceremonial and Essenic Jews, cannot be claimed\nas belonging to the Essenes or any other sect _after_ he emerged from\nhis long retirement and commenced his ministry. During the time of his\nwithdrawal from publicity it must be assumed that he was growing in\nwisdom, and continued to do so until the perfect enlightenment came to\nhim, when the Holy Ghost descended upon him, and he knew himself to\nbe the Son and symbol of God, and, as such, capable of revealing the\nmysteries of the kingdom of heaven to those who had ears to hear and\neyes to see. This view, or reading, of the Scriptures was the cardinal\ntenet of the adoptionist Christology of the Paulician school in Armenia.\n\nJesus, as human, was undoubtedly begotten, not made, and died. Jesus,\nas divine, became so, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh,\nbut by taking of the _manhood_ into God--first the natural, after that\nthe spiritual, as St. Paul says. Jesus, as God, was immortal.\n\nJesus, as a perfected soul on earth, was a presentation of the\nLogos, in the sense given to this term by Dr. Paul Carus, \"as forms\nof speech,\" which, containing in words eternal truth, is the most\nimportant part of the human soul, when soul is regarded as the\nformative factors of the various forms and their relations that have\nbeen evolving, and are constantly evolving and re-evolving. Jesus was,\nin this respect, altogether independent of his _entourage_, although\na part of it in all other relations. He utilized what was good and\nanswered his purpose in the tenets of the several sections of the\nsociety in which he moved. He was an eclectic, and stood midway between\nmystical and anti-mystical Israel.\n\nThe Essenes, as already stated, derived their doctrines and customs\nchiefly from the Gnostics of Egypt, and the origin of the latter has\nbeen traced to the propagation of Buddhism by Indian missionaries sent\nto Egypt in the time of King Asoka.\n\nNow, Gotama Buddha was, in point of time, an earlier presentation of\nLogos; and, as Gotama's influences were at work in Palestine when Jesus\nappeared, it follows in the natural course of things that Jesus, as a\npresentation of this same Logos, or Bodhi, would have shown a stronger\nleaning towards the tenets and practices of the Essenes than towards\nthose of the ceremonial Jews.\n\nThe position of Jesus in Palestine closely corresponded with that\nof Gotama in Hindustan. Gotama was isolated between the ceremonial\nBrahmin class and the extreme mystical party. He also assimilated, as\nJesus did, in furtherance of his mission, some of the tenets of each\nparty, with certain modifications. He shocked the ceremonialists by\nshowing disdain for rites as rites, and estranged himself from the\nextreme mystical party by refusing to give his imprimatur to factitious\nasceticism. In the same manner Jesus ignored some of the Essenic\nrestrictions by partaking of wine and animal food.\n\nBrahmanism suffered corruption through the acquisition by the priests\nof wealth and power. To the endowment of the Christian Church, and the\nelevation of its priests to temporal sway by the Emperor Constantine,\nhas been attributed the beginning of the decadence of the Christian\nideal. The decline of true Buddhism in India was due in a great measure\nto the munificence of King Asoka, who erected and enriched monasteries\nand other religious institutions. This led ultimately to many serious\nabuses, as well as to deviations from the precepts which Gotama had\nendeavoured to inculcate.\n\nIn Palestine, at the commencement of the Christian era, the ceremonial\nJews or Pharisees,[D] though a numerically small section, were the\ndominant party of Judaism, and were represented by dignitaries of an\noverbearingly proud demeanour. Suppressed by them, the spirituality of\nthe Essene Buddhists was thrown into the shade, and, when the voice\ncrying in the wilderness was no longer to be heard and the commanding\npersonality of St. John the Essene disappeared from the scene, Essenism\nas an organization came to an end.\n\n [D] An indiscriminate denunciation of the Pharisees is, I think,\n unjustifiable. They must be held deserving of commendation in so far\n as they were guided by conscience to a close adherence to the letter\n of that Law which had been delivered to them by the Almighty, through\n Ezra the Lawyer, for strict and undeviating observance.\n\nTo contend with these ceremonialists of Palestine and the corrupt\nBrahmanism of India, and to further the success of their respective\nmissions in the face of these formidable forces, both Jesus in the one\ncase and Gotama in the other realized the expediency of initiating a\nmode of proselytism which, by the humble bearing and unworldly aspect\nof its agents, would differentiate it from the arrogant and exclusive\nmethods of the priestly classes. The missionaries whom these new lights\nsent forth into the world to propagate the doctrine of salvation\nreceived explicit instructions not to provide themselves with gold or\nsilver, or change of raiment and shoes; in fact, they were to pose as\nexamples of that humility and forbearance which was the keynote, in\ntheir ethical significance, of the two systems as formulated for the\nredemption of humanity. In both cases the spell of this evangelism\nwas soon to be lost in a resurgence of the very evils it was intended\nto suppress--the pride of ecclesiasticism and the ascendancy of\nritual--under the widening shadows of which the underlying truths of\nsymbolism became obscured.\n\nAs told in the story of the Great Renunciation, Gotama goes into\nretirement at an early age; Jesus also becomes a recluse. It is\nprobable that he spent the years elapsing between his adolescence\nand the commencement of his ministry among the Essenes, who dwelt in\ncaves in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, where he would have found ample\nopportunity for meditation, as well as genial companionship at hand, if\ndesired.\n\nJesus and Gotama both issued from their retreats and mystic\ncommunions, impregnated with a deep sympathy for a suffering world,\nfor the weary and heavy laden. They both accentuated with the same\nfervour of conviction the futility of laying up treasure upon earth,\nand pointed to the same mysterious heaven where true joy alone was to\nbe found. But none of the dicta of Gotama have approached, either in a\ndoctrinal sense or in uncompromising severity, the declaration of the\nProphet of Nazareth as to the absolute necessity of renouncing the most\nsacred family ties before acceptance could be possible as a true and\nfaithful disciple: \"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and\nmother, and wife, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life too,\nhe cannot be my disciple.\"\n\nThe use of vehement declamations of this nature was probably forced\nupon the speaker by the condition of those days, when it was more than\never necessary to draw a sharp line and to emphasize the depth of the\nchasm that must divide followers of the ideal from those in thrall to\nthe material. It has been remarked by Mr. Lillie that, if Jesus had had\nto deal with people in a later or more advanced state of civilization,\nother methods and other language would in all probability have been\nused to suit the altered conditions.\n\nThe attitude towards relations which Jesus, in the above-quoted\npassage, seems to have expected a disciple to assume may receive some\nelucidation from a story told in Visuddhi-Maga, which is headed by the\ntranslator, Mr. H. C. Warren,[E] \"And Hate Not his Father and Mother.\"\nThe story, briefly related, is to this effect:--\n\nA young man left his father's house, and, having joined the Buddhist\norder of mendicants, was lost sight of by his parents. The mother\nsorrowed for the long absence of her son.\n\n [E] _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 434.\n\nMeanwhile the young monk had been allotted a cell in a certain\nmonastery. But it so happened that this cell had been provided at the\nexpense of his father, who was a devout layman. When the father heard\nthat the cell had been occupied, he set forth to visit the occupant,\nand, as was customary, to beg him to seek his alms at his house for\na space of three months. The young monk appeared at the door of the\ncell, in his yellow robe and with shaven head, and, unrecognized by his\nfather, accepted the invitation to receive alms at the house of the\nlayman.\n\nDay after day he attended at the threshold of his father's house, and\ntook food from the hands of his parents. Still the mother continued to\ngrieve for her long-absent son, accounting him dead.\n\nOne day, as the monk was returning towards the monastery, after parting\non the road with his mother, the latter's brother, an elder, overtook\nher. She fell at her brother's feet, weeping and lamenting for her son.\n\n\"Then thought the elder: 'Surely this lad, through the moderateness of\nhis passions, must have gone away without announcing himself.' And he\ncomforted her, and told her the whole story. The lay woman was pleased,\nand, lying prostrate, with her face in the direction in which her son\nhad gone, she worshipped, saying: 'Methinks the Blessed One must have\nhad in mind a body of priests like my son when he preached the course\nof conduct customary with the great saints, showing how to take delight\nin the cultivation of content.... This man ate for three months in\nthe house of the mother who bore him, and never said, 'I am thy son,\nand thou art my mother.'... For such a one _mother and father_ are no\nhindrances, much less any other lay devotees.\"\n\nOn one occasion, when I was privileged to attend an ordination service\nat Kandy, I was much struck with an incident which occurred at this\ntime-old ceremony. At the conclusion of the service, when the melodious\nintoning of the celebrants had ceased to reverberate in the solemn\nruins of the dimly-lighted aisle, the young initiate was placed at\nthe bottom of the row of monks, who were seated, cross-legged, in the\nnave of the temple. During the service the lay spectators had been\nrailed off at the entrance, which faced the shrine, beneath which the\nchief abbot presided. But, when the newly-ordained monk had assumed a\nsitting posture in the place assigned to him, the railing was removed,\nand his female relations--perhaps his \"beloved one\" among them--came\nforward and prostrated themselves at his feet. The initiate sat with\ndowncast eyes, unmoved by the demonstration, recalling to mind one of\nthose statues of Buddha in which the countenance is represented with\nthat abstracted yet compassionate expression so characteristic of the\nPerfect One. Then also was brought to my recollection that saying of\nJesus recorded in the Gospel when he turned towards his mother and\nexclaimed: \"Woman, what have I to do with thee?\"\n\nIt may, I think, be indisputably affirmed that the deep insight\nof these great reformers into the problems of life, the profound\nimpression they made upon a vain world, their sublimated ideas, their\nsuperhuman influences, their stainless lives--that all these proclaim\nthem to have been veritable embodiments of the mystic Sophia and one\nwith God. Separated only by the time appointed for their appearance in\nthe world, they were both presentations of the same Logos, called in\nBuddhistic terminology \"Bodhi\" or Intelligence. Whether there was a\ndifference between the quality of presentation in the cases of Jesus\nand Gotama, whether the one produced a more flamboyant light than the\nother, and in what respects and how the media differed, are questions\nthat can only be answered by Christians and Buddhists themselves,\naccording to the light that is in them.\n\nIn the person of Jesus the human became divine. It was not a case of\nthe conversion of the godhead into the flesh.\n\nThe whole of the so-called Athanasian Creed, read in the light of\npositive psychology, appears to be a statement of many important\ntruths, and, for all we know, it may be literally true that, unless\na man makes this creed his own and acts up to it, he cannot be saved\nin the sense indicated. The creed is applicable to the needs of the\nwhole world, and, therefore, is rightly called the Catholic faith.\nUnfortunately its patristic terminology has led the unenlightened to\nconclude that it is exclusive and sectarian; consequently, many earnest\nChristians have evinced an inclination to reject it, and efforts have\nbeen made to have it expunged from the Liturgy of the Church of England.\n\nAlthough it may be accepted as a true statement that the typical Hindu\nmind, which ranges over such a vast area of speculation, will never\nbe induced by missionary zeal to confine itself within the apparently\nlimited formul\u00e6 of Christian doctrine, it must not be overlooked that\neven the symbolism of Christianity represents and covers a shoreless\nocean in which thought can disport itself without ever coming into\ncontact with the limitations of the concrete. The Hindu mind binds\nitself, as it has been said of Art, to no creeds, no articles of faith,\nno schemes of salvation, no confessions. It cannot by its very nature.\nThe unconditioned is its country, its native land, its home.\n\nChrist rose from the dead, as the purified soul of man will at last be\ndetached from the conditioned, though still remaining a quality of the\nconditioned. The Christ principle, the Comforter, or the Holy Ghost,\ndoes not, with the ascension of Christ, leave us comfortless, but stays\nwith us to the end.\n\nWith regard to the posthumous appearance of Jesus and all phenomena\nof a like nature, it is not easy to find room in positive psychology\nfor such a thing as a docetic body; yet it would seem absolutely\nneedful for the logical expansion of such a science to include, as a\nspeculative possibility, the seeming existence of loose integrations\nof matter with apparent form and outline, of vaporous counterparts of\nanimal organisms, of aspects of matter not familiar to mankind, having\na place in the general scheme of the apparitional world.[F]\n\n [F] Maimonides and the Kabbalists speak of Genii--semi-material\n beings whose bodies are of fire, air, water, mixed with fine earth\n and visible at times to man. _Vide Bible Folk-Lore_ (p. 190), by the\n author of _Rabbi Jeshua_.\n\nFurther, unless we doggedly refuse to rely on the published experiences\nof eminent and trustworthy men, such as Mr. Myers and his associates,\nthe case of Mrs. Piper must be taken _au s\u00e9rieux_. Those who accept an\nanimistic solution have undoubtedly cleared a fence, but there still\nremains an obstacle before them in the shape of the definition of\n\"spirit.\"\n\nIn seeking for an interpretation that will harmonize with the general\ntenor of Buddhistic philosophy and positive psychology, it is incumbent\nthat the irrefragable \"Law of Causation,\" _\u00e0 l'\u0153uvre_ in the phenomenal\nworld, should be taken into account, and any attempted effort of\nexplanation of unfamiliar powers, such as those exhibited by mediums,\ndemands that a place should be found for them in the mosaic of cause\nand effect. Mediumistic powers, it seems to me, are merely an extension\nof the faculty of expression-reading. Efferent nerves discharge\nimpressions which can be read. Everyone, more or less, can read the\nexpressions of a face, and learn thereby, to a limited and imperfect\nextent, the thoughts of an individual. In the case of the medium, the\nterminal organs of the afferent nerves being hyper-sensitive, the\nmedium is able to do more than read in a general way the thought of a\nperson by the impression conveyed through the discharge of the efferent\nnerves of a person. A medium, therefore, receives, in proportion to the\ndegree of hyper-sensitiveness possessed by the terminal organs of the\nafferent nerves, the intimate knowledge harboured in the brain-cells of\nanother person, which is constantly being discharged by the efferent\nnerves of that person. These powers, which I relegate to the realm of\ncausation, must not be confounded with \"Bodhi,\" or \"Logos,\" which is\nnot subject to any phenomenal law.\n\nThe founder of the Brahmo Somaj, Keshub Chunder Sen, idealized Christ\nas a universal principle in these striking sentences:--\n\n\"As the sleeping Logos did Christ live potentially in the Father's\nbosom, long, long before he came into this world of ours.... Wherever\nthere is intelligence, in all stages of life, where there is the least\nspark of instinct, there dwells Christ, if Christ is the Logos. In\nthis right and rational view do not the Fathers all agree? Do they\nnot speak of an all-pervading Christ? Do not they bear unequivocal\ntestimony to Christ in Socrates? Even in barbarian philosophy and in\nall Hellenic literature they saw and adored their Logos, Christ.... I\ndeny and repudiate the little Christ of popular theology, and stand up\nfor a greater Christ, a fuller Christ, a more eternal Christ, a more\nuniversal Christ.\n\n\"I plead for the eternal Logos of the Fathers, and I challenge the\nworld's assent.\n\n\"This is the Christ who was in Greece and Rome, in Egypt and in\nIndia. In the bards and the poets of the Rig-Veda was he. He dwelt in\nConfucius and in Sakya Muni (Gotama Buddha). This is the true Christ,\nwhom I can see everywhere, in all lands and in all times, in Europe and\nin Asia, in Africa, in America, in ancient and modern times. He is not\nthe monopoly of any nation or creed. All literature, all science, all\nphilosophy, every doctrine that is true, every form of righteousness,\nevery virtue that belongs to the Son, is the true subjective Christ,\nwhom all ages glorify. He is pure intelligence (Bodhi), the word of\nGod, mighty Logos. Scattered in all schools of philosophy and in all\nreligious sects, scattered in all men and women of the East and the\nWest, are multitudinous Christ-principles and fragments of Christ-life,\none vast and identical Sonship diversely manifested.\"\n\nThe writer of an article in a review[G] says that the expression,\nLogos, is introduced \"with startling suddenness by St. John in the\nexordium of his Gospel, and that there is nothing in the Old Testament\nor in the Synoptic Gospels to prepare the way for it, or to explain\nit.\" He inclines, the writer says, to attribute the introduction of the\nidea by St. John to the influence of Philo-Jud\u00e6us, who elaborated it\nfrom the account of the Creation given in Genesis, to such an extent\nthat he came to call the Logos, or intermediary power, the Son of God.\nPhilo, after profound meditation, to quote his own words, \"heard even\na more solemn voice from my soul, _accustomed often to be possessed by\nGod and to discourse of things which it knew not_, which, if I can,\nI will recall.\" Philo, the writer says, must have \"observed that the\nMosaic cosmogony leaves the _modus operandi_ of creation in obscurity.\nThe account given is '_God said_, Let there be light,' and so on.\nThus the spoken word of God is represented as the efficient cause of\ncreation. But to attribute speech to the Most High was manifestly a\nconcession to the frailty of the human intellect.\"\n\n [G] \"St. John and Philo-Jud\u00e6us,\" by W. E. Ball (_Contemporary Review_,\n January, 1898).\n\nMr. W. E. Ball concedes that the Logos-idea was prevalent in the\nEast long before the time of the Evangelist, and in this connection he\nrefers to the Vedic vach or speech. This notion also possibly emanated\nfrom a cosmogony similar to that found in Genesis. He proceeds to say\n\"that the editors of the Septuagint deliberately set themselves to\nsoften down those passages in the earlier books of the Bible which\nwere conceived to be most open to the charge of anthropomorphism. A\nsingle example will suffice. In Exodus xxiv. 9-11 it is related that\nMoses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders, ascended Mount\nSinai '_and saw the God of Israel_.' The Hebrew text is clear beyond\ndispute; but in the Septuagint the passage reads, 'and saw the place\nwhere the God of Israel stood.'\" Then we are referred to the \"one\nliving and true God, who, according to the Christian articles of faith,\nis without body, parts, or passions.\" As, however, in the Christian\nScriptures it was recorded that he had been seen and conversed with,\nit became necessary to assume an emanation or intermediary power for\nthis speaking and visible phase of God; hence, first, the unpersonified\nLogos of Philo, and afterwards the Logos made flesh in the person of\nJesus according to St. John. The writer thinks that, however much the\nconception of Philo in the direction of a Logos as the Son of God\nmay be minimized in its importance (on account of Philo's silence on\nthe divine human as a Messiah) with reference to its bearing upon\nthe writings of St. John, there is no doubt that Philo supplied \"a\ntheological vocabulary for the expression of Johannine and Pauline\ndoctrine.\" \"St. John grasped Philo's conception of the word as not\nonly the revelation of the _silent_ God, but also as a reflection\nof the invisible God.\" \"Jesus never described himself as the son\nof God.\" Such endeavours, however, as the above to fix the genesis\nand growth of an idea from a concrete statement in a book, and to\nhypothecate its translation from one leader of thought to another,\nleaves out of reckoning the possibility of ideas finding a place in\nindividual minds by means of a mystical faculty, or what is commonly\ncalled revelation. This mystical faculty is the power of sublimating\nideas, a power, evolved from materialities, that, at a certain stage\nof thought, produces a capacity for abnormal insight into the nature\nof things, a capacity that can be developed by training; that is to\nsay, when the faculty of knowledge becomes so far removed from the\nmechanical influences of the brain that its connection with the nervous\nsystem may be considered to be on the verge of absolute severance.\nThis faculty is due to no individualized external power, but is simply\na development from the totality of things, their inherent qualities,\ntheir relationship and interactions.\n\nBoth Philo and St. John may be credited with the possession of a\ncertain amount of this abnormal power, and considered as presentations\nof Logos, but not in the same perfection as Jesus and Gotama. \"B\u00f4dhi,\"\nDr. Paul Carus says, \"is that which conditions the cosmic order of\nthe world and the uniformities of reality. B\u00f4dhi is the everlasting\nprototype of truth, partial aspects of which are formulated by\nscientists in the various laws of nature. Above all, B\u00f4dhi is the\nbasis of the Dharma; it is the foundation of religion; it is the\nobjective reality in the constitution of being from which the good law\nof righteousness is derived; it is the ultimate authority for moral\nconduct.\"\n\nIt is evident from historical sources that there were many Buddhists\nliving at and after the time of Gotama, when traditions and legends\naccumulated, who had not assimilated his doctrines in their entirety\nand purity. So it was in the case of Jesus, whose followers and\ninterpreters arrived at various conclusions in respect of his teaching.\n\nSome who have emancipated themselves from the \"letter that kills,\" and\nhave acquired the power of grasping realities, have conceived the true\nposition of Jesus and Gotama to have been that of clairvoyants, and,\nconsequently, it is not to be expected that a complete mastery of the\nmeaning of their communications would ever be attainable by ordinary\nhuman knowledge. This latter conclusion, in respect of Jesus, is most\nclearly established by passages to be found in the New Testament.\n\nJesus and Gotama laboured under the same difficulty: they knew\nmore than was translatable into language, or communicable to their\nfollowers. Parables were attempted as media for imparting a glimmering\nof this knowledge to the ignorant and obtuse. Professor Oldenberg says:\n\"When we try to resuscitate, in our own way and our own language, the\nthoughts that are embedded in the Buddhist teaching, we can scarcely\nhelp forming the impression that it was not a mere idle statement which\nthe sacred texts present to us, that the Perfect One knew much more\nwhich he thought inadvisable to say than what he esteemed it profitable\nto say.\"\n\nJesus withheld all explanation as to how evil came into the world. He\ndealt with it as a fact. He did not even theorize about the origin of\nevil. He taught, on the principle of his well-known saying, \"He that\nhath ears to hear let him hear.\" \"A careful regard to audience is\ntraceable in his use of apocalyptic language about his second coming;\nit is to Jews only--the Twelve, or the high priest, or the Sanhedrin,\nor Nathaniel, the 'Israelite indeed'--that he speaks of cleft heavens,\ncloud chariots, and attendant troops of angels. With the Roman governor\nhe avoids Jewish metaphors\" (_Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_, \"Eschatology\").\n\nBoth Jesus and Gotama must have realized the hopelessness of\nimprinting their so-called esoteric teaching (which underlay and\nintertwined with the ethical) upon the understanding of those who\nhad not cultivated noumenal instincts. Gotama had need, even on\nhis death-bed, to explain everything all over again to his closest\ncompanion, the beloved disciple Ananda. In how many ways Jesus\nendeavoured to convey the meaning of the kingdom of God to his hearers!\nYet to this day how few have grasped a fraction of its import. The\nmeaning must be felt rather than understood by the intellect. In fact,\nit is necessary to become a Parsifal to do so (\"for not many wise men\nafter the flesh are called\"). Also, one must get as far as possible\naway from the bondage of the intellect, which handicaps one in the\nattempt. A full knowledge of such mysteries cannot be attained until\nthe machinery of the brain is left a considerable distance behind;\nuntil ideas are no longer in positive connection with the neural\nvibrations of the brain. The clock cannot hear what is going on around\nit for the noise of its ticking. Plotinus says: \"To reach the ultimate\ngoal, thought itself must be left behind; for thought is a form of\nmotion, and the desire of the soul is for motionless rest, which\nbelongs to the One.\"\n\nNeither Jesus nor Gotama committed themselves to writing; hence we are\nentirely dependent, in our judgment of the purport of their mission,\nupon the general tenour of communications vouchsafed to us by the\nspecial correspondents of their era. It is upon these synoptists\nand other recorders that people build their theories, and pile up\ninterpretations in various very restricted senses.\n\nBut defining is truly dethroning in the cases of Jesus and Gotama. Like\nthe dove in the Song of Solomon, they abide in the clefts of the rocks,\nin the secret places of the stairs. The suppliant can only satisfy his\nthirsty soul with an invocation: \"Let me see thy countenance, let me\nhear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely!\"\nTheism, Atheism, Deism, and many other 'isms must be cast out of our\nminds into the bottomless pit before we can hope to place our trembling\nfeet within even the threshold of their presence. There, perforce, we\nmust arrest our progress, lost in transcendent wonder. This, as Carlyle\nsays, is worship in its highest sense.\n\nNo allusion was made either by Jesus or Gotama to the miraculous\ncircumstances said to have attended their nativity; and, although there\nexist no data for the assumption that the historians of the latter\nwere inspired writers like those of the New Testament, the messianic\nhalo with which Buddhist tradition has encircled the figure of Gotama\ntends to bring together the personalities of the two reformers into\ncloser pictorial relationship. But this blending of the portraiture\ncannot be taken in any sense as a help towards wheeling into line\nthe psychological forces in the field of inquiry. Nevertheless, the\ninterest attaching to these traditions as coincidental, and the\nconsideration that the date of the Buddhist chronicles is anterior to\nthat of the New Testament, render them worthy of brief notice.\n\nM. Ernest de Bunsen[H] says: \"Among a circle of Indians prophecies\nwere accredited which announced the incarnation of an angel, called\nthe Anointed or Messiah, who should bring to earth the Wisdom or B\u00f4dhi\nfrom above, and establish the kingdom of heavenly truth and justice. He\nwould be of royal descent, and genealogies would connect him with his\nancestors. The 'Blessed One,' the 'God among Gods,' and the 'Saviour\nof the World' was, according to Buddhistic records, incarnate by the\nHoly Ghost, of the royal Virgin Maya, and he was born on Christmas Day,\nthe birthday of the Sun, for which reason the Sun became the symbol of\nGotama Buddha. To be like Gotama is to reach the ideal[I] which has\nbeen set to humanity, and to be like God. Salvation does not depend on\nany outward act, but on a change or renewal of the mind, or a reform\nof the inner nature, or faith in the innate guiding power of God, of\nwhich the celestial Buddha, incarnated in Gotama, was held to be the\nhighest organ. The saving faith, therefore, was brought by, and centred\nin, the incarnate Angel-Messiah, the Saviour of the World. Salvation is\nby faith, and faith comes by the Maya, the Spirit or Word of God, of\nwhich Gotama, the Angel-Messiah, was regarded as the divinely-chosen\nand incarnate messenger, the Vicar of God, and God himself on earth.\nAccording to Chinese-Buddhistic writings, it was the Holy Ghost, or\nShing-Su, which descended on the Virgin Maya. The effect produced by\nthis miracle is thus summed up in the most ancient Chinese life of\nBuddha which we at present possess, translated between A.D. 25 and 190:\n'If the child born from this conception be induced to lead a secular\nlife, he shall become a universal monarch; but if he leaves his home,\nand becomes a religious person, then he shall become Buddha, and shall\nsave the world.'\"\n\n [H] _The Angel-Messiah of Buddhists, Essenes, and Christians_, pp. 25,\n 32.\n\n [I] \"Jesus is the father of all those who seek in dreams of the ideal\n the repose of their souls\" (Renan).\n\nDr. Paul Carus, in his _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_, pp.\n150-51, says: \"According to the orthodox Buddhist conception, there\nis no doubt about it that the incarnation of Buddha, in the person of\nGotama Siddharta, has passed away. Gotama has died, and his body will\nnot be resurrected. But Buddha continues to live in the body of the\nDharma--_i.e._, the law or religion of Buddha; and, in so far as he is\nthe truth, he is immortal and eternal.\"\n\n\"The whole world may break to pieces, but Buddha will not die. The\nwords of Buddha are imperishable.\"\n\nThe idea of the appearance of a periodical Messiah was extant\nthroughout the Jaino-Buddhist times, thousands of years before Gotama\nBuddha entered upon his mission in the field of religious reformation.\n\"Millions of Buddhists still believe that their Lord will come again to\nredeem his people, appearing as Maitri.\"[J] The twenty-three Buddhas\nwho preceded Gotama--\"the immortal saints universally acknowledged\nby the Jains as coming to earth in divers ages to aid and bless\nmankind\"--have been recorded, with their names, fathers' names, and\nsymbols, reaching as far back, it has been calculated, as 6,000 B.C.\n\"The Blessed One said: 'The Buddha that will come after me will be\nknown as Maitr\u00e2iya, which means he whose name is Kindness.'\"\n\n [J] _Vide_ General Forlong's _Short Studies in the Science of\n Comparative Religions_.\n\nThe conception of a mystical Trinity was introduced into both the\nChristian and Buddhist systems of belief at a late stage of their\ndevelopment. In the case of Buddhism it arose from the simple formula:--\n\n \"I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge\nin the Sangha\"--\n\nthat is, in the Prophet, the Law, and the Church. These afterwards were\ninterpreted to stand for the Self-Existent, the Son (Logos) or Sophia\n(Wisdom), and the Holy Ghost (or uniting principle).\n\nGotama has also been said to possess three personalities, and every\none of them is of equal importance.[K] \"There is the Dh\u00e2rma K\u00e2ya;\nthere is the Nirm\u00e2na K\u00e2ya; there is the Sambh\u00f4ga K\u00e2ya. _Buddha_ is\nthe all-excellent truth, eternal, omnipresent, and immutable; this\nis the Sambh\u00f4ga K\u00e2ya, which is in a perfect state of bliss. _Buddha_\nis the all-loving teacher, assuming the shape of the beings whom he\nteaches; this is the Nirm\u00e2na K\u00e2ya, his apparitional body. _Buddha_\nis the all-blessed dispensation of religion; he is the spirit of the\nSangha and the meaning of the commands which he has left us in his\nsacred word, the Dh\u00e2rma; this is the Dh\u00e2rma K\u00e2ya, the body of the most\nexcellent law.\"\n\n [K] _Vide Gospel of Buddha_, by Paul Carus, p. 227.\n\n\"It was proclaimed,\" says Mr. Lillie, \"that Gotama possessed a\nsuperfluity of good Karma, or Righteousness, which was available for\nall men to partake of, whereby salvation might be had.\" He quotes from\nthe Bible as a parallel to this idea: \"By the righteousness of one the\nfree gifts came upon all men unto justification of life\"; also: \"By the\nobedience of one shall many be made righteous.\"\n\nTo be saved by \"the blood\" in a realistic sense is another way very\nmuch accentuated by St. Paul. To be saved through \"faith in the blood\"\nhas been taken to mean, by some interpreters, through faith in the\ngenealogy, or divine stock, from which Jesus traced his descent, as\nwell as through \"faith in the life\" (which is the blood)--that is, by\nfollowing the life-example of the Son, in contradistinction to the\nidea of salvation through a materialistic reliance on the details of a\nviolent death.\n\nThe doctrine of Predestination, which holds such a prominent\nposition in Christian theology, cannot be excluded altogether from a\nconsideration of Buddhistic philosophy, in which, however, it bears\na somewhat different signification. Although both Jesus and Gotama\nmade use of the language of \"free-will\" as we talk of to-morrow, which\nnever is, one is forced to conclude that, by virtue of their position\nas manifestations of the Logos, they were both aware of the scientific\ncertainty of the non-existence of what is commonly understood as\n\"free-will.\" The very fact of the law of causation being the pivot\naround which Buddhist philosophy revolves seems to assure us that this\nwas, in the knowledge of Gotama, the central law of the Kosmos, and\nsuch that it could not be affected by the will of an individual who\nwas not an independent individual, but simply part and parcel of the\nmolecular contents of the apparitional world.\n\nAs Gotama recognized that the mind and sense of humanity were so deeply\ningrained with the notion of free-will, he was constrained to use the\n_argumentum ad hominem_, and outwardly base his ethical system on a\nfree-will which seemed natural to humanity to believe in, but which was\nnevertheless a delusion.\n\nThe several passages in the New Testament in which the doctrine of\nPredestination is plainly set forth are too well known to necessitate\ntheir quotation here. St. Augustine says: \"What happens of thee he\nhimself [God] works in thee. Never anything happens of thee which he\nhimself does not work in thee.... Never is anything done by thee unless\nhe works it in thee.\"[L]\n\n [L] _Cf._ \"I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and\n create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things\" (Bible).\n\nThe universal feeling that we possess \"free-will\" is no proof of\nits reality, and only on the basis of the axiom that nothing is too\nunscientific or extraordinary to be possible (which is sound enough)\ncan it be accepted as a possibility. Even Locke could not, for the life\nof him, reconcile omniscience and free-will, although he believed in\nboth.\n\nTaking free-will as a sensation, we must pronounce it to be just as\nillusory as any other sensation, except as a sensation. On the other\nhand, the Determinist view cannot be classified as a sensation, but is\nrather a product of reason. Professor James says: \"Genuine Determinism\naffirms, not the impotence of free-will, but the unthinkability of\nfree-will.\"\n\nSt. Paul writes, with reference to sin: \"It is no more I that do it,\nbut sin (or evil Karma) that dwelleth in me.\" And we are instructed in\nsome parts of the Christian Scripture that all good is of God, and not\nof ourselves. Here, then, there appears to be a complete obliteration\nof the idea of free-will in respect of actions either good, bad, or\nindifferent; and in confirmation of this view it is necessary to\nremember that the language of free-will was used for convenience\nsake, that God is distinctly said \"to have called those things which\nbe not as though they were.\" St. Paul says: \"The creature was made\nsubject to vanity, not willingly.\" Possibly he may have had in mind\nwhen he delivered this dictum the vanity, or vain conceit, of assuming\nfree-will.\n\nIf it be permissible to assert that we exercise no control, in the\nsense of free-will, over the functions of our digestive organs,\nwhich perform their work without our being sensibly conscious of it\n(except in the case of abnormal disturbance), one would think the\nassertion might be extended in regard to cerebral functions also. We\nconceive thought to precede many of our actions, but if thought is the\nnon-spatial accompaniment of cerebral cell-action, and the latter is\nno more amenable to the control of free-will than our digestive organs\nare, then those actions which are the sequences of thought cannot be\n\"free-will\" actions.\n\nIt is generally admitted that there are occasions when an individual\nacts without exercising free-will; when, for instance, a man loses\nhis head, as the expression goes, in a sudden catastrophe. There are\nalso distinctly involuntary actions, such as blushing, turning pale,\nperspiring, etc. It seems, then, that an individual only exercises\nhis will, according to general belief, under certain conditions. But\nif free-will is acknowledged to be absent under some conditions, may\nwe not reasonably conclude that it may be absent altogether, and only\nexists as an illusion of the senses?\n\nAnyhow, circumstances--or, in other words, the molecular activities\nof the universe--appear to be the dominant factor in determining our\nactions. These activities, when working through cerebral cells, turn\nout thoughts; when operating through the skin pores, they produce\nperspiration.\n\nLocke, in his chapter on \"Power\" (human understanding), seems to draw\nvery near to an admission of Determinism, but then flies away from\nit, evidently alarmed by the spectre of irresponsibility. He labours\nto demonstrate that uneasiness or desire determines the will to the\nsuccessive (so-called) voluntary actions whereof the greatest part of\nour lives is made up, and by which we are _conducted_ through different\ncauses to different ends. This is, as far as it goes, unadulterated\nDeterminism.\n\nDr. Paul Carus defines freedom of will as the power to do that\nwhich one wills, not as the freedom of a man to will what he wills.\nIndeterminism he declares to be based upon error, because it attributes\nto man an exceptional place in the universe. Man is supposed to be\nexempt from the uniform and inexorable law of cause and effect which\nrules in the universe. He says: \"The decision of a free man depends\nupon his character\"; but character is only the result of innumerable\ncauses, which has become a cause upon which other effects follow,\naccording to the cosmic law of causation, which must include in its\nimpartial sway man as well as all other integrations of matter.\n\nDeterminism is morally safe, because man cannot escape from the\n_feeling_ that he possesses free-will, which, nevertheless, is an\nillusion, in the sense that \"illusions are ideas that have not\noriginated from the data of experience.\"\n\nIn _Light_ (April 18th, 1898) there is quoted the following, as part\nof a discourse on \"The Evolution of Mind,\" delivered by Professor\nJordan: \"The plant searches for food by a movement of the feeding parts\nalone.... The tender tip is the plant's brain. If locomotion were\nin question, the plant would need to be differently constructed. It\nwould demand the mechanism of the animal. The nerve, brain, and muscle\nof the plant are all represented by the tender growing cells of the\nmoving tips. The plant is touched by moisture or sunlight. It 'thinks'\nof them, and in so doing the cells that are touched and 'think' are\nturned towards the source of the stimulus. The function of the brain,\ntherefore, in some sense exists in the tree, but there is no need in\nthe tree for a special sensorium.\"\n\nA comment in _Light_ on this discourse runs as follows: \"In higher\norganisms the mind becomes more and more localized, until in the\nhigher animals it has a special organ--the brain, which, however, is\nshut up in darkness and 'has no knowledge except such as comes to it\nfrom the sense-organs through the ingoing or sensory nerves.' Being\nfilled with these impressions, some of which are actual sensations,\nwhile others are memories of past sensations, _the brain must make a\nchoice_ among them by fixation of attention, if it is to act properly.\nTo find data for such a choice is the function of the intellect. This,\nDr. Jordan tells us, is the difference between mind and mere instinct,\nor inherited habits. Mind chooses, instinct cannot, for it is but an\nautomatic mind-process inherited from generation to generation.\"\n\nIt must be remembered, however, that this faculty of choosing, said to\nbe possessed by the brain and acquired by a process of development, is\nnot free, but conditioned. The terminal organs of the afferent nerves\nalso may be said to possess this faculty of choice, yet limited by\ntheir qualities and the nature of the external influences to which they\nare submitted.\n\nThe admission of a faculty of choice does not involve the idea of\nabsolute freedom, nor need it disturb the Buddhist conception that\nthere exists nothing behind the organism in the shape of an ego-entity,\nor soul, which chooses or remembers, and that there is no hidden agent\nwhich prompts the conveyance of impressions.\n\nIf we admit this faculty of choice to be possessed by the brain and\nterminal organs of the afferent and efferent nerves, it simply involves\nthe concession that the stored-up memories in the brain, and the\nhabits acquired by the muscular organism, as results of past external\ninfluences, act in the _manner_ of choice; and in this sense only, it\nwould seem, can the notion of \"freedom\" be scientifically and logically\nentertained.\n\nIf the faculty of choice, in this restricted sense, as the possession\nof a pluricellular organism such as man, is accepted in confirmation\nof the existence of \"freedom,\" then we must accord the possession of\n\"freedom\" to the simplest form of life. The cellule composed only of\nprotoplasm and a nucleus possesses the very same faculty.\n\nM. Alfred Binet tells us of the highly-developed psychical functions\nof the spermatozoid; how it searches out the locality of the\novule situated at a distance; how, with a sense of direction, it\ntraverses the whole length of the intervening space, overcoming all\nobstacles--which are many--in its path, to attain the desired object;\nand he maintains that such actions cannot be explained by simple\nirritability, nor by chemical affinity. The brain may possess this\nfaculty, and the power to carry into effect the choice, as qualities\nof its mechanism; but there is no discrete entity behind the brain as\nagent.\n\n\"Is it quite certain that, when consciousness seems to affirm that 'I\ncan choose so and so,' it means more than 'it is possible such and such\na choice will take place in my mind'? If it does not mean more than\nthis, its affirmation is not against Determinism\" (_Mind_, April, 1898,\np. 191). Even if the faculty of choice is granted, it is limited in the\nsense that choice does not always produce the effect chosen.\n\n\"Locke and Hume say 'Liberty is a power to act as _we_ choose.' But can\n_we_ choose? Are _we_ the original causes of our choice? And what is\nthe power to which action is subjected? Must it not be subject to some\nother power, and, therefore, not free, unless it is a self-existent\npower?\"\n\nEnough has been said, perhaps, on this subject to explain the author's\nposition in assuming that both Jesus and Gotama must have been, by\nnecessity of their omniscience, well aware of the truth of Determinism.\nYet, having to deal with phenomenal beings, they were constrained to\ntreat them as such, and address them in phenomenal terms, and to lower\nthemselves to the level of those sensations from which the illusive and\nunconquerable feeling of responsibility arises.\n\nThe fact of occult powers having been attributed to Jesus and Gotama\nmakes it necessary to include in this chapter a brief reference to the\nsubject of magic,[M] and to consider in what light we should regard\nthis art in connection with these two characters.\n\n [M] Magic I define as the art of visualizing and utilizing those\n aspects and qualities of matter that are not familiar to the normal\n senses.\n\nIt has been remarked that the opposition to magic has seldom been\nconnected with sceptical doubts as to its reality, and that the\ndistinction drawn between white and black magic was due to the\nassumption by the priestly class of the sole right to the exercise of\nmagic in their rites, and \"hence magicians who were outside the pale\nof priesthood were called sorcerers, or dealers in black magic.\" The\npages of the Christian Bible are aflame with magic, and, on opening the\nOld Testament, one seems to stand on the threshold of an unmeasurable\ncavern, where dreams the Great Magician that inhabiteth Eternity.\n\nNo one who has not made of magic, in its several branches, a close\nstudy--who has not literally soaked in mysticism (that \"powerful\nsolvent of definite dogma\")--or who is not gnomic, intuitionally\n\"in the know\" without study, can possibly pose as an authoritative\ninterpreter of God's Holy Word.\n\nAn authority on the Hermetic Philosophy says that astrology is to be\nfound \"throughout the Bible, from the very first chapter of Genesis,\nwhen the stars were set for _signs_ and seasons and days and years,\non to the Book of Revelation, where the wonder was seen in heaven,\nthe woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and all\nthe great astrological problems in that book; and the great truth,\nthe Incarnation itself, announced by the star of the Epiphany.... All\nthe occult methods of divination more or less find their place in the\nBible and in the scheme of religion. The divination by Urim and Thummin\nis a well-known form of clairvoyance which is practised now. Joseph's\ndivining-cup was merely a species of magic mirror, the form of which is\nwell known now, and is used by some clairvoyant seers. The use of music\nby the prophet Elisha, when the kings of Israel and Judah went out\nagainst Moab, is precisely the same as is now used by many Spiritualist\nmediums and seers, though not with the same effect ordinarily. And so\none might go on with all the forms of divination. It can be clearly\nproved that divination by cards was known and practised in Biblical\ntimes by the Biblical prophets; all this showing that during the times\nof the Old Testament, and with _commendation_ from the prophets, and\nin use by the prophets, were modes of divination which postulated the\ntruth of the Hermetic science.\"\n\nIt stands to reason that Jesus as God, and Gotama as Buddha, must have\nbeen acquainted with all the laws of nature, and, consequently, were\nin full possession of so-called occult powers. The manifestations of\nthese powers enter more largely and distinctly, as true records, into\nthe life of Jesus than into that of Gotama. The acts of Jesus were one\ncontinuous demonstration of occult power, and his disciples were, in a\nlesser degree, gifted with the same powers.\n\nThat which is known as ceremonial magic was not made use of to any\nextent by Jesus and Gotama as a method or means for the production of\nthese powers. This was not requisite with them, as it is in the case\nof ordinary individuals, who must have recourse to those aids which\nhave been found by occultists, after long experience, to be the most\nefficient means of attaining their object.\n\nClumsier methods have been used with a minimum amount of success; but,\nif the operator desires to arrive at any degree of perfection in the\nart, it is just as necessary for him to observe closely the rules laid\ndown by the ceremonialists of magic as it is for a gamekeeper to make\nuse of the accepted symbolism in the training of a retriever--that is,\nif the object is to accomplish the undertaking with the least trouble\nand the best results. Jesus and Gotama,[N] on account of their unique\nposition as being _en rapport_ with this power, had no occasion,\ntherefore, to resort to ceremonial magic.\n\n [N] \"Gotama, as Buddha, possessed an intuitive insight of the nature\n of every object in the universe, a knowledge of the mind of all\n beings, and of the finality of the stream of life\" (_The Gospel of\n Buddha_, by Paul Carus, p. 244).\n\nThe Indian saint Mozoomdar (whose acquaintance I had the privilege\nof making in India), in his introductory remarks to _The Oriental\nChrist_, a book published by him in 1883, points out how estimates of\ncharacter vary if viewed from different standpoints, and how, when\nthe singularity of a nature happens to lie in its manysidedness,\nrepresentations of it may be conflicting, but quite genuine and\ncorrect. The whole of the introduction to this work shows such\nremarkable and original insight into the character of Jesus, as judged\nfrom an Oriental point of view, that I cannot forbear to give a few\nquotations, more especially as they may tend to help forward the\npurpose of this chapter by demonstrating how the personalities of Jesus\nand Gotama are interchangeable under certain aspects in respect of\ntheir mystic significance.\n\nEarly in the introduction the writer says: \"It is held that the\ncelestial figure of the sweet Prophet of Nazareth is illumined with\nstrange and unknown radiance when the light of Oriental faith and\n_mystic_ devotion is allowed to fall upon it. It is a fact that the\ngreatest religions of the world have sprung from Asia. It has, with\nsome accuracy, been said, therefore, that it is an Asiatic only\nwho can teach religion to Asiatics. In Christ we see not only the\nexaltedness of humanity, but also the grandeur of which Asiatic nature\nis susceptible.\"\n\nIn the following very plain terms he distinguishes Christ as the Logos\nof the Gospel of St. John, with which may be classified the \"Bodhi,\" or\nIntelligence of the Buddhists: \"He was the thought and energy of God.\nHe was the plan of God. He was the light of divine reason and love, as\nyet involved within the great impenetrable. In that sense the whole\nuniverse was at one time merely the thought of the Infinite Being. And\nevery one of us has sprung from the formless ocean of divinity that\nspread through all.\"\n\n\"John the Baptist,\" he writes, \"had announced the kingdom of heaven.\nJesus pointed to it. Pointed where?... He pointed to the kingdom of\nheaven in his own heart. He pointed to the inner sphere where his\ndisembodied spirit communed with the eternal spirit of life; and,\nbeholding God in him and himself in God, he exclaimed: 'I and my Father\nare one.'... He also beheld his brethren in him, and cried: 'Abide in\nme, and I in you.'\"\n\nThis, the writer says, is pure Idealism, and Christ even idealized his\nflesh and blood, and administered them to his disciples as a sacrament.\n\nFinally, this enraptured saint of Hindustan places before the reader\ntwo characters in illustration of the distinctions which may be said\nto exist between Eastern and Western conceptions of Jesus: \"One of\nthem is an elaborately learned man, versed in all the principles of\ntheology. His doctrine is historical, exclusive, and arbitrary.... He\ninsists upon plenary inspiration, becomes stern over forms, continually\ndescants on miracles ... condemns men to eternal darkness and death. He\ncontinually talks of blood and fire and hell ... he hurls invectives\nat other men's faith.... All scriptures are false which have grown up\noutside of his dispensation, climate, and authority.... He is tolerated\nonly because he carries with him the imperial prestige of a conquering\nrace. Can this be the Christ that will save India?\n\n\"By his side another figure. He is simple, natural. He is a stranger\nto the learning of books. Out of the profound, untaught impulses of\nhis soul he speaks.... His doctrines are the simple utterances of a\nfatherhood which embosoms all the children of men, and a brotherhood\nwhich makes all the races of the world one great family.... All nations\nrespond to his mystical utterances about heaven and earth.... His\nself-immersed air, absent eyes ... which show that his spirit is far,\nfar away, point him out to be the Prophet of the East, the sweet Jesus\nof the Galilean lake.\n\n\"Throughout the whole Eastern world the perfume of his faith and\ndevotion has spread. The wild genius of Mohammed knew and adored him\namid the sands of Arabia. The tender, love-intoxicated soul of Hafiz\nrevelled in the sweetness of Christ's piety amid the rosebuds and\nnightingales of Persia. Look at this picture and upon that.... When we\nspeak of an Eastern Christ we speak of the incarnation of unbounded\nlove and grace; and when we speak of a Western Christ, we speak of\nthe incarnation of theology, formalism, ethical, and physical force.\nChrist, we know, is neither of the East nor of the West; but men have\nlocalized what God meant to make universal.\"\n\nHappily there is no need to substantiate the fact of the immense\nconsolations derived by humanity from the Christian mode of regarding\nthe past, the present, and the future, with all its dazzling\npossibilities, in the direction of a New Jerusalem; but it must,\nindeed, seem strange to those nurtured amid Christian influences that\na religious system such as Buddhism, which does not recognize a God\nor Soul or Immortality in the Occidental sense of these terms, should\nclaim to have as its product that _c\u0153ur l\u00e9ger_ temperament which is\nsaid to be, and to have been, the distinctive characteristic of its\ncountless adherents.\n\nWhen the mind wanders afar from the dogmatic of the scholiast, the\nlife of Jesus presents itself with a dramatic force of loveliness and\ngrandeur which, of its kind, cannot be surpassed; and the poetic pathos\nof the New Testament, though not so resonant as that to be found in the\npages of such works as Job and the Prophets, possesses a pastoral charm\nof its own at once soothing and stimulating.\n\nIn Buddhistic literature, and in the intensity of Buddhistic thoughts,\nthere are extraordinary and unrivalled beauties which are emphasized in\na remarkable manner, in the sympathetic rendering accorded to them by\nsuch exponents as Professor Oldenberg and Mr. Lafcadio Hearn. One must\nbe insensitive to a degree if such writers and interpreters of Buddhism\ndo not succeed in striking a chord of overwhelming harmony throughout\nthe system.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nGOD AND THE KOSMOS.\n\n  \"Differences veil a fundamental unity.\"--BRUNO.\n\n\nBoth Christianity and Buddhism can be set to the same music, the music\nof the unconditioned. The definition of the Christian God as invisible\nand eternal, and as that which has not parts, body, or passions, is\nincontestably an attempt to convert our thoughts to a belief in, and\nappreciation of, the unconditioned. The entire teaching of Jesus moves\nin this direction; and this will be recognized at once if we permit\nourselves to interpret his symbolic utterances in the right and only\nlogical sense. To be saved--that is, to realize the unconditioned--we\nmust believe in Jesus; namely, in his teaching.\n\nIf humanity could assume this attitude of mind--if it could attune\nits thoughts to what Christian symbolism really means, or ought to\nmean--then all the magnificent ritual of the Holy Catholic Church,\nthe realistic hymnology, even the shibboleths of the Salvationist,\nwould no longer give rise to the supercilious contempt of the\nso-called intellectual world, but would everywhere be recognized as\nthe expression of the most exalted philosophy, and consonant with the\nlatest results of psycho-physiological research. \"The proud have held\nme exceedingly in derision, yet have I not shrinked from thy law.\"\nEverything that teaches us that the end of all things and the goal\nof all men is a complete realization of the \"unconditioned\" is the\nacceptable word of God.\n\nGotama, using a symbolism of his own, and by means of parables not\nwholly dissimilar to those employed by Jesus, taught the self-same\ntruth. The flesh has to be crucified--that is, the idea of separateness\nhas to be eliminated--and then only will Heaven, Nirvana, at-oneness\nwith the unproduced (with God), be a reality.\n\nIt is legitimate to speak of Jesus as God, and Gotama is known as\nBuddha. Here we have, then, Jesus-God and Gotama-Buddha. But God and\nBuddha are but two different terms used for the expression of one\nidentical idea. The recognition of \"Buddha\" as an equivalent for \"God\"\nhas been very generally ignored by interpreters of Buddhism; hence the\nconfusion of thought which has existed in this connection. This in some\nmeasure may also be due to the fact that Gotama, in preaching to the\nBrahmins, made use of the word \"Brahma\" to denote God.\n\nJesus and Gotama were gnomic, or divinely wise--that is, they _knew_\nof the \"unconditioned.\" They both ardently desired to communicate this\nknowledge to the world, and the way of escape from absolute bondage to\nthe conditioned to a realization of the unconditioned. If, knowing the\nway, man still elects to continue in bondage to the conditioned state,\nin a hell of misery or through a series of incarnations, he can do so\nby disregarding the injunction, \"Set not your affections on things on\nearth.\"\n\nGotama pointed out the _straight_ path that leads to a union with\nBrahma (God); but there was also a circuitous path indicated by him,\nby which we can make \"golden stairways of our weaknesses.\" To the\ndifferent symbolism employed by Gotama, and the meaning attached to\nthis symbolism by his exponents, may also be attributed the failure of\nmany acquainted only with the outlines of Buddhism to assimilate the\nterm \"Buddha\" with that of \"God\" in its universalist sense.\n\nWhen we come to a careful and impartial study of the Gospel of Buddha,\nit is astonishing what a close connection is to be found therein\nbetween the God idea of the Christian community and the Buddha idea of\nthe Asiatic world. Gotama does not, as many suppose, exclude the notion\nof God as that of all-pervading Love. \"The whole wide world,\" he says,\n\"above, below, around, and everywhere, will continue to be filled with\nLove, far-reaching, grown great and beyond measure.\" \"Buddha is the\nall-loving teacher, assuming the shape of the beings whom he teaches.\"\nThis is the second person of the Buddhist triad, the apparitional body\nof Gotama.\n\nThe splendid symbolism of the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity,\nthree persons and one God, common to both Christianity and Buddhism,\nfalls like the cloudy hangings of a gorgeous sunset between us and\nthe unconditioned. Many of the spectators are held spellbound and\nenslaved by the beauty of the phenomena alone; a few see its meaning,\nand realize the noumenon. The symbol is, as it were, a yearning of the\nvisible to suggest the invisible, the conditioned speaking to us of\nthe unconditioned. The small minority--the Blessed Ones, the Arhats\nof Buddhism, the saints of Christendom--they are those who know the\nLord, who see God. Yet there remains for every being a sure hope of the\ndeathless life.\n\nAfter many a weary round of births and deaths or long sojourns in\nPurgatory, after many a climb up the dark ladder of life, every being\nat last will reach the desired goal, and see the fulfilment of prophecy\nwhen God will _be_ all and _in_ all.\n\nA great Orientalist has pronounced Buddhism to be the most godless of\nall heathen religions. If this assertion means that the god of the\nheathens is anthropomorphic and that of the Buddhists is not so, then\nthe statement of this distinguished scholar, though a little staggering\nat first sight, may be regarded as containing an element of truth, but\nnot the whole truth.\n\nThe question whether the true Buddhism of Gotama recognized a\ngod in any sense of the expression still exercises the minds of\ncontroversialists. At the very outset of our inquiry into the\nBuddhistic conception of a god or no-god, we are confronted by directly\nconflicting conclusions arrived at by two eminent authorities.\nProfessor Rhys Davids regards the true Buddhism of Gotama to be nothing\nbut blank Atheism, whereas Mr. Arthur Lillie unflinchingly pronounces\nit to be Theism _pur et simple_.\n\nIn my judgment, all the controversy that rages around the Hinay\u00e2na[O]\nand the Mahay\u00e2na, which represent respectively the Southern and\nNorthern schools of thought, only confuses the issue; and the opinions\nof sectarian Buddhists, or even the edicts of Asoka, cannot, I think,\nbe accepted in themselves as directly supporting any hard-and-fast\ntheory regarding the Theistic or Atheistic tendencies in the teaching\nof Gotama.\n\n [O] The Hinay\u00e2na, or Small Vehicle of Salvation, was the abstract\n and philosophical presentment of Buddhism as first conceived. It was\n more adapted to the sage than to the masses who required a symbolic\n presentation, such as is afforded by the Mahay\u00e2na, or Great Vehicle\n of Salvation. We see the same kind of development holding a place in\n the history of Christianity. Upon the enigmatical utterances of Jesus\n and the mystical sophisms of St. Paul there has been raised a splendid\n fabric of dogmatic ecclesiasticism; and under the shadow of its\n symbolism the poor in spirit, the ignorant and the weak, have found\n consolations which would not have been theirs if no such development\n of the abstract principles of the faith had taken place.\n\nWith reference to the evidence of the edicts, it must not be overlooked\nthat Asoka figured as a good Theist while Viceroy at Ujain, and for\nsome years subsequent to his becoming Emperor of India--a fact which\nseveral of his edicts, I believe, confirm.\n\nA God, one Person (yet three Persons in One), without body (yet\nwalks), without parts (yet seen), without passions (yet with\ncompassion), a spirit, an indefinable, an illocatable, incomprehensible\nsubstance in which we live and move and have our being, that cannot be\nknown, yet can be found (those that seek after me shall find me), which\nsome people have beautifully symbolized as a loving Father and others\nhave debased into a jealous and vindictive tyrant--of such a God only,\nas an eternally conditionless mystery, it can surely be established,\nfrom a review of Buddhistic evidence, that it is not, and has not been,\ntotally ignored.\n\nIt is difficult to see the force of denoting God as super-personal or\nsuper-anything. He or It is personal, and everything else as masked\nby materialities, and in the sense of all things being his contents.\nParticles of matter are the contents of form. Form cannot be manifest\nwithout matter. God is pure or shapeless form, as well as the formative\npower of form.\n\nDr. Paul Carus, in referring to the God idea of the Buddhists, says:\n\"No religion can exist without belief in the existence of an ultimate\nauthority of conduct; but in this sense Buddhism, too, teaches a\nbelief in God. The Abhidharma, or Buddhist philosophy, distinctly\nrejects the idea of a creation by an Ishvara--_i.e._, a personal\ncreator; but it recognizes that all deeds, be they good or evil, will\nbear fruit according to their nature, and they teach that this law,\nwhich is ultimately identical with the law of cause and effect, is\nan irreversible reality; that there are no exceptions or deviations\nfrom it. Thus law takes, to some extent, the place of the God idea,\nand Buddhists gain a personal attitude to it, similarly as Christians\ndo when speaking of God, in quite a peculiar way. The doctrine of\nthe Trik\u00e2ya, or the three bodies, teaches us that Buddha has three\npersonalities. The first one is the Dharma-K\u00e2ya, or the body of the\nlaw; it corresponds to the Holy Ghost in the Christian dogmatology. The\nsecond personality is the Nirm\u00e2na-K\u00e2ya, or the body of transformations;\nit is transient in its various forms, and its most important and\nlatest appearance has been Gotama Siddh\u00e2rta. This corresponds to the\nsecond person of the Christian Trinity, to God the Son, or Christ....\nThe third personality of Buddha is called Sambhoga-K\u00e2ya, or the body\nof bliss. It is the Christian idea of God the Father. Buddha, in his\ncapacity as Sambhoga-K\u00e2ya, is described as eternal, omnipresent, and\nomnipotent. He is the life of all that lives, and the reality of all\nthat exists. Thus he is the All in All, in whom we live and move and\nhave our being.\"[P]\n\n [P] _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_, by Paul Carus.\n\nGeneral Forlong, in his _Short Studies in the Science of Comparative\nReligion_, informs us that \"the first great Hindu Creating Father was a\nreal Praj\u0101-pati, 'Lord of Creations'--a true Hermaik Brahm\u0101; and, being\ndepicted as a potent masculine Zeus, like to Yahv\u00ea, Chemosh, Amon,\netc., he in time naturally became distasteful to cultured and pious\nphilosophic minds searching after a _great ideal_, and no magnified\nman, solar or royal governor. As did Vedantists, so have others\ndeveloped a _great neuter Brahm_; even pious Christian philosophers\nhave sought, and some few dared to own, a Brahm, despite the direct\nanthropomorphic teaching of the Christian and Hebrew Scriptures. Thus\nthe Rev. Principal Caird, D.D. (Glasgow University), boldly says, in\nhis Gifford Lectures, 1895-6, that in his view 'Christianity knows\nno such thing as a First Cause, or an Omnipotent Creator and moral\ngovernor of the world, a being framed after the image of man, an\nanthropomorphic potentate seated on a celestial throne and dispensing\nrewards after the manner of an earthly sovereign or magistrate.'\"\n\nIt is remarkable to find a parallel conception of Law, as associated\nby Buddhists with the idea of divinity prevailing among the Egyptians,\nwho \"recognized a divinity in those cases only when they perceived\nthe presence of a fixed Law, either of permanence or of change. This\n_regularity_, which is the constitutive character of the Egyptian\ndivinity, was called Ma\u0101t. Ma\u0101t is, in fact, the Law and Order by which\nthe universe exists. Truth and Justice are but forms of Ma\u0101t as applied\nto human action.\"[Q]\n\n [Q] _Vide Book of the Dead_ (British Museum).\n\nIn Mr. Arthur Lillie's book, _The Influence of Buddhism on Primitive\nChristianity_, there is struck a note of playfulness which almost leads\none to suppose that the writer does not intend that he should be taken\nseriously everywhere in his fascinating pages. This is apparent even\nin his treatment of the Jewish conception of an Almighty ruler, when\nhe takes for his text (Judges i. 19): \"The Lord was with Judah, and He\ndrove out the inhabitants of the mountains, but _could not_ drive out\nthe inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron.\" In\na similar spirit in this connection he would probably handle rather\nroughly the notion of omniscience.\n\nMr. Lillie, further on in his book, quotes a conversation that is said\nto have taken place between Gotama and some Brahmins on the subject\nof ultimate union with the Eternal Brahma. Gotama points out that all\ntheir talk about union is foolish talk, because they know nothing about\nhim. But this does not necessarily imply, as one would gather from the\ncommentary, that Gotama knew nothing of a Brahma, or quality of the\nkosmos or Buddha, which was indefinable, and could only be adumbrated\nin language, and no more. His sole intention, it seems to me, was to\nimpress on his audience that this Brahma could not be approached by\na factitious asceticism, and that all speculations as to his nature\nand origin would be mere waste of time and energy. Subsequently,\non p. 83, Gotama is made to refer to this Brahma as a non-Theistic\n\"It\"--evidently the neuter Brahm--the absolute, or the great \"I am\" of\nthe Christian Bible.\n\nHere I would refer _en passant_ to the following passage which occurs\non p. 84: \"There are two schools of Buddhism, and they are quite agreed\nin this, that Buddhism is the quickening of the spiritual vision.\"\n\nThis, Buddhistically understood, is true enough, but there is a danger\nof the Christian reader associating with the expression \"spiritual\" the\nidea of the existence of a spirit in man as an ego-entity. Interpreted\nin this sense, the expression would be wholly inapplicable to any\npossible phase of Buddhistic thought or doctrine. Gotama knew of no\nindependent spirit-entity in man, so there could be no such thing as\nanimistic vision in Buddhism.\n\nIn the New Testament it is evident from the context that Jesus,\nwhen negatively describing a spirit as that which hath not flesh\nand bones, was not alluding to spirit in the sense given to it by\nmodern psychologists as \"ideas,\" or as applied to the Sankh\u00e2ras by\nthe translator of Professor Oldenberg's book on Buddhism, but had in\nview those presentations of matter of human shape, without flesh and\nbone development, the appearance of which from time to time has been\nconfirmed by not a few rational and reliable people.\n\nWith reference to Mr. Lillie's comments on the Jewish conception of an\nAlmighty Ruler, it may be remarked here that _executive_ omnipotence\nand omniscience convey the notion of qualities that cannot be\nphilosophically applied to the absolute as conceived by Brahmins. This\nis very clearly enunciated in the philosophy of the Upanishads.\n\nMr. A. E. Gough, in his book on this subject, writes: \"The Self\n(Brahma, or Reality) is said to be omniscient, but the reader must\nnot be misled; this only means that it is self-conscious.... The\nomniscience of the Reality is its irradiation of all things.\"\n\nIt (Reality) knows but knows nothing, it sees but sees nothing, it\nloves but loves nothing; because \"It\" is knowledge, sight, love,\netc. It transcends the relation of subject and object. In the New\nTestament we meet with the expression, \"God is love\"--that is, a\nquality with no objective application. It is the unseen and eternal in\ncontradistinction to the seen and temporal.\n\n\"Brahma is Beatitude. But we must be cautious. Brahma is not Beatitude\nin the ordinary sense of the term. It is a bliss beyond the distinction\nof subject and object.... The Indian philosophers everywhere affirm\nthat Brahma is knowledge, not that Brahma has knowledge.\"[R]\n\n [R] _The Philosophy of the Upanishads_, by A. E. Gough.\n\nThis is very like Schelling's idea as portrayed in his account of the\nultimate goal of the finite ego: \"The ultimate goal of the finite ego\nis enlargement of its sphere till the attainment of identity with the\ninfinite ego. But the infinite ego knows no object, and possesses,\ntherefore, no consciousness or unity of consciousness, such as we mean\nby personality. Consequently, the ultimate goal of all endeavour may\nalso be represented as enlargement of the personality to infinity--that\nis to say, as its annihilation. The ultimate goal of the finite ego,\nand not only of it, but also of the non-ego--the final goal, therefore,\nof the world--is its annihilation as a world.\"[S]\n\n [S] _Vom ich als Princip der Philosophie._\n\nMr. Gough, in the book already referred to, remarks \"that Buddhism is\nthe philosophy of the Upanishads with Brahma left out; that in Buddhism\nBrahma, or the inner light, is replaced by zero, or a vacuum; that\nthere is no light of lights beyond the darkness of the world-fiction;\nthat the highest end and final hope of man is a return into this\nvacuum, or aboriginal nothingness of things. This is Nirvana, the\nextinction of the soul; the path to it is the path of inertion, apathy,\nand vacuity.\"\n\nBuddhism expounded in this fashion is likely to produce a very\nerroneous conception of what it really proves to be.\n\nIn the first place, such expressions as \"vacuum,\" \"emptiness,\"\n\"voidness,\" must not be interpreted solely in a negative sense; there\nis a positive sense also to be taken into account. The positive\naspect of such expressions has been very clearly set forth by the\ngreat Chinese philosopher, Lau-toze, in the following manner: \"The\nthirty spokes unite in the one nave, but it is on the empty space (for\nthe axle) that the use of the wheel depends. Clay is fashioned into\nvessels, but it is on their empty hollowness that their use depends.\nThe door and windows are cut out (from the walls) to form an apartment,\nbut it is on the empty space (within) that its use depends. Therefore,\nwhat has a (positive) existence serves for positive adaptation, and\nwhat has not that for (actual) usefulness.\"[T]\n\n [T] Taken from _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_, by Paul Carus.\n\nSecondly, although Gotama preached a kind of quietism, it was not the\nquietism of inertion and apathy. He exhorted his followers to vigorous\nactivity in the acquisition of knowledge: \"He who does not rouse\nhimself when it is time to rise, who, though young and strong, is full\nof sloth, whose will and thought are weak, that lazy and idle man will\nnever find the way to knowledge (enlightenment). If anything is to be\ndone, let a man do it; let him attack it vigorously.\"[U]\n\n [U] _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xvii., pp. 68 and 75.\n\nMr. Gough says that to gain this extinction the sage must loose himself\nfrom every tie and turn his back upon the world.\n\nThis is very much akin to the way in which a Christian must act,\naccording to the teaching of the New Testament, if he would gain\nheaven, union with God, with Love, with a quality. But it would be\ndoing injustice to the spirit of Christianity and Buddhism to describe\ntheir ultimate goals as annihilation, aboriginal nothingness, and\nextinction, and the path to it as one of inertion, apathy, and vacuity,\nin the ordinary sense of these terms.\n\nThe expression \"annihilation\" has much to answer for. It has been\nflaunted scornfully in the face of Buddhism by Vedantists of bygone\nages and by Christians of this century; it has been hurled from pulpits\nwith tremendous vehemence into the ears of bewildered congregations,\nand it has formed a text for delighted and triumphant denunciation\nin innumerable articles--in fact, with annihilation inscribed on its\nbanners, the whole host of Buddha's army has been depicted as marching\ninevitably to utter and irretrievable ruin.\n\nAt this juncture let us turn to a later authority, Mr. Lafcadio Hearn,\nwho, in answer to the question, What remains to rise above all forms\nand the total disintegration of body and final dissolution of the\nmind? sets forth the Buddhist conception in the following manner:\n\"Unconsciously dwelling behind the false consciousness of imperfect\nman--beyond sensation, perception, thought--wrapped in the envelope of\nwhat we call soul (which, in truth, is only a thickly-woven veil of\nillusion), is the eternal and divine, the absolute Reality; not a soul,\nnot a personality, but the All-self without selfishness--the _Muga no\nTaiga_--the Buddha enwombed in Karma. Within every phantom-self dwells\nthis divine; yet the innumerable are but one. Within every creature\nincarnate sleeps the Infinite Intelligence, unevolved, hidden, unfelt,\nunknown, yet destined from all the eternities to waken at last, to rend\naway the ghostly web of sensuous mind, to break for ever its chrysalis\nof flesh, and pass to the supreme conquest of Space and Time.\"[V]\n\n [V] Lafcadio Hearn's _Gleanings in Buddha Fields_.\n\nThere is no doubt, as General Forlong informs us in his _Short Studies\nin the Science of Comparative Religions_, that Buddha's followers\n\"finally revered him as a god, mixing up the first high and pure\nteaching of his faith with all the varied old and new doctrines, rites,\nand follies peculiar to each race and land which developed it. Every\nreligion has to submit to this ordeal.\"\n\nIt cannot be too often reiterated that a personal moral ruler of the\nuniverse, \"a gigantic shadow thrown upon the void of space by the\nimagination,\" or a sublimated edition of man located in the sky, is\nentirely foreign to true Buddhism; and, although Gotama deprecated\nas futile all speculations into the ultimate origin of things, he,\nin his \"Buddha\" capacity, was aware of the theory of an uncaused\ncause, whether called \"Ak\u00e2sa\" or \"Dzyu,\" or anything else, from which\neverything has issued in obedience to a law of motion inherent in\nit.[W] This uncaused cause has its counterpart in the incomprehensible\nUncreate of the Athanasian Creed. It is the God without and the kingdom\nof heaven within. A Buddha and It are one.\n\n [W] _Vide_ _Buddhistic Catechism_, by Colonel Olcott.\n\nIn the \"White Lotus of Dharma\" Gotama is made to declare that, though\nin the form of a Buddha, he is in reality the Self-existent.[X] On the\nother hand, from a purely phenomenal point of view, \"a Buddha is simply\na very wise man, and means 'The Awakened.'\"\n\n [X] _Vide_ Lillie's _Buddhism_.\n\n\"Buddha, as a Buddha, knew all about the ultimate origin of the Kosmos.\nThe personal Buddha, however, abstained from any such speculations,\nholding that, for the purposes of practical ethics, the wise man not\nonly may, but must, avoid the distraction of speculation as to any\nultimate cause\" (Rev. Spence Hardy). \"Self-conquest and universal\ncharity, these are the foundation thoughts, the web and woof of\nBuddhism, the melodies on the variations of which its enticing harmony\nis built up\" (Professor Rhys Davids). Such, too, according to the\nChristian Scriptures, is religion, pure and undefiled, before God and\nthe Father.\n\nThe Rev. A. Sherring points out how the success of Gotama in\novercoming the forces opposed to him \"is unparalleled in human\nhistory.... That a solitary man, prince and ascetic, after pondering\nfor five years over all the great doctrines of religions, priestcraft,\nfalsities, the immoralities, shams, and confusions of those times,\nand the groans and miseries of his countrymen, that he should devise\nan entirely new system, think it out, and put it in order to meet\nobjectors and overcome their arguments, and then go forth to the\ngradual conquest of India, and send forth missionaries who have\nconverted 500 millions of people--that all this was the ultimate\nresult of that one man's energy, sagacity, and resoluteness of will is\nassuredly one of the most astounding events in the annals of the world.\nHe was a simple philosopher, reasoner, and calm disputant, employing\nno physical force whatever; while the morality which he enforced was\nthe purest the world ever saw.\" General Forlong, in quoting this\npassage, says: \"Such, divested of a few professional words, is the\ndeliberate opinion of one of the best, the most learned and experienced\nmissionaries.\"\n\nProfessor Rhys Davids seems to level a shaft at the typical Christian\nwhen he says that the Buddhist saint does not mar the purity of his\nself-denial by lusting after a positive happiness in a world to come;\nnor, it might be added, does the essential Christian who realizes the\nkingdom of heaven within.\n\nIf we take the word \"God\" in a restricted anthropomorphic sense, and\nthe word \"soul\" to mean an entity that survives the body, it will\nappear strange to many, as Professor Rhys David says, that a religion\nwhich ignores the existence of such a God, and denies the existence\nof such a soul, should be the very religion which has found most\nacceptance among men. The same authority remarks that of any immaterial\nexistence Buddhism knows nothing. This is true if \"immaterial\" or\n\"spiritual\" is taken to mean something altogether divorced from matter.\n\nThe universe, according to Buddhism, is not merely an arrangement\nof matter into forms and substances, but it consists also of the\nqualities of matter, and the relationship of the different particles\nand qualities to each other. The philosophy of Buddhism, in this\nconnection, is Monism, which is described by its exponents as \"a\nunitary world-conception, but not a one-substance theory. It does not\nimply that the world consists either of matter alone or of spirit\nalone, or that all its phenomena are motions only; but that our\nconcepts of spiritual, material, mechanical, and other processes are\nabstractions, representing special features of reality; reality itself\nbeing one inseparable and indivisible entirety.\"\n\nThe phenomenal is a mode of the noumenal, as heat is a mode of motion.\n\"_Ex_-istence\" is a mode of \"istence.\" There is no \"beyond,\" no \"behind\nthe veil\"; it is all one. If we take, as a provisional analogy, the\nflower of a tree to be the noumenal, and the root the phenomenal, they\nare both--as belonging to the tree--the same, and yet not the same. The\nsoul might be likened to the blossom at the apex, at a point farthest\naway from the earth. The more perfect this soul-blossom becomes, the\nnearer it approaches the possibility of entering upon the unconditioned\nas immortal beauty--\n\n                  \"Like to the flower\n  That fades into itself at evening hour,\"\n\nand becoming thereby identical with truth.\n\n  \"Beauty is truth, truth beauty--that is all\n  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.\"\n\nMany people assign to music a power, exceeding that of all other arts,\nof sublimating the emotions of the human heart. Altering somewhat the\nform of the definition of Poetry as given by Theodore Watts, in his\narticle on the subject in the _Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_, one might\nsay that absolute music is the _non_-concrete and artistic expression\nof the human mind in emotional and rhythmical sounds. The state of\nthe mind under the influence of music has been compared to a \"sea of\nemotion--uncurdled by thoughts.\" This mental condition may also be\nsuper-induced, I think, by means of sculpture, painting, and poetry.\nIn fact, I would maintain that the success of an artist, whether he be\nmusician, poet, or painter, must always be measurable by his power of\nsuggesting the unconditioned, or of bringing the human mind as near as\npossible to a _thoughtless_ state of emotion, and, finally, to that of\nnon-emotion.\n\nIn the gospel according to Buddha it is written:\n\n\"There lurks in transient form immortal bliss.\"\n\nThe true artist can cause this immortal bliss to be felt, in all its\nNirvanic beauty, by those naturally susceptible to such influences, as\nwell as by those who, by a course of training, have rendered themselves\ncapable of receiving them.\n\nThere is no line of demarcation between the noumenal and phenomenal.\nThe one fades into the other, as all forms and outlines would disappear\ninto the surrounding atoms or cosmic dust under a sufficiently\npowerful magnifying glass. \"Appearance (the world of phenomena) is\nthe real, as confusedly and partially understood.... The real is\nthe apparent completely understood, and seen in the light of the\nwhole.... Appearance is the appearance of reality.... If we know 'only\nphenomena,' we must thereby know _something_ of that of which they are\nphenomena.\"[Y]\n\n [Y] _Vide Mind_, October, 1898; \"The One and the Many,\" by D. G.\n Ritchie.\n\nAccording to Buddhistic teaching, there are two worlds, so to\nspeak--the one ruled by the law of causality, the other over which\nthe law of causality has no power. A Buddhist would say that \"the man\nwho applies to the strictly unconditioned predicates such as being\nand non-being, which are used properly enough of the finite, the\nconditioned, resembles one who attempts to count the sands of the\nGanges or the drops of the ocean.\"\n\nWith much the same sort of reasoning Jesus referred to the mysteries of\nthe kingdom of heaven when addressing those who had eyes and did not\nsee, and ears and did not hear.\n\nIn view of the apparent fact that the human body has reached its\nutmost limits of development, as a physical organism, there seems to\nbe a thinkable probability that it will eventually, by a devolutionary\nprocess and by the atrophy of its present clumsy and imperfect organs,\nreturn, step by step, during the gradual cooling of this planet, to the\ncondition of the psychic life of a simple cellule, and ultimately to\nthe unconditioned; back, as Huxley puts it, to the indefinable latency\nfrom which we arose; or, as Carlyle expresses it, \"pass stormfully\nacross the astonished earth from God and to God.\"\n\nStarting from the simple cellule, we see, in a way, how \"Tanha,\" or the\ndesire to extend the scope of activities, has persistently striven in\nthis direction until the ultimate possibilities of the development of\nphysical organism have been reached in man.\n\nThis highly-differentiated organism has become more and more sensitive\nto pain, more and more dissatisfied with its limitations; and man,\nrecognizing these limitations, desires to abandon them altogether.\nConsequently, he seeks refuge in the hope of a future life, where\nlimitations will no longer curb and embarrass him, and where he will\ncease to be subject to pain, passion, and sorrow.\n\nJesus and Gotama have indicated how by the suppression of this \"Tanha,\"\nhow by detachment from the things of the world, we can approach that\nsimple cellular life-stage which is on the road to Heaven, Nirvana, and\nthe Unconditioned. It is easy to realize how much pleasanter it would\nhave been for us all if the simple cellule from which we spring had\nnot been so persistently ambitious in the direction of activities. Its\nrelatively prescribed functions suggest a most desirable condition of\npeace compared to that \"unrest which men miscall delight.\"\n\nHuman life is but a drop in the ocean of organic existences on this\nplanet--about 1,500 millions only among countless myriads of beings.\nIt cannot, then, be accounted strange in a world containing so great\na variety of organisms, with their varying tastes and needs, that man\nshould find much that is distasteful and unsuitable to him which is\npleasant and acceptable to other beings. The vulture feasts on carrion\nloathsome to man. Man partakes of food at which a rhinoceros would\nshudder.\n\nMorality, as a law and corollary of organized life, being confined to\nhumanity, it follows that immorality, as subversive of this law, would\nbe of necessity abhorrent to those who appreciate a law without which\nsocial life would become intolerable, and not worth living. But, when\nwe come to consider why it should be that the exquisite process of the\ndecomposition of flesh should be less pleasing to the senses than the\nformation and fading of a sunset, we are forced to the conclusion that\nthe world was not made for man, but man for the world.\n\nThe \"part\" working indiscriminately with and for the \"whole\" is an\nethical law observable throughout the universe. All individuals are,\nunconsciously for the most part, carrying into effect the will of God\nby the will of God. We speak about individual effort to attain this\nperfection or avoid that evil, because we cannot divest ourselves of\nthe feeling of free-will. To speak and act under a sense of free-will\nis forced upon us by the delusion of separateness.\n\nIt is often the case that God is only recognized in the beautiful\naspects of nature. St. Paul says: \"There are diversities of operations,\nbut it is the same God that worketh _all_ in _all_.\" We have to see\nGod, not only in the sweet waters, but also in the deadly swamp; in the\nhealthy child as well as in the f\u0153tid diseases of the sick. \"That art\nthou,\" as the Buddhist truly says. The delicious and the disgusting are\nequally necessary as factors in the scheme of the universe; there is\nin both the same cosmic law fulfilling itself. \"Dragons and all deeps:\nfire and hail fulfilling his word.\" A difference only exists in the\nappreciation of them.\n\nThis Monistic view of nature in no respect stands in the way of our\nregarding God as the sublimated reality of an ideal existence. Dr. Paul\nCarus, in his booklet on _The Idea of God_, says: \"If the idea of God\nis an empty dream which we must expel from our minds, why not expel all\nideas and all ideals? They are just as much and just as little real....\nFrom this point of view a denial of the existence of God would, with\nconsistency, lead us also to a denial of an integral, or a logarithm,\nor a differential. An integral is just as little a concrete object as\nis God. And the idea of God is just as important in the real life of\nhuman activity, human thought and emotion, as the idea of honesty is in\nthe mercantile world, that of courage among warriors, and that of faith\nin science.\"\n\nBuddha has taught that there are worlds more perfect and developed,\nand others less so, than this earth; and that the inhabitants of each\nworld correspond in development with itself.[Z] Mr. Lafcadio Hearn\nsays: \"The Buddhist denial of the reality of the apparitional world is\nnot a denial of the reality of phenomena as phenomena, nor a denial of\nthe forces producing phenomena objectively and subjectively.... The\ntrue declaration is, that what we perceive is never reality in itself,\nand that even the ego that perceives is an unstable plexus of feelings\nwhich are themselves unstable, and in the nature of illusions. This\nposition is scientifically strong, perhaps impregnable.\"\n\n [Z] _Vide Buddhist Catechism_, by Colonel Olcott.\n\nIndian philosophers have attempted, with a fair measure of success, to\novercome the perplexity presented by the idea of diversity in unity.\nThey say that, \"as an individual can conjure up visions of various\nphenomena in his waking state without destroying his sense of unity as\nan individual, so there may be a multiform creation in the One Absolute\nwithout any suppression of its unitary nature. To the Unconscious\nAbsolute phenomena stand in the relation of dreams to the individual\nwho is conscious of dreams on awaking. But the Unconscious Absolute\ndoes not awake; therefore 'It' remains unconscious of phenomena. The\nvariety of the world is like the variety of a dream.\"\n\nIn a commentary on the Essence of the Upanishads the fictitiousness of\nemanations from unity is thus illustrated:--\n\n\"A belated wayfarer mistakes a piece of rope lying on the road for a\nsnake; the delusion disappears, but the rope remains the rope. So with\nthe apparitional world: the delusion passes, and unity remains.[AA]\n\n [AA] _Cf._ \"Illusions are sensations wrongly interpreted\" (D. G.\n Ritchie).\n\n\"All the figments of the world-fiction may be made to disappear in such\na way that pure thought, or the self, shall alone remain, in the same\nmanner as the fictitious serpent seen in a piece of rope may be made to\ndisappear, and the rope that underlies it may be made to remain. The\nrope was only the rope all the time it falsely seemed to be a snake.\nThe fictitious world may be made to disappear as the fictitious snake\nis made to disappear, and this is its sublation.\"[AB]\n\n [AB] _Philosophy of the Upanishads_, by A. E. Gough.\n\nProfessor Seth, referring in his book, entitled _The Position of Man\nin the Kosmos_, to Mr. Bradley's _Appearance and Reality_, remarks:\n\"Reality 'must own' and somehow include appearance.\" In another part of\nhis book he writes: \"We are ourselves immersed in the process of the\nuniverse. We can only live our own life, and see through our own eyes.\nIf we could do more, that would mean that we ourselves had vanished\nfrom the universe; the place which had known us would know us no more;\nand there would be, as it were, a gap created in the tissue of the\nworld.\"\n\nUnder \"Mysticism,\" in the _Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_, we read: \"Our\nconsciousness of self is the condition under which we possess a world\nto know and to enjoy; but it likewise isolates us from all the world\nbeside. Reason is the revealer of nature and God; but, by its acts,\nreason seems the thing reasoned about. Hence mysticism demands a\nfaculty above reason, by which the subject shall be placed in immediate\nand complete union with the object of his desire--a union in which the\nconsciousness of self has disappeared, and in which, therefore, subject\nand object are one.\"\n\nThe Great Self, or Immanent Power--expressions barely communicable\nto the understanding by the rather restrictive sounding and abrupt\nterminology of the word \"God\"--perhaps nearer in thought to the Will\nin Nature of Schopenhauer--with which the Brahmins of India sought\ncommunion, has been to them from time immemorial the Alpha and Omega\nof their being. When religion steps in it is a frame of mind, not a\nset of opinions. They cannot in truth be called superstitious; they\nare, to coin a word, _substitious_. They sink, plummet-wise, into the\nfathomless; the line is severed, and they are lost in the depths and\ncaverns of nescience. The concrete, with them, has always ranked lower\nthan the abstract.\n\nVamad\u00e9o Shastri, writing in the _Fortnightly Review_ of November, 1898,\non the theological situation in India, says:--\n\n  In Europe, as I understand, your churches have long ago closed the era\n  of unlimited metaphysical speculation, retaining only certain mysterious\n  dogmata that are authoritatively prescribed as facts--that are\n  not philosophical discoveries, but are declarations of revealed truth.\n\n  You have drawn up your creeds; you have settled finally all essential\n  beliefs in future rewards and punishments, in man's redemption from\n  sin and resurrection, and, above all, in a Divine Personality. You have\n  numbered and ended the list of your sacred books; you look for no\n  fresh revelation; you have regulated by ordinances the rites and\n  ceremonies which unite the worshippers and divide the Churches....\n\n  But I want you to understand that we are still wandering in the\n  metaphysic wilderness, and that Christianity, returning at last after an\n  interval of so many centuries, finds us still engaged on the same\n  problems as those which occupied the schools of Antioch and Alexandria\n  and the secret professors of the Jewish Kabbala.\n\n  We have never yet set limits, either by philosophic criticism or by\n  ecclesiastic ordinance, to the range of free inquiry or to the thinking\n  faculty. We cannot submit to the restrictions placed by faith\n  upon inquiry into mysteries; we are driven by our mental constitution\n  to overleap the bounds of sentient experience, and to construct, like\n  your ancient heretics, some intelligible theory of the unconditioned.\n\n  We are incapable of apprehending a Personality, except in the sense\n  of something that masks or represents an incomprehensible notion; and\n  dogmatic systems are to us no more than the formal envelopes of\n  spiritual truth.\n\n         *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Two cardinal ideas run through our deeper religious thought. One\n  is the Maya, or cosmic illusion, which cuts the knot of any difficulty\n  touching the relation between Spirit and Matter, and produces Unity\n  by exhibiting the visible universe as a shadow projected upon the\n  white radiance of eternity; the other is the notion of the soul's\n  deliverance by long travail from existence in any stage or shape.\n\n         *       *       *       *       *\n\n  In short, we have a religion, but no theology.\n\n\"By Plotinus 'The One' is explicitly exalted above the '\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2' and the\n'ideas'; it transcends existence altogether, and is not cognizable\nby reason. Remaining itself in repose, it rays out, as it were, from\nits fulness an image of itself, which is called '\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2,' and which\nconstitutes the system of ideas, or the intelligible world. The soul is\nin turn the image or product of the '\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2' and the soul, by its motion,\nbegets corporeal matter. The soul thus faces two ways--towards the\n'\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2,' from which it springs, and towards the material life, which is\nits own product\" (_vide Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_).\n\nA consideration of the theosophy of the \"Sohar,\" or Book of Splendour,\ndoes not afford a key to the solution of this problem. We meet there\nwith the same difficulty, the inconceivable transition point, where the\n\"inactive\" mingles with the \"active.\" Ensoph is the Absolute, the great\n\"I am,\" the endless, the boundless, the incomprehensible.\n\nMr. Bradley, in his book on _Appearance and Reality_, asks whether\nwe really have a positive idea of an absolute defined as \"one\ncomprehensive sentience\"; and he answers that, while we cannot fully\nrealize its existence, its main features are drawn from our own\nexperience, and we have also a suggestion there of the unity of a whole\nembracing distinctions within itself. \"Identity only exists through\ndifferences, unity through multiplicity. Such is the constant thesis of\nthe Hegelian philosophy.\"[AC]\n\n [AC] _Vide_ Professor Seth's _Position of Man in the Kosmos_.\n\nThe apparent connection between the Buddhist and Christian conceptions\nof a God is very ably stated by Dr. Paul Carus, and with the following\nextracts from his writings I may fitly close the subject of this\nchapter:--\n\n\"Buddhism is commonly said to deny the existence of a God. This is\ntrue, or not true, according to the definition of God.\n\n\"While Buddhists do not believe that God is an individual being like\nourselves, they recognize that the Christian God idea contains an\nimportant truth, which, however, is differently expressed in Buddhism.\nBuddhism teaches that B\u00f4dhi, or Samb\u00f4dhi, or Amitabha--_i.e._,\nthat which gives enlightenment, or, in other words, those verities\nthe recognition of which is Nirvana (constituting Buddhahood)--is\nomnipresent and eternal.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Christianity possesses in the idea, and, indeed, in the very word\n'God,' representing the authority of moral conduct in a most forcible\nmanner, a symbol of invaluable importance; it is an advantage which has\ncontributed not a little to make Christianity so powerful and popular,\nso impressive and effective, as it has proved to be. In this little\nword 'God' much has been condensed, and it contains an unfathomable\ndepth of religious comfort.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nSOUL, SELF, INDIVIDUALITY, AND KARMA.\n\n  \"Verily every man is altogether vanity; for man walketh in a vain\n  show, he disquieteth himself in vain.\"--BIBLE.\n\n\nThe feat of mental gymnastics performed by Gotama regarded as a\nphenomenal being, which led to the abrogation of \"soul\" as an\nego-entity from its dominion in the minds of men, combined with the\namazing fact that nearly a third of the population of this planet has,\nfor many centuries, enthusiastically acquiesced in this dethronement of\nanimism, must be regarded as one of the most striking wonders in the\nreligious history of the human race.\n\nAs astronomical science disposed of the geocentric theory of the\nuniverse, greatly to the advantage of theological progressiveness, so\nthe exponents of modern psychology hope to dispel the delusion of the\nego-centric theory of man, and to clear the way for a more scientific\nand a truer conception of that which is commonly understood by the word\n\"soul.\" According to the teaching of these psychologists, there is no\nego-entity, or hidden and mysterious factor, that stands behind the\npsychic and physical organism of man.\n\nThe soul of man consists of a group of ideas, and these ideas are in\nintimate connection with the so-called external world, as also with\nwhat may be expressed as the internal world of a Being wherein has\ntaken place the development of the hereditary germ.\n\nIn Buddhism it appears to me to be a matter of choice whether we apply\nthe term \"soul\" to a group of ideas, which, in the case of the Saint,\nas sublimated ideas, synchronously cease with the formative faculty,\nand vanish ultimately into the unconditioned, or to the effects of a\nman's disposition, which continue as impressions on the characters of\nthose who receive them.\n\n\"Man\" is a name for a materialized presentation of reality--that\nis, for particles of matter assuming form under the influence of a\nformative faculty and the results of the interactions, relations, and\nqualities peculiar to the particles and this particular aggregation.\n\nOn the occurrence of what is known as death the components of the body\nare no longer held together, as it were, by the formative faculty, and\nthe body loses its vitality. But, in the ordinary course of things, of\nform there remains this formulative faculty, or impulse to re-combine.\n\"Form is destructible, yet it remains 'form' in the sense that it has\nwithin it the power to renew form.\"\n\nThe most important factor in the formation of man is not the material\nparticles that make up his body, but \"form.\" This \"form\" is a reality,\nbut not a materiality. If the interaction of the component parts, under\nthe influence of externalities, ceases to work towards the preservation\nof the formative faculty or re-combining influence, a material\npresentation of \"form\" will not re-ensue, and the discontinuance of the\nformative element is Reality, Truth, Nirvana, God.\n\nIf the desire to describe a triangle on paper does not exist, the\nmaterialized presentation of a real axiomatic triangle will not be\nformed, while the perfect triangle still remains a Reality. In this\ncase, under certain influences, the formative faculty has been subdued,\nand the consequence is that the material form of the triangle, in its\nnecessary imperfection, has not been produced. The perfect triangle is\nthe undescribed triangle. Should bubbles on the surface of the ocean\nbe deprived of this formative faculty which made them as they are, the\npower to resume their shape after dissolution would be gone for ever.\nBut if the faculty to re-form remained, they would again crop up on the\nsurface of the sea, the formative faculty making use of the materials\nat hand under the influences of \"form.\"\n\nAnalogously, the Saint, according to Buddhism, who is rid of the\nformative faculty, does not re-exist as a phenomenal being. It might be\nobjected that to make use of the expression \"formative faculty\" is only\nto revert to the doctrine of essences and faculties as principles of\nexplanation, and to rely on the exploded superstition of _apriorism_.\nBut this is not the case. The formative faculty is a quality of form,\nand form is an experience. The intangible and manifest, such as form,\ncan as reasonably be credited with qualities as the tangible and\nmaterial.\n\n\"The soul is a special form of life, as the flame is a special form of\nmotion.\" It is also a product of life, and life is the arrangement and\nre-arrangement of matter, subject to form, with which are associated\nthe qualities of matter and the relations and interactions of these\nqualities.\n\n\"Gotama,\" Dr. Paul Carus remarks, \"strange to say, anticipated the\nmodern conception of the soul as it is now taught by the most advanced\nscientists of Europe.\" St. Paul, too, may be reckoned as one who, if he\nhad lived in these days, would have given his support to that positive\nphilosophy which regards the soul as a product of materiality; for, he\nsays: \"Howbeit that was not first which was spiritual, but that which\nwas natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual. The first man is\nof the earth earthy; the second man (the soul) is the Lord from heaven.\"\n\nWhen the distinction between the expressions \"materiality\" and\n\"reality\" is clearly discerned, it removes a difficulty out of our\nway when we come to consider a means of bringing into harmony the\nChristian and Buddhist conception of \"soul.\" It has been contended\nthat, if you deny substance to the soul, it is tantamount to asserting\nthe non-existence of the soul. But if it is admitted that \"reality\" has\nexistence as well as \"materiality,\" this objection falls to the ground.\n\nThe definition of matter as that which occupies space is not a\ncomprehensive one. It is only the definition of a supposed quality of\nmatter; it is abstracted in our minds from other qualities. Therefore,\nif we regard \"soul,\" more especially in its sublimated condition, as\nsomething akin to a quality of matter after matter, as we perceive\nit, has been abstracted, we have a residuum which both Christians and\nBuddhists alike can accept as an approximate explanation of the nature\nof \"soul.\"\n\nThe eschatology of the soul, as indicated in the two systems, is less\neasy to harmonize. The soul, according to Catholic notions, after the\ndeath of the body, undergoes a purgatorial process; and, in the general\nview of Protestants, awaits--sleeping or waking--in the ante-room of a\njudgment-hall until a final verdict is pronounced on the Day of Doom;\nand then, and not till then, is it allotted its ultimate rest or unrest.\n\nOn the other hand, that which is in Buddhistic thought the counterpart\nof this soul, whether we call it a \"group of ideas\" or the \"effects of\nKarma,\" must submit, till absolutely bereft of the formative faculty\nor desire to live, to continuous incarnations. This, however, does\nnot involve a process of transmigration, as is sometimes incorrectly\nassumed.\n\nSeveral illustrations have been made use of to explain the\nmigrationless nature of the process. \"When a lamp is lit at a burning\nlamp there is a kindling of the wick, but no transmigration of the\nflame.\" A thought is conveyed by words from one to another, but of the\nthought itself there is no migration. Neither is there migration of any\npart of an object to a photographic plate, nor in the reflection of an\nobject in a mirror.\n\nIt is matter for speculation whether the Christian idea of tarriance\nin an ante-room, and more especially the purgatorial process, might\nnot be strained in meaning so as to imply that re-incarnation on this\nplanet is the fate of some souls, prior to their ultimate reception\ninto Paradise or condemnation to everlasting fire. Some such idea,\nmaybe, was afloat in the lifetime of Jesus, when the question was\nasked: \"Is this Elias come again?\"\n\nThe Christian and Buddhist conception of \"soul\" differs considerably as\nto position. The one stands isolated; the other is not so posited. The\nsoul, according to the Buddhist, is not a \"self-in-itself.\" \"Buddhism\ndoes not deny the existence of a soul or individuality, but denies\nthe independent existence of a soul or individuality.\" The Christian\nconception of the soul corresponds with that of Kapila, the founder of\nthe Sankhya philosophy, in so far as he conceived the soul to be a kind\nof transcendent, sublimated body, the thinker of our thoughts and the\ndoer of our acts. This dualism was rejected by Gotama.\n\nIt is necessary to bear in mind, with a view to the proper\ncomprehension of Buddhist teaching in regard to the immortality of\nthe soul, that, \"although the Samsk\u00e2ras, or soul-forms, constituting\nour existence, come to an end as activities in the case of the saint\nwho has extinguished desire, there remains an immortal residuum in\nthe unconditioned elements of soul-form which are beyond the reach of\ndeath.\" After death such a saint might be said to have a continued\nexistence (as others have) in the effects shed upon others by his Karma\nduring his lifetime. The difference, as I understand it, is this:\nthat, in the case of the saint, the _formative_ element of Karma, as\nit has taken shape in bodily existence, ceases to be from the date of\nhis sainthood; and subsequently the effects of Karma, which _must_\ncontinue to be shed on others as impressions as long as he lives, are\ninformative--that is, do not carry with them a desire to live; and,\nconsequently, the saint, from the date of his sainthood, may be said to\nhave no continuing existence in the life of another sentient being.\n\nDr. Paul Carus, in his handy little book, entitled _The Dharma; or,\nThe Religion of Enlightenment_, remarks: \"Buddhism sheds a new light\nupon Christian doctrine. Thus the continuity in the evolution of life,\nwhich does away with a wrong conception of a separate self, explains\nand justifies the Christian idea of original sin (or, as it ought to be\ncalled, 'inherited sin'); for men inherit not only the curse of their\nancestors' sin, but actually consist of their sinful dispositions;\nevery man is a re-incarnation of previous deeds, and represents, for\ngood and for evil, their legitimate continuation.\"\n\n\"Being,\" in a Buddhistic sense, in the words of Professor Oldenberg's\ntranslator, is the procession regulated by the law of causality--of\ncontinuous being at every moment, self-consuming and anew-begetting.\nWhat is termed a \"souled\" being is one individual in the line of this\nprocession, one flame in a sea of flame.\n\nSo quaintly beautiful is the following dialogue between King Milinda\n(the Greek King Menander) and the Saint Nagasena that, notwithstanding\nits frequent quotation, I venture to reproduce it:--\n\n\"The Saint Nagasena says: 'It is not the same being, and yet they are\nseparate beings, which relieve one another in the series of existences.'\n\n\"'Give an illustration,' says King Milinda. 'If a man were to light a\nlight, O great king, would it not burn through the night?'--'Yes, sire;\nit would burn through the night.' 'How, then, O great king, is the\nflame in the first watch of the night identical with the flame in the\nmidnight watch?'--'No, sire.' 'And the flame in the midnight watch--is\nit identical with the flame in the last watch of the night?'--'No,\nsire.' 'But how then, O great king, was the light in the first watch\nof the night another, in the midnight watch another, and in the last\nwatch of the night another?'--'No, sire; it has burned all night long,\nfeeding on the same fuel.' 'So, also, O great king, the chain of\nelements of being (Dhamma) completes itself; the one comes, the other\ngoes. Without beginning, without end, the circle completes itself;\ntherefore it is neither the same being nor another being which presents\nitself last to the consciousness.'\"[AD]\n\n [AD] From _Buddhism_, by Professor Oldenberg.\n\nOmar Khayyam says:--\n\n  \"We are no other than a moving show\n  Of magic shadow-shapes that come and go.\"\n\nThe body disappears, even in Christian eschatology, as an earthly body\nfor ever; but its scattered chemicals are re-utilized, according to\nsome, to clothe the soul in heavenly places, or for purposes of torture\nand indescribable anguish. Others have sought consolation in the\nthought of the reappearance of the body's elements in various beautiful\nforms--in the ruby goblet, in the flowers, in the foam of the sea:--\n\n  \"And this reviving herb, whose tender green\n  Hedges the river-lip on which we lean--\n    Ah, lean upon it lightly; for who knows\n  From what once lovely lip it springs unseen!\"\n\nOf those believing in the separateness of the soul there may be many\nwho fondly crave that the \"gentle dews\" of eternal sleep may fall at\nlast upon its suppliant eyes.\n\n  \"He giveth His beloved sleep.\"\n\nA writer in the _Monist_ of January, 1898, makes the following\nremarks in a reference to \"self\": \"In the psychological theories of\nChristianity and Buddhism there is more agreement than at first sight\nappears, for it is difficult to say what we must understand by self.\n'Personality' is used by Christian thinkers in a very loose sense. In\nthe doctrine of the Trinity it is not incompatible to speak of three\npersonalities in One.\"\n\nHe quotes texts from St. Paul's epistles to the Corinthians: \"I have\nplanted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So, then, neither\nis he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that\ngiveth the increase. Now, he that planteth and he that watereth are\none.\" In this connection the writer observes: \"Here, apparently,\neveryone is supposed to have no separate existence whatever, except in\nGod and through God.\"\n\nThe self, soul, or individuality, which continues after the dissolution\nof the body, has been broadly described as character or disposition;\ntherefore, in using the term \"self\" in a Buddhistic sense, we must\nput aside every idea beyond what is conveyed to the mind by this\ninterpretation. This character or disposition does not come to an\nend as an activity until \"Tanha,\" or the thirst to live for living's\nsake, is extinct. Therefore, when Buddhistic thought is converted into\nconventional language, we must be cautious how we interpret such a\nstatement as \"_We_ are saved by our individual merits.\" The \"we\" here\nmeans only \"character,\" which, if improved during a lifetime, carries\nwith it this improvement, of which a new being will reap the benefits.\n\nProfessor Rhys Davids calls the mystery of Karma \"a desperate\nexpedient, a wonderful hypothesis, an airy nothing, an imaginary\ncause beyond the reach of reason.\" But he previously states that it\naffords an explanation quite complete, to those who can believe it,\nof the apparent anomalies and wrongs in the distribution here of\nhappiness and woe. So it may be said, also, of the mysteries attaching\nto Christianity. They satisfy the believer, though they present\ndifficulties to the reasoner. According to the Christian formula,\nwe are, as Burton says, fallen beings, not through our own fault;\ncondemned to death, not through our own demerits; ransomed by a Divine\nBeing, not through our own merits.\n\nThe Buddhist saying, \"From birth came death,\" and the story of the\nGarden of Eden, seem to possess some figurative connection with the\ntransition of micro-organisms from a fissiparous to a duogynous\ncondition. The am\u0153ba is endowed with the potentialities of eternal\nlife; but when the spermatozoid and ovule (the symbolic serpent\nand apple) appeared on the scene, when the luminous Adam passed\nsuccessively through the fissiparous and androgynous states, and\nfinally became man and woman, death entered into the world.\n\nThe writer in the _Monist_ already referred to, commenting upon\nthe text, \"Every man shall receive his own reward according to his\nown labour\" (1 Cor. i. 5), says: \"The coincidence of Buddhism and\nChristianity is remarkable in this passage; for, as the Buddhist\nScriptures speak of the fruits of Karma, so Paul speaks of the rewards\nof one's labour.\"\n\nMr. Lillie, in referring to the doctrine of re-incarnation, quotes from\nan article in the _Church Quarterly Review_,[AE] in which, he says,\n\"the author of the article, in proof of the existence of this doctrine,\nadduces the question put by the disciples of Christ in reference to\nthe man born blind. And if it was considered that a man could be born\nblind as a punishment for sin, then it must have been plainly committed\nbefore his birth.\" In the _White Lotus of Dharma_ there is an account\nof the healing of a blind man: \"Because of the sinful conduct of the\nman (in a former birth) this malady has arisen.\" He also remarks that,\nin the case of the paralytic (Luke v. 18), the cure was effected, not\nby any physical processes, but by annulling the _sins_ which were the\ncause of the malady.\n\n [AE] October, 1885.\n\nThe Rev. Mr. Spence Hardy, in his _Manual of Buddhism_, observes that\n\"no one can tell but a Buddha how Karma operates or how the chain of\nexistence commenced. It is as vain to ask in what part of the tree the\nfruit exists before the blossom is put forth as to ask for the locality\nof Karma.\" When the King of S\u00e1gal inquired where Karma resides, its\nlocality, Nagasena replied: \"Karma is like a shadow that always\naccompanies the body. But it cannot be said that it is here, or that it\nis there; in this place, or in that place.\"\n\nIt has, I believe, been stated by some writers that it would have\nbeen as well if Gotama had not encumbered his teaching with such a\ncomplex and metaphysical theory as Karma, and had confined himself\nto the admirable moral precepts which form the real backbone of his\nsystem. It has been thought, too, that in introducing Karma into his\nscheme of things he was playing the _r\u00f4le_ of an opportunist, because\nhe felt it to be necessary for the success of his mission that it\nshould not be altogether severed in outline from such a conception as\nthat of metempsychosis, which was deeply implanted in the minds of the\nBrahmanic philosophers of those times. Buddhism would certainly have\nbeen incomplete if it had not included mysteries, as Christianity would\nnot be Christianity without an admixture of the indefinable.\n\n\"Karma,\" as \"working,\" may, I think, be regarded as one of the\nessential components of Christian thought with regard to the soul.\nIt is the working of the soul at the same time, the being-made-soul\nor disposition. As the latter it is heritable and appropriable; its\neffects are endless, and this \"working\" is carried on, so to speak,\nfrom generation to generation, organically and inorganically--in the\nrock, in the flower, and in all animal life--the same producing the\nsame, and yet not the same.\n\nThe doctrine of Karma is justifiably proclaimed as the most important\ntenet of Buddhism, for on it depends the whole system of morality and\nof individual responsibility; and yet, strange to say, there is no part\nof Buddhism which has occasioned so much controversy and difference of\nopinion. It is at once the foundation of belief for millions of true\nbelievers and the basis of scepticism on the part of many who would\notherwise willingly concur in the dogmas of this religion. In this\nrespect it holds an analogous position to that of the doctrine of the\nresurrection of the body in the judgment of Christianity.\n\nIs it possible, some ask, that a belief in the doctrine of Karma, which\nhas exercised so enormous an influence for good over countless millions\nof human creatures--many of them men of the highest order of culture\nand intellectuality--should only be resolvable into an \"airy nothing\"?\nWe may have to acknowledge that the reason is not able to follow the\nidea of Karma through all its phases, nor yet to assimilate the various\npostulates which it demands. But can Christianity boast of doctrines\nwhich are always reducible to the canons of reason and common sense? We\nthink not.\n\nHere, again, we find a common ground between these two religions.\nNeither is capable of being wholly defended by matter-of-fact methods;\nboth demand a certain measure of faith from their adherents. The\nstrength of the dogma of Karma lies rather in the fact that, like the\nideas of free-will, heaven, and God, it is innate in a large portion\nof mankind; and it would be sheer presumption to dismiss with a few\ncontemptuous phrases a belief which is deeply embedded in nearly\none-half of the human race.\n\nThe seeming injustice of the unequal distribution of happiness and\nsuffering among human beings is a problem which Christianity does\nnot attempt to solve. Buddhism, on the other hand, grapples with the\ndifficulty; and we have the much-debated doctrine of Karma as the\nresult. There can be no doubt that this doctrine, once accepted,\nremoves all difficulty out of the way. Karma is literally \"action,\" or\n\"doing.\" This action, after death, and during life too, bears fruit,\nfor the consequences of action cannot be destroyed. It is, in fact, the\nscientific theory of the conservation of energy.\n\nWhen the individual dies his Karma effects are re-incarnated, as\nit were, in another being, and form the connecting link between the\ntwo individuals--the one the author of the Karma effects, the other\nthe inheritor of them. In this particular way we have a sufficient\nexplanation and justification of moral retribution.\n\nHow this second individual comes into existence expressly for the\npurpose of inheriting the Karma of the first, and the nature and mode\nof the transmigration of Karma, are questions which have generally been\nplaced beyond the scope of the human intellect, and will be considered\nlater on.\n\nA way out of this difficulty has been proposed, by which, while\nstill adhering to the essentials of the doctrine of Karma, we can\nreduce it to a form more capable of being grasped and supported by\nour reason; but it has no authority among the utterances of Gotama,\nand, in accepting it, we should be diverging somewhat from orthodox\nBuddhism. Suppose we take as an analogy the case of a river, which,\nafter flowing some hundreds of miles, is dried up by the heat of the\nsun. It is evident that the river, while flowing between its banks, has\nbeen absorbed in a great measure by the porous earth, and has gone to\nfructify the soil. The trees, grass, and crops which have been produced\nby its moisture are, of course, its Karma--the effects of its action,\nor \"doing.\" When it has ceased to flow, the whole of its Karma has been\ndissipated into various effects, which, in their turn becoming causes,\nexercise their influence over practically the whole earth. There is\nno Karma, intact and integrated, which, according to some views of\nBuddhism, should be the _raison d'\u00eatre_ of another _river_.\n\nIn the same way, an individual, while alive, scatters his Karma (or\nthe influence of his character) among his surroundings. When he has\nceased to live he has also ceased to act, and, consequently, there\ncan be no more Karma. This is one way of getting rid of the idea\nof a lump of Karma, which after death, in some way or another, is\nsupposed to produce, or to have produced, for it another body, into\nwhich it may carry the defects, virtues, vices, and follies of its\noriginator. Another weakness which has been considered inseparable\nfrom the orthodox teaching of Buddhism is the fact that it seems to\nfail to account fully for the action of heredity. When two people have\nchildren, does it not appear right to think that their children should\ninherit their Karma? But it is obviously impossible that this should\nbe the case, except in the unlikely contingency of both parents dying\nexactly at the moment of their children's birth. And, again, why should\na man's Karma be embodied in an individual having no visible connection\nwith his offspring; or how can we reconcile the non-existence of\nself-hood as a permanent entity with the recognition of a more or\nless self-sufficient Karma, which preserves its separateness not only\nthrough life, but after death, and into life again? These and other\nsimilar questions arise, and demand explanation from the bewildered\nbrain.\n\nThese questions, it has been contended, do not arise as difficulties\nimpossible of solution, if we consider the analogy given above.\nThe children of two people are obviously their Karma, and they\nappropriate, so to speak, a very large proportion of the effects of\ntheir \"doing\"--as it is only just and reasonable that they should\ndo. Innumerable actions on the part of the parents have led up to\nacquaintance and union, and the birth of the child is merely the climax\nof an endless chain of causes and effects.\n\nBut this process of reasoning closely borders on the confines of\nmetempsychosis, in the phraseology of which the doctrine of Karma\nhas often been mistakenly expounded. The doctrine of Karma is a\nmodification of metempsychosis, and, as such, certainly stands on a\nmore scientific and rational basis than its prototype.\n\nIn consequence of the intermixture of the two theories in the minds\nof exponents of Karma, much misapprehension has arisen, and this\ndoctrine continues to be a stumbling-block to students of Buddhism. A\nconsiderable amount of confusion arises also, I think, from the fact\nthat writers on Buddhism fail to discriminate between Karma, the law\nof Karma, and the effects of Karma, although the word Karma includes\nthe two latter. It is a mistake to assume that Karma, interpreted\nas \"thoughts, words, and actions,\" is perpetuated as such, for each\nthought, word, and action passes for ever away while it happens; each\ndies, yet each continues for all eternity in the effect it produces.\n\n\"The being of a past moment of thought has lived, but does not live,\nnor will it live.\"\n\n\"The being of a future moment of thought will live, but has not lived,\nnor does it live.\"\n\n\"The being of the present moment of thought will live, but has not\nlived, nor will it live.\"\n\nIt cannot be held, therefore, if we read Buddhism aright, that Karma in\nitself possesses continuity.\n\n\"The 'I' of to-day has to take all the _consequences_ of the _actions_\n(Karma) which the 'I' of yesterday performed. Thus the individualized\nKarma of future times will reap all that which the individualizing\nKarma of the present time _sows_.\"[AF]\n\n [AF] Paul Carus.\n\nProfessor Rhys Davids (_Buddhism_, p. 103) says: \"Identity is preserved\nin that which alone remains when a man dies; in the result, namely, of\nhis action, speech, and thought, in his good or evil Karma (literally\nhis 'doing') which does not die.\" This statement would have gained in\nclearness if he had written \"_in the result_ of his good or evil Karma\nwhich does not die,\" in the concluding sentence.\n\nIf we allow ourselves to consider Karma, taken in the sense of\n\"doing,\" as retaining a separateness apart from its diffusion of\ninfluences, and being carried on from generation to generation as an\nindividualized compound, then we at once find ourselves in direct\nconflict with the doctrine of \"inseparateness,\" which is the mainstay\nof the rationality of Buddhist thought, the basic concept of Buddhism.\n\nIf we understand by the Samsk\u00e2ras that phase of a man's soul which\nis impressed upon other generations by heredity and education, and\nthat which \"is preserved by the law of Karma and conditions the\ncontinuity of man's existence in the whirl of constant changes,\" it\nmust be exclusively in the sense that these Samsk\u00e2ras are formative\nfaculties peculiar to, and always to be found (in normal cases) in\ninterconnection with, those temporary aggregations which present\nthemselves to our perceptions as human beings, but which are not\npermanent.\n\nIt is only when the expressions \"Karma\" and \"action\" are used in their\nwidest meaning, and include this formative faculty, that they can with\npropriety be regarded as possessing continuity, but not permanency. The\nparticular formative faculty ceases to be, in those exceptional cases\nwhen \"it directs itself to the cessation of all conformations.\"\n\nThis self-forming formative faculty, in its normal condition, is the\ncause of the continuity of being, or becoming. Its disappearance is\nhappiness. We find this Buddhistic truth very clearly stated in the\nNew Testament. \"He who loses his life shall find it\"--which, being\ninterpreted, is \"He who loses the formative faculty shall find the\ndeathless.\"\n\nKarma, as \"thought, speech, and action,\" must be regarded as the\nethical individuality, and the body as the corporeal individuality. As\nthings in themselves they are both impermanent, but the effects of both\nare lasting. There are physiological and local as well as psychological\nresults to be taken into account.\n\nThe body is continually shedding effects, and lives again after death\nin its diffused elements; so Karma gives off effects and lives again\nin its moral results; yet both these individualities are inseparably\nconnected as long as the individual's life lasts.\n\nThe text so often quoted in this connection should, for purposes of\nBuddhistic exposition, read: \"What a man sows, that will _the race_\n(not he) reap.\" \"Herein is that saying true, one soweth and another\nreapeth\" (John iv. 37).\n\n  \"Man weaves and is clothed with derision;\n    Sows, but shall not reap.\n  His life is a watch and a vision,\n    Between a sleep and a sleep.\"\n\nWhat has been called physical or local Karma is applied to the effects\nof locality and climate upon the development of races and individuals.\n\nA writer in the Journal of the Maha-Bodhi Society (November, 1898)[AG]\nsays: \"The theory of Karma, as Gautama formulated it, is all-embracing\nand comprehensive. It ranges over the whole field of life and morality.\nIt ascribes causes for things; explains the working of the complicated\nmachinery of the cosmos; abolishes the unwholesome idea of universal\nchaos and absence of motive power; substitutes in its place a definite\nand well-arranged system admirably suited to the needs of mankind;\nand finally establishes firmly the supreme importance of individual\nmorality and responsibility. What more can one desire? 'All very well,'\nthe sceptic replies. 'It may perform all you say it does, but I must\nbe able to grasp it thoroughly and work it out in my own mind. I will\ntake nothing for granted. I must be able to follow, to understand it,\nand harmonize it with facts of which I have certain knowledge. None\nof your vague insinuations for me.' I reply: How can you with your\nlimited and finite empirical knowledge fully understand that which is\nlimitless and infinite? The doctrine of Karma embraces all the greatest\nproblems of life and the cosmos; and how can you, a mere atom in the\nuniverse, expect to grasp the whole? It is sufficient that you should\nhave a working theory which fulfils your requirements, and is at the\nsame time sanctioned by your reasoning power. More you cannot expect to\nhave. The doctrine of Karma, in short, marches step by step with our\nreason. At no point does it break away from the laws of common sense.\nThe difficulty lies in the fact that, while our reasoning at a certain\npoint comes to a halt through lack of further material, the doctrine of\nKarma perseveres onwards into the spheres of higher knowledge whither\nour limited brain capacity cannot follow.\n\n [AG] _The Doctrine of Karma_, by Henry Melancthon Strong.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"There are two methods by which the doctrine of Karma may be\nexplained--viz., by individualization and by generalization; the\nformer is the more orthodox and popular, the latter more sound and\nphilosophical. But, although we find in the recorded sayings of Gautama\nsupport of the former and little or none of the latter, I think we may\ninfer that his attitude was due to the exigencies of the conditions\nunder which he lived and the ignorance of the masses who surrounded\nhim. For the same reason Christ was forced to clothe his teachings in\nsimple and primitive guise in order that they might be readily grasped\nby the popular mind. As an outcome of this necessity, we have the\nparables of the New Testament and much of the veiled language therein\ncontained. To these are due in large measure the controversies and\ndifferences of opinion which now exist as to the proper interpretation\nof the words of Christ. The significance of many of Buddha's utterances\nhas been similarly degraded. Countless 'birth stories' have sprung up\nto satisfy the popular craving for something concrete and simple in\nwhich to believe. Their themes have no real authority in Buddhistic\nteaching, but they serve the same purpose as do the Christian parables\nand myths. The student of Buddhism who stumbles upon them by chance may\nbe led into false notions with regard to the religion, and accept as\nauthoritative that which has no real authority. Herein lies their harm.\nThat they are not strictly in accordance with Gautama's teachings there\ncan be no doubt. The theory of soul-transmigration upon which these\ntales are chiefly founded is an excrescence on Buddhism, and should be\nregarded in the light of a heresy. As Professor Rhys Davids observes:\n'Buddhism does not teach the transmigration of souls. Its doctrine\nwould be better summarized as the transmigration of character.'\nProfessor Oldenberg puts with much clearness the teaching of the action\nof transmigration and Karma when he says: 'Buddhism teaches: \"My action\nis my possession, my action is my inheritance, my action is the womb\nwhich bears me, my action is the race to which I am akin.\" What appears\nto man to be his body is in truth the action of his past state, which,\nassuming a form realized through his endeavours, has become endowed\nwith a tangible existence.'\n\n\"The same idea is expressed in a slightly different form by Dr. Paul\nCarus, who says: 'We ourselves continue in the accumulated results\nof our actions.' In these concise and seemingly simple statements we\nhave the fundamental dogma of Buddhism and the foundation of Gautama's\nsystem _as it has been handed down to us_. When we come to analyze them\ncarefully, the difficulties which at first lie hidden become apparent.\nWe see that a man during his lifetime scatters the effects of his\nactions (_i.e._, his Karma) in all directions. Upon his death a new\nsentient being, 'realized through his endeavour,' comes into existence\nto inherit and carry on his Karma. These two beings are not connected\nin any way the one with the other. There has been no transmigration\nof soul or of the ego, for Buddhism denies the existence of either\nas a permanent entity, but describes them as temporary aggregations\nonly. How, then, does moral retribution act? or how can we reconcile\nthe non-existence of self as a permanent entity with the recognition\nof the existence of a more or less integral and permanent Karma which\npreserves its separateness, not only through life, but after death and\ninto life again. How, too, is it possible that his Karma, although\nscattered in all directions during his term of life, at the moment of\ndeath is intact and whole for transmission to another body?\n\n\"Moreover, it is obvious that, if the death of one human being is\nthe cause of the birth of another, the human race would not progress\nnumerically. The very fact of the numerical increase of mankind\ndefeats this theory and renders it untenable by all those who desire\nto believe only what their reason sanctions, and to eschew whatever\ndemands the acceptance of authority or the exercise of faith. In short,\nas Professor Rhys Davids has put it, the weakness of the Buddhistic\nconception is that 'the result of what a man is, or does, is held not\nto be dissipated ... but to be concentrated together in the formation\nof one new sentient being.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"By digressing somewhat from strict Buddhistic teaching, and leaving\nbehind the _letter_ (not the spirit) of the law, we can, I think,\narrive at a more satisfactory explanation by a method I have called\n'generalization,' in contradistinction to the method just dealt\nwith--viz., Individualization.\n\n\"According to the orthodox conception, an individual takes up\nthe Karma of another while it is intact and has not suffered from\ndistribution and dispersion. But there is a broader and less primitive,\nalbeit more heterodox, manner in which we may regard the doctrine, and\none which, I think, we may infer was in the mind of Gotama himself\nwhen he enunciated the narrower conception in order to simplify it\nsufficiently to be capable of being grasped by the ignorant. Instead of\na man's Karma being individualized--_i.e._, handed on in an integral\nstate from individual to individual--we should regard it rather as\nhaving been generalized and disintegrated during life, leaving no\nresiduum at death. Thus, what is inherited at birth is not the Karma of\nany one person, but rather the Karma of the race as a whole. 'The souls\nof men continue to exist as they are impressed upon other generations\nby heredity and education,'[AH] but the soul of the individual does not\ncontinue to exist. It is the soul of the race, not of the individual,\nwhich is perpetuated.\n\n [AH] Dr. Paul Carus in _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_.\n\n\"The Karmas of all are, as it were, cast into the mixing-pot and\nthoroughly sifted, and then, and not till then, embodied in different\nforms. Seeming inequality of division must be accounted for by the\naction of local Karma.[AI] There is obviously an advantage associated\nwith this theory not applicable to the theory of individualization.\nWhereas the latter tends to promote the fallacious idea of personality\nand self-hood, the former has a wider significance, and tends rather to\npromote the belief in universal brotherhood by merging personalities\ninto one great whole. It is, in fact, more truly Buddhistic, and, by\ninspiring a more cosmopolitan sentiment of fellowship, is calculated\nto overcome, in a great degree, that fallacy most difficult of all\nfallacies to overcome--the idea of the ego as a permanent entity. The\ndifficulty, also, which is universally felt of accounting for the birth\nof a new sentient being at every death is by this means obviated....\n\n [AI] _Local Karma._--The term is used to express the character stamped\n upon any place by the action of former dwellers therein. Those who\n follow afterwards are supposed to inherit the Karma of the locality.\n Thus we see the nations at the present day expiating the sins of\n their forefathers, or enjoying the fruits of their good deeds. It is\n a well-known fact, also, that crimes tend to repeat themselves in the\n same districts, and even houses.\n\n\"Most assuredly we require an explanation of our present condition,\nand we must accord all honour to Buddhism for having afforded us one\nboth rational and satisfactory. When men come to see and to realize\nthat by every deed committed, and by every word uttered, they are\ncarving out, for evil or good, the future of the race, and that the\nsuffering they now endure they owe entirely to the past sins of\nhumanity, their sense of responsibility will be increased, their hold\nupon morality strengthened, the bond of unity, 'the brotherhood of\nman,' confirmed. Abolish the fallacy of cosmic chaos; substitute in its\nstead the idea of a definite system and purpose; show that man is the\nonly framer of his destiny, the only author of his existence, the only\ncause of his own suffering--and the foundation of morality will be made\nsure, the redemption of the race brought within measurable distance.\nThis is the end for which the doctrine of Karma was formulated, and to\nthis end it has been labouring, a silent but progressive force, for\nmany centuries.\"\n\nThe Rev. T. Sterling Berry, D.D., in his _Comparative Study of\nChristianity and Buddhism_, treats the latter as a whole in a spirit\nof commendable catholicity; but when he comes to points of contrast\nhe fails signally to preserve equanimity of judgment, and distorts\nthe import of Gotama's precepts in the most amazing fashion in his\nendeavour to bring them into opposition to the teaching of Jesus. His\nview of Karma, however, is, I think, a valuable contribution to the\nliterature on the subject, and worthy of reproduction. He writes:\n\"Strange and well nigh unintelligible as this theory seems, it is\nnevertheless possible, I believe, to get at the real thought that\nmoulded Gotama's conception--actions of every kind as possessing the\nnature of seed sown; men were found, to some extent, to reap the\nconsequences of their actions during their lifetime; but this takes\nplace only in a limited and incomplete sense during the existence to\nwhich the actions belong. At the close of a life many acts remain like\nseed sown, but not yet grown up. Hence the theory that when a man dies\nhe leaves the sum-total of the acts of his life as a kind of complex\nseed, made up of good and bad elements, which, by his death, springs up\ninto a fresh existence, the same and yet not the same; in somewhat of\nthe sense in which it might be said that ordinary seed which springs\nup as identical and yet not identical with that which is sown. Viewed\nin this light, the theory loses its apparent absurdity. It becomes,\nin fact, a mode of expressing partly what we understand by the law of\nheredity, which involves a transference of character and a reproduction\nof the consequences of action; and partly the law of retribution, that\n'Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.'\"\n\nThe continuance of an individual's Karma, conceived as the effects of\na man's character upon individuals whom he influences, is a perfectly\nthinkable process, and a generally accepted fact. But, when we are\ncalled upon to consider how it comes about that, on the death of a\nsentient being, a new sentient being is at once produced, to take up\nthe effects of the deceased one's Karma, then we seem to be launched\ninto a mystery that can only be explained by another mystery.\n\nIf such a doctrine is to be interpreted literally, it would seem to\nnecessitate a numerical equality of births and deaths; a new-born babe\nwould have to be ready at each death to receive the Karma-effects of\nthe deceased. It might, however, be made faintly thinkable by including\navailable births in other solar systems, and by allowing for a certain\nnumber of Karmas coming to an end by the attainment of Nirvana. This\nplanet is held by Buddhists to be in sympathetic relationship with the\nother worlds, and there are countless millions of beings who change\nplaces. A number of men die somewhere on this earth, and they may not\nbe re-born here at all; a number of beings die in some other planet,\nand may be re-born here at the same time.\n\nThis particular phase of the doctrine of Karma has been so distinctly\nenunciated in Buddhist writings that it becomes a question for the\ninterpreter of Buddhism to decide whether it should be retained as a\nliteral statement, and so dismissed as an unthinkable, or whether it\nshould be given the chance of being classified as rational by expansive\ntreatment.\n\nBuddhism is so systematically and eminently rationalistic throughout\nits teaching that one feels impelled to a supreme effort to sustain\nits reputation in this one respect. In any case it would seem just to\nassume that it had a rationalistic basis in the mind of Gotama, however\ndifficult it may be for us to discover the foundation of Rationalism on\nwhich it rests. An apparently irrational theory should not be rejected\nas irrational as long as it is within the bounds of possibility that\nthe apparent irrationality is due to the limitations of our reason,\nor the absence of data, that have not come under our experience and\nknowledge of Cosmic laws. Everything may be contrary to what we think\nit to be; and everything may be opinion only.\n\nAs some beautiful poems cannot be thought out in connection with one's\nimmediate environment without a loss of poetic value, but require\nmental transposition to a distant and different scene for their\nbeauty to be fully and poetically realized, so, unless we remove our\nimagination from its every-day associations to an entirely different\n\"scenery\" of thought, we cannot expect to intelligently appreciate the\ncomplete significance of Buddhistic conceptions. As Professor Oldenberg\nputs it, we must, when approaching the study of Buddhism, divest\nourselves wholly of all customary modes of thinking.\n\nBuddhism lays stress everywhere upon the connectiveness of everything\nwith everything; and everything is, at all times, something other than\nitself. Consciousness (Vinn\u00e2na), for instance, is described as \"that\nwhich enters into the womb, and from which arise name and corporeal\nform\"; yet consciousness and name and corporeal form have no individual\nexistence.\n\n\"Body, perceptions, and sensations vanish, but not conscience; but\nconsciousness only exists as long as it is connected with name and\ncorporeal form. Consciousness, however, is not essentially different\nfrom perceptions and sensations; it is also a Samsk\u00e2ra, and, like all\nother Samsk\u00e2ras, it is changeable, and without substance.\"[AJ]\n\n [AJ] In the place of a \"sphere of being,\" with its supply of\n ready-made consciousness for the transmissive process in the brain,\n as hypothecated by Professor William James in his lecture on _Human\n Immortality_, I would substitute a formative faculty immanent in the\n universe, and assume the metamorphosis into consciousness, as we\n know it, to be a function of the brain. This theory would be quite\n reconcileable with the physiological view that consciousness is the\n final phase of the activity of the sensory nerves in the cortex of\n that organ. Fechner's conception of a psycho-physical threshold\n would also adapt itself to this theory as well as to the other; the\n threshold being understood as representing the functional capacity of\n the brain to extend or limit the scope of consciousness. The ultimate\n extension of consciousness would result in a return to the elemental\n informative. In the case of limited extension, consciousness would be\n carried on as a consciousness-germ, or Skandha, into a new being, on\n the death of a being.\n\nConsciousness has been described as the director of the organs, and,\nin this sense, vaguely assumes the place of an ego. Consciousness, as\na \"highly-developed and insubstantial product of the brain,\" possesses\nthe faculty of acting _in the manner_ of choice; it is derived from\nconformations, and conformations from ignorance.\n\nThere is a continuance of soul-forms after the death of an\nindividual--that is, of the impressions caused by the character of\nan individual. This is the preservation of form by means of Karma\n(deeds). Obviously these soul-forms cannot continue unless there is\nan individual to receive the impression. Therefore, when it is said\nthat, immediately upon the death of a sentient being, another sentient\nbeing is produced to receive the effects of the deceased's Karma, the\nstatement may have been only intended to imply that for the continuance\nof soul-forms there must always be sentient beings to receive their\nimpressions.\n\nIt does not seem necessary to suppose that on A's death B takes up\nthe whole of A's Karma. The effects of A's Karma have been impressed,\nmore or less, on all those who have come in his lifetime, and will come\nafter his death, within range of his influence. In the latter case the\ninfluence is continued in the effects of his writings, speech, or other\nactions.\n\nAn individual during his lifetime will be impressed with the effects\nof the Karma of many individuals, and has to take the consequences,\nwhether good or bad, with power of adding to or modifying the received\neffects. \"The same character of deeds reappears wherever his deeds have\nimpressed themselves on other minds.\"\n\nThe subject of Karma becomes hopelessly complicated if such a statement\nas the following is taken literally: \"Buddhism is convinced that, if\na man reaps sorrow, disappointment, pain, _he himself_, and no other,\nmust at some time have sown folly, error, sin; if not in this life,\nthen in some former birth.\" The language here employed is liable,\nunless the reader is on his guard, to take him back to the heresy of\nMetempsychosis, which Buddhism arose to destroy.\n\nIt perhaps needs reiteration that the \"He Himself\" in a former birth\nis not even the deeds of a different set of Skandhas--of a body of\ndifferent constituent parts. The \"He Himself\" is only the effects of\ndeeds done by a constantly becoming and constantly vanishing set of\nSkandhas, the particles of the human tornado which assume temporary\nform. The effects received become the \"He Himself\"; herein is the\nretributive phase of the doctrine of Karma.\n\nThe effects of Karma on their passage through preceding births on to\nfuture births are the only existent and continuing \"I.\" A, who has\nreceived good influences from B, bad from C, and indifferent from D,\nhas lived before, in a Buddhistic sense, in B, C, and D.\n\nBuddhistic birth stories should, I think, be read in this light. When\nA performs an action similar to one performed centuries ago by B, it\nis to be understood that the effects of that particular action in B\nhave reached A through many intervening lives in either a modified or\nunmodified form. Other actions of A which had not been performed by B\nmust be traced back in their effects to C, D, E, etc. A has only lived\nas B by virtue of the effects of particular and similar acts reaching\nhim through the law of cause and effect.\n\n\"Within the sphere of causality we can all exclaim with Jesus: 'Before\nAbraham was I am.'\"\n\nThere is yet another direction in which we may look for a solution\nof the problem. Life or being is frequently compared in Buddhistic\nexpositions to a flame which is the same, and yet not the same, from\nthe time it is lighted to the time of its extinction. Each moment of\nbeing passes away as, simultaneously or concurrently, a moment of being\ncommences; and in this sense, on the death of a being, another being is\nsimultaneously produced, until being comes to an end with death, as the\nflame expires at the moment of extinction.\n\nThis view agrees with that part of Buddhistic philosophy which asserts\nthat nothing _survives_ being except the effects of being; \"being,\" in\nthis connection, being taken as the entire life-history of an organism,\nwhether animal or vegetable, and as the existence of a flame from its\ninception to its extinction.\n\nThe working of the law of Karma has been found so intricate that many\nBuddhists have relegated it to the category of Unthinkables. They\nregard it as such that it can only be understood by those who have\nattained to the \"_intellectus mysticus_.\" The one thing considered\nrequisite for the comprehension of its complexities is to solve the\nproblem of the Four Noble Truths by following the Noble Eight-fold\nPath. A study of Buddha's psychology, they contend, is absolutely\nnecessary to the disciple who wishes to know the processes of the\never-changing consciousness. The mind in itself is pure, but by coming\ninto contact with impurities such as anger, harbouring of anger,\nselfishness, etc., it is soiled.\n\nThe practical psychology of Buddhism is based on ethics, and the\nstudent has to cut off all the impurities from the mind to enable him\nto properly comprehend the Nirvanic condition. So long as one thinks\nof self, so long is he re-born. Unless self is absolutely surrendered,\nunless \"Thou hast lost thyself to save thyself, as Galahad,\"[AK] Karma\ncontinues; and that means ignorance; and ignorance can have no vision\nof the Holy Grail, fails to reach Nirvana, unites not with God!\n\n [AK]\n\n    \"Galahad, when he heard of Merlin's doom,\n    Cried: 'If I lose myself, I save myself!'\"\n\n    --_The Holy Grail_ (Tennyson).\n\n\nThere is no cessation in the continuous flow of thought between one\nlife and another until Nirvana is reached. The \"being\" born in another\nlife is absolutely not the same that died here, nor absolutely another;\nbut is the result of the one. \"My substance was hid when I was made in\nsecret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nHEAVEN AND NIRVANA.\n\n  \"Soles occidere et redire possunt.\n  Nobis, quum semel occidit brevis lux,\n  Nox est perpetua una dormienda.\"\n\n  --CATULLUS.\n\n\nInnumerable figures of speech have been brought into requisition\nto convey to the imagination the import of the terms \"Heaven\" and\n\"Nirvana.\" None of these, taken either separately or collectively, can\nbe held to include all that is indicated by the above expressions.\nTo speak of reaching Heaven, or Nirvana, is somewhat misleading; no\nmeasurement of space is applicable to them; no phenomenal expression in\nitself will pass muster.\n\nA later and more material aspect of heaven, known as the Western\nParadise, and only referred to, I think, in the Mah\u0101yana, has been\nprovided, it would seem, for the satisfaction of those who require a\ntemporary halting-place for thought before moving on to more abstract\nconceptions. This heaven is illustrated with all those inimitable\ncolours and touches which oriental inventiveness uses with such\nalluring effect. It is na\u00efvely located ten millions of miles to the\nwest.\n\nThere, in a light that never was on land or sea, where lotus flowers of\nevery imaginable hue vie with each other to cluster at his holy feet,\nsits enthroned the Buddha of Infinite Light, the Compassionate, the\nPerfect One.\n\nThe sweet radiance of his pitying smile pervades the heavens for\nthousands of leagues. The beautiful expressions of his countenance\ncannot be numbered, for they are as countless as the sands of Gunga's\nsacred stream; nor can his compassion be measured--it is illimitable\nas a shoreless ocean. The magical grace of his form is compared to\nthe \"moon on high when she marches full-orbed\" through the unclouded\nexpanse of the Empyrean. If ever so \"gentle a zephyr blows amid\nthe trees,\" the atmosphere vibrates with all delicate and enticing\nmelodies. The voices of the Devas are heard chanting his praises. An\naerial choir, the birds of Paradise, answer back with antiphons of\nrapturous song as they soar above in the gilded air which fills the\npavilions of the Blest. Such, and much more, is the \"Pure Land,\" the\nland of Amita, the Buddha of Infinite Light.\n\nThe introduction into the picture of pavements of gold, crystal\nstreams, precious stones, jewels, and many of the paraphernalia which\nthe pageantry of this nether world demands for its embellishment brings\nto remembrance the splendours enshrined in that final revelation of\nthings to be, which was delivered to man in the person of St. John the\nDivine.\n\nNirvana has been called \"The Imperishable,\" \"The Infinite,\" \"The\nEternal,\" \"The Everlasting,\" \"The Transcendent,\" \"The Serene,\" \"The\nFormless,\" \"The Goal,\" \"The Other Shore,\" \"Rest,\" \"The True,\" or\n\"The Truth.\" It has been compared to an \"island which no flood can\noverwhelm,\" to a \"City of Peace,\" \"The Jewelled Realm of Happiness,\"\n\"An Escape from the Evil One.\"[AL] For the Christian Heaven, in like\nmanner, a great variety of metaphors abounds.\n\n [AL] Taken from _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_, by Paul Carus.\n\nBut the mere gazing at, and admiration of, these pretty pictures will\nnot conduce to a comprehension of them--will not help us to discover\nwhat formulated in the mind of the artist the design of the picture\nhe painted. For this needful purpose it may not prove unprofitable to\nhave recourse, in the first instance, to the metaphysics of the grand\nold Oriental mystic, St. Paul. By his assistance we may find that these\nconceptions, Heaven and Nirvana, on which so much wealth of imagery\nhas been lavished, and about which controversy has well-nigh exhausted\nitself, will resolve themselves into something less indefinite, and\nmore thinkable, of one nature and of one significance.\n\nIn his Epistle to the Corinthians he tells us \"God hath chosen the\nthings that are not to bring to nought the things that are.\" Now,\nthe \"things that are not\" must assuredly be taken to mean that\nwhich is, figuratively speaking, beyond the threshold--something,\nin this respect, more than the subliminal[AM] reveals; in fact, the\nultra-liminal, and, consequently, the immutable. They are the quality\nTruth, residing in, but inseparable, as long as senses last, from,\nthe \"things that are\"--namely, in materiality as we perceive it;\nmateriality being here understood as \"potential feeling, from which\ndevelop ideas, or the soul of man.\"\n\n [AM] \"Subliminal\" I use here in a strictly etymological sense--_sub\n limen_, up to the lintel.\n\nUltimately perfected ideas, or soul, become this quality, Truth; they\nbecome that which is within and outside all things--in short, what\nJesus calls \"the kingdom of God within,\" as well as the Heaven around\nus.\n\nThe expression \"bring to nought\" has its equivalents in the terms\n\"annihilation\" and \"extinction,\" so often used in connection with\nNirvana, for the desperate purpose of depreciating the Buddhist\nconception of Heaven. The \"things that are\" are material objects as\nwe perceive them, which are mutable, and never the same one moment\ntogether--never really are, but are for ever undergoing a process of\nbecoming (\"God calleth those things which be not as though they were,\"\nRom. iv. 17). Material objects are mutable, and Heaven and Nirvana are\nimmutability. Plotinus says: \"The return to God, or The One (or Truth),\nis the consummation of all things, and the goal indicated by Christian\nteaching.\" This oneness, however, does not imply extinction. \"He who\nhas entered upon Nirvana is not annihilated; on the contrary, he has\nattained the deathless.\"\n\nThe identical idea is prevalent both in New Testament teaching and in\nBuddhistic doctrine, that the realization of that state of blessedness\nwhich is called \"Heaven\" in the one case, and \"Nirvana\" in the other,\ncould be brought about during the lifetime of the saint. \"But I tell\nyou of a truth, there be some standing here which shall not taste of\ndeath till they see the kingdom of God\" (Luke ix. 27).\n\n\"The kingdom of heaven is within you\" is also a sufficiently explicit\nstatement on the part of the Christian Scripture to substantiate the\npossibility of such an experience.\n\nIn an article published in the _Monist_ of January, 1898, and bearing\non this subject, there occurs the following passage, accompanied with\nextracts from the works of several Christian mystics:--\n\n\"The Buddhist idea, that salvation consists mainly in dropping our\nown self, in becoming nothing, in self-annihilation for the sake\nof becoming Buddha--viz., divinely incarnate--can be found in many\nChristian writers. The highest religious aspirations are not the result\nof an anxiety for the salvation of one's own soul, but a yearning for a\nunion with God.\"\n\nScotus Erigena writes: \"In God all things will be put to rest and\nremain One, Indivisible, and Immutable.\"...\n\n\"God does not perceive what is Himself.\"\n\nAccording to St. Augustine: \"If the soul is to comprehend God, it must\nforget itself, for if the soul sees and comprehends itself it neither\nsees nor comprehends God.\"\n\n\"If the soul loses itself through God and forsakes all things, it\nfinds itself again through God.\"...\n\n\"Whenever the soul comes to uniting itself with God it becomes\nannihilated.\"...\n\n\"All perfection and all bliss consists in this, that man enters into\nthe ground that is groundless.\"...\n\n\"How shall I love God? Thou shalt love Him as He is--a not God, a\nnot spirit, a not person, a not image; but rather as He is--a true,\npure, clear One, separated from all two-hood; and in this One we shall\neternally disappear _from nothing into nothing_.\"[AN]...\n\n [AN] I.\n\n O Bhikshus, the uncreated, the invisible, the unmade, the elementary,\n the unproduced, exists (as well as) the created, the visible, the\n made, the conceivable, the compound, the produced; and there is an\n uninterrupted connection between the two.\n\n II.\n\n O Bhikshus, if the uncreated, the invisible, the unmade, the\n elementary, the unproduced was nonentity, I could not say that the\n result of their connection from cause to effect with the created,\n the visible, the made, the compound, the conceivable, was final\n emancipation.\n\n III.\n\n O Bhikshus, it is because of the real existence of the uncreated,\n the invisible, the elementary, the unproduced, that I say that the\n result of their connection from cause to effect with the created,\n the visible, the made, the compound, the conceivable, is final\n emancipation.--(_Verses from the Buddhist Canon_, translated from the\n Thibetan of the Bkah-hgyur, by W. Woodville Rockhill.)\n\nErckhart says: \"How shall that man be who shall behold God? He shall be\ndead. Our Lord says: 'No man shall see me and live.'\"\n\nAccording to Buddhistic teaching, \"He who has conquered ignorance and\ngot rid of desire enjoys the supreme reward already in this life. His\nouter man may still be detained in the world of suffering, but he knows\nthat it is not he himself whom the coming of the Sankharas[AO] affects.\"\n\n [AO] \"Sankhara is both the preparation and the prepared.... To the\n Buddhist mind the made has existence only and solely in the process\n of being made; whatever is is not so much a something which is as the\n process rather of a being, self-generating, and self-again-consuming\"\n (Oldenberg).\n\nEnlightenment and Nirvana are synonymous. \"Buddha is said to have\nentered upon Nirvana when he died. Yet at the same time we are told\nthat Buddha had attained Nirvana already during his life.\"[AP]\n\n [AP] Paul Carus.\n\n\"If thou knowest the destruction of the Sankharas, thou knowest the\nUncreated\" (Dhammapada); or, as Professor Oldenberg's translator\nrenders it, \"Let others pursue the uncreated by their erroneous paths\nwhich will never carry them beyond the realm of the created. As for\nthee, let the attainment of the Uncreated consist in this, that thou\nreachest the cessation of the created.\"\n\nGotama, in a conversation between himself and an unbeliever, said:\n\"Illustrious disciple, Nirvana may be compared to the nothingness\ndefined as the absence of something different to itself. We may justly\ndefine Nirvana as that sort of non-existence which consists in the\nabsence of something essentially different.\"[AQ]\n\n [AQ] Pari Nirvana Suttha, chap. xxxix., i.; as given in Oldenberg's\n _Buddhism_.\n\nThere are to be found several passages in the New Testament which\nseem to confirm the interpretation given to St. Paul's saying about\nthe \"things that are not.\" Heaven is spoken of as an inheritance\nthat fadeth not away--that is, the \"things that are\" fade away, but\nthe things that are not do not fade away. The things that are not\nseen (that are not) are eternal, and the things that are seen (that\nseemingly are) are temporal.\n\nThis it hath not entered the heart of man to fully understand. We only\nsee through a glass darkly; through the web of illusion. \"But if we\nhope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.\"\n\nJesus answering his interrogators, exclaims: \"What _house_ will ye\nbuild me, or what is the _place_ of my rest?\" This was a rebuff to\nthose who endeavoured to localize the illocatable. \"The Most High\ndwelleth not in temples made with hands.\" \"My kingdom is not of this\nworld.\" Jesus spoke to the people in parable because it was not given\nto them to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.\n\nGotama said: \"Whatsoever has not been revealed by me let that remain\nunrevealed, and what has been revealed let it be revealed.\"\n\nWith reference to the saying of Jesus, \"_Multa habeo vobis dicere, sed\nnunc non potestis portare illa_,\" St. Augustine remarks: \"_Manifestum\nest non esse culpandum, aliquando verum tacere._\"\n\nDr. Paul Carus, in a chapter headed \"Hin\u00e2y\u00e2na, Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na, Mah\u00e2s\u00e2tu\"\n(p. 230, _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_), deals in a most\nmasterly and effective manner with the value of the symbolic in\ncontradistinction to the essential phases of Buddhism and Christianity.\nIn judging the Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na system (of Buddhism) and its fantastical\noffshoots, he says: \"We must consider the mental state of those nations\nfor whom it was adapted, and it may be that a purer religion would\nhave failed utterly where cruder allegories of what appears to us as\nchildish superstitions exercised a beneficent influence. The Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na\nhas changed the savage hordes of Central Asia, from whom proceeded the\nmost barbarous hordes, dreaded by all their neighbours, into a most\nkind-hearted people, with a sacred passion for universal benevolence\nand charity.\"\n\nWith reference to the Christian Church, he remarks: \"What does it\nmatter that, during the development of the Church, the letter of\nsymbolically-expressed truth has crystallized into fixed dogmas?...\nHe who believes in a myth that contains, in the garb of a parable, a\nreligious truth, and accordingly regulates his moral conduct, is better\noff than he who is void of any faith. The truth hidden in the myth\nteaches him and serves him as a guide; it comforts him in affliction,\nstrengthens him in temptation, and shows him in an allegorical\nreflection the bliss that rests upon righteousness.\"\n\nThe words \"rest,\" \"peace,\" and \"sleep\" are in the New Testament more\noften associated with the conditions of a future life than such\nexpressions as \"joy\" or \"happiness.\" The word \"joy\" is only to be\nfound once in direct connection with the word \"heaven\" in the New\nTestament--_i.e._, when there was joy in heaven over the repentance of\na sinner.\n\nThe omission may have been intentional, so that the world might\nunderstand that the joy of heaven would be something absolutely\ndifferent from what we conceive of joy; that there will be a kind of\njoy, in which joy, as it is known here, is absent.\n\n\"There remaineth, therefore, a rest for the people of God.\"\n\n\"He that hath entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own\nworks as God did from his.\"\n\n\"Let us labour therefore to enter that rest.\"\n\n\"Ye shall find rest unto your souls.\"\n\nSuch texts seem to draw heaven and Nirvana very close together.\n\nIt is undoubtedly implied in some portions of the Christian Scriptures\nthat the souls of the departed are asleep, and will not be disturbed\ntill the coming of the Lord and the final judgment.\n\n\"Does not the testimony of the Bible lead us to this conclusion; from\nthe cry of the tired spirit of Samuel, awakened from its sleep by the\nWitch of Endor, 'Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?' to the\nsaying of the spirit in the Revelation, 'Yea, they rest from their\nlabours.' In the case of Lazarus we have the words of Jesus to this\neffect: 'Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out\nof sleep'\" (from _Light_).\n\nMany are in love with the satisfying beauty of this sleep which has\nlasted since death began to be, and desire that it might never be\ndisturbed. This is that yearning for the rest of Nirvana, for the peace\nthat passeth understanding. The true mission of religious symbolism, of\nmusic, of poetry, and the plastic arts is, not to excite the physical\nemotions of man, not to crystallize appearances, but to translate his\nsoul to this condition of delicious swooning, to turn his gaze inwards\nto what Brahmanic philosophy calls the fontal essence of things.\n\nFrom a poetical point of view, it is perhaps melancholy to reflect that\nthe seers of India are being rudely awakened from their reveries, to\nbe at last, as seems probable, completely absorbed into the relatively\nsordid environment of Occidental progress--in fact, to dream no more.\nThe West has murdered dreams.\n\nApart from the physical influences of climate and country, the strange\nyearning of the Indian for an ultimate heaven of unconsciousness may\nbe accounted for by tracing it to a vague remembrance in the human\norganism of the happy condition from which it primarily emerged, before\neven animal existence had entered upon the fairly peaceful life-history\nof an am\u0153ba.\n\nThe process of transition from the condition of \"are\" to that of\n\"are not,\" from the phenomenal to the noumenal, has been conceived\nby Buddhists and Christians alike to be gradual. As a parallel to\nthe \"house of many mansions,\" so often taken to mean by Christians a\nprogressive ascent through a number of heavens to a heaven of heavens,\nI give below, in abbreviated form, the \"spheres of formlessness\" as\ndescribed by Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, in his book entitled _Gleanings from\nBuddha Fields_.\n\n\"These,\" he says, \"are four. In the first state all sense of\nindividuality is lost, and there survives only the idea of\ninfinite space or emptiness. In the second state this idea of\nspace vanishes, and its place is filled by the idea of infinite\nreason. But this idea of reason is anthropomorphic, it is an\nillusion, and it fades out in the third state, which is called the\n'state-of-nothing-to-take-hold-of.' Here is only the idea of infinite\nnothingness. But even this condition has been reached by the aid of the\naction of the personal mind. This action ceases; then the fourth state\nis reached, the state of 'neither-namelessness-nor-notnamelessness.'\nSomething of personal mentality continues to float vaguely here--the\nvery uttermost expiring vibration of Karma--the last vanishing haze of\nbeing. It melts, and the immeasurable revelation comes.\"\n\nProfessor Oldenberg says: \"It is not enough to say that the final goal\nto which the Buddhist strives to pass as an escape from the sorrow\nof the world is Nirvana. It is also necessary to any delineation of\nBuddhism to note, as a fact assured beyond all doubt, that internal\ncheerfulness, infinitely surpassing all mere resignation with which the\nBuddhist pursues his end....\n\n\"Does the path, then, lead into a new existence? Does it lead into the\nnothing? The Buddhist creed rests in delicate equipoise between the\ntwo. The longing of the heart that craves the eternal has not nothing,\nand yet the thought has not a something, which it might firmly grasp.\nFurther off the idea of the endless, the eternal could not withdraw\nitself from belief than it has done here, where, like a gentle flutter\non the point of merging in the nothing, it threatens to evade the gaze.\"\n\nNirvana, according to Mr. James Freeman Clarke, means to the Buddhist\nthe absolute eternal world beyond time and space; that which is\n_nothing_ to us now, but will be _everything_ hereafter.\n\nStudents of Buddhism are often confronted with the question why sorrow\nand pain should have held such prominent places in the mind of Gotama.\nExplanations have been afforded that this was due, in a large measure,\nto a pathetic nature, born of climate and environment. The _mind_ of\nthe inhabitants of Hindustan is still an unfathomable mystery; the\ngreat heart of India beats slowly, and those waves of sprightly emotion\nwhich are distinctive peculiarities of the natives of Europe are but\nbarely discernible ripples on the still surface of the Indian character.\n\nTo the poetic people of the Ganges the immense plains of India, their\nbroad and voiceless rivers, the magic beauty of an oasis, the distant\nsilence of the Himalayas, the brooding calm of the atmosphere, all\nappear to labour in unison to the same end--to fashion the restless\nheart of mortals after their own emotionless image, to expand it into\nthat fulness of peace which is theirs, and to guide the children of men\ninto the haven where they would be.\n\nThis mode of thought, or no thought; this complete abandonment of self,\nculminating in the ascetic, to the desire of union with the Infinite,\ncan be differentiated from the meditative pose of the Christian by the\nabsence in it of anything approaching to emotion or affection. These\nare weaknesses to be set aside. There can be no calm where sensations\nenter--not even a breath of divine love must stir the ocean of their\npictured rest. Gotama fully recognized that true joy was only to\nbe found when the notion of self-hood was in abeyance, as it most\ncertainly is found invariably in those cases in which we lose, as it\nwere, the sense of objective being in an absorbing subject, or in the\npresence of a fascinating personality.\n\nThere is an indescribable pleasure realizable in engrossing\noccupations of mind and body which distract attention from ourselves\nas selves. Hence the apotheosis of love as the ultimate possible\nbliss, whether it be manifested in the adoration of the human or in\nthe ecstasy of the saint. Charles Beaudelaire declares the whole aim\nof life is to dispel _ennui_--the _ennui_ of sitting still by walking,\nof lying down by change to an erect posture, and so on. Virtue,\nvice, love, etc., are all efforts to attain a state of oblivion of\nour individuality, to _s'enivrer_ with distractions of some sort or\nanother. Sorrow is the realization of ourselves as separate entities.\nThe Buddhists declare that, when we rid ourselves of the idea of this\nseparateness, then, and then only, will true joy be found. The same\ntruth is expressed in the New Testament: \"He that loseth his life shall\ngain it.\"\n\nThe drooping head upon the cross, the livid corpse of the Saviour--such\npictures are strikingly emblematic of the sacrifice of self-hood, which\nis ever the cause of pain. Self-hood crucified--that is the Great\nDeliverance, that is Heaven, that is Nirvana! We must do more than take\nup the cross and follow; we must hang upon it, be nailed to it, if we\nwould be saved.\n\nIt has been urged that the foundations of Buddhism rest upon the\nassumption that life is not worth living; everything leads to pain and\nsorrow; the joys of life are ignored. Hence, if it were proved that the\nenjoyments of life out-weighed the sorrows, would it not be clearly\nshown that Buddhism is _de trop_? For it is clear that life, in that\ncase, would be worth living. This view of life is not only supported\nby a general consensus of opinion, but seems to be additionally\nstrengthened by the universal desire to live. That this desire would\nnot exist if the pessimistic idea of Buddhism regarding existence were\nwell founded is evident.\n\nIn opposition to this view, my conception of Buddhism, as represented\nin its literature, is that its foundations rest upon the assumption\nthat there is a life more worth living, in which all sorrow is\neradicated; that only ignorance leads to pain and sorrow; that\nknowledge leads to their extinction. I am not aware that the joys of\nlife are wholly ignored by Buddhists.\n\nIf it is granted that happiness predominates over unhappiness, and\nthat life must consequently be worth living, this need not exclude the\ndesire for a life more worth living, in which there is no unhappiness.\nIf Buddhism is the wretched, pessimistic system it is declared by some\nto be, why should it not be allowed to hypothecate a heaven, when even\nthe joyous, optimistic Christian, who finds life so worth living,\nspeaks of being \"delivered from the misery of this sinful world,\" and\nhopes for a life worth living?\n\nQuite three-quarters of the population of this planet, as represented\nby its religious beliefs, which is supposed to find life worth living,\nlooks through the spectacles of faith towards a life more worth living,\nafter the dissolution of the body. In short, there are two distinct\nlives recognized by Buddhists--the _living_ life and the _non-living_\nlife; and it goes without saying that the latter is by far the more\ndesirable of the two.\n\n                \"Not the life of men's veins,\n                   Not of flesh that conceives;\n                 But the grace that remains,\n                   The fair beauty that cleaves\n  To the life of the rains in the grasses, the life of the dews on the\n    leaves.\"\n\nDr. Paul Carus says: \"The good tidings of Buddha's religion are not so\nmuch the recognition of the existence of pain and care as the conquest\nof evil and the escape from suffering. The following verses from the\nDhammapada have no pessimistic ring:--\n\n\"'Let us live happily, then, not hating those who hate us!\n\n\"'Among men who hate us, let us dwell free from hatred!\n\n\"'Let us live happily, then, free from ailments among the ailing!\n\n\"'Among men who are ailing, let us dwell free from ailments!\n\n\"'Let us live happily, then, free from greed among the greedy!\n\n\"'Among men who are greedy, let us dwell free from greed!'\"\n\nThere are many passages to be found in the New Testament, in our\nChristian Liturgy, and especially in the Hymnology of the Churches,\nwhich emphasize \"suffering\" as the normal and inevitable condition of\nhumanity, almost leading one to suppose that it is the predominant\nfactor in human life.\n\nIn the Burial Service we thank God that our brother has been\ndelivered from the miseries of a sinful world, and Job is brought\ninto requisition to show that \"man that is born of woman is _full_ of\nsorrows.\"\n\nIn a beautiful hymn we have the following verse:--\n\n  \"If I find Him, if I follow,\n    What His guerdon _here_?\n  Many a sorrow, many a labour,\n                  Many a tear.\"\n\nFor an assembly of young men and maidens in the first rapturous dawn of\nmaturing youth to sing--\n\n  \"O Paradise, O Paradise,\n    'Tis weary waiting here,\"\n\nthough delightfully pessimistic, does not seem quite up to the standard\nof absolute truth.\n\nThese sorrows, these labours, these tears, this weary waiting,\nrepresent the experiences in store for the initiate, and the conditions\nunder which the Christian must progress who would reach the goal of his\ndearest aspirations.\n\n\"Death is self-surrender; all loss is a kind of death; the\nonly-begotten Son is the summing up of what is dearest, most _one's\nown_--_i.e._, God can only be _at one_ with his work, can only make it\nto be truly his work by eternally dying--sacrificing what is dearest\nto him. God does not, therefore, _cease to be_; he does not annihilate\nhimself; he lives eternally in the very process of sacrificing\nhis dearest work. Hence God is said to be love; for love is the\nconsciousness of survival in the act of self-surrender.... Such would\nbe the _atone_ment of the world-god eternally living in his own death,\neternally losing, and eternally returning to, himself\" (Nettleship).\n\nIt cannot be denied that \"suffering\" was the burden of Gotama's song,\nthe refrain of his passionless, yet beautiful, utterances.\n\nJesus has been described \"as a man of sorrows and acquainted with\ngrief.\"\n\nJesus wept.\n\nThe whole creation weeps.\n\n\"What think ye, my disciples (the Perfect One said), whether is more,\nthe water which is in the four great oceans, or the tears which have\nflown from you, and have been shed by you, while ye strayed and\nwandered in this long pilgrimage, and sorrowed and wept because that\nwas your portion which ye abhorred, and that which ye loved was not\nyour portion? And while ye experienced this through long ages more\ntears have flown from you, and have been shed by you, while ye strayed\nand wandered on this long pilgrimage, and sorrowed and wept because\nthat was your portion which ye abhorred, and that which ye loved was\nnot your portion, than all the water which is in the four great oceans\"\n(Oldenberg's _Buddhism_).\n\nSt. Paul conjures up a vision of the immense figure of creation,\nprostrate, groaning beneath the silent heavens. \"The true Buddhist\ncertainly sees in this world a state of continuous sorrow; but this\nsorrow only awakes in him a feeling of compassion for those who are yet\nin the world. For himself he feels no sorrow or compassion.... He seeks\nNirvana with the same joyous sense of victory in prospect with which\nthe Christian looks forward to his goal, everlasting life\" (Oldenberg).\n\nThe doctrine of an irrevocable doom for the unbeliever and obdurate\nsinner is not easy to follow, because it would seem to imply \"a failure\nof the redemptive work of the Saviour unless all for whom he died\nultimately partake of salvation.\" If many are called and but few are\nchosen; if the gate is narrow, and only a microscopic minority enter\nthereby, the supreme sacrifice of the only-begotten Son of God is\nliable to lose significance in the eyes of an _exigeant_ public.\n\nJesus \"treated popular religious terms such as Hell and Heaven as\nsymbols.\" \"He employed the familiar images of Heaven and Hell to\nimpress on men's consciousness the supreme bliss of righteousness and\nthe awful misery of sin.\"\n\n\"When our Lord came, he found the doctrines of last things presented\nin forms already fixed, and the terms Gehenna, Paradise, etc.,\nin familiar, even proverbial, use\" (Eschatology, _Encyclop\u00e6dia\nBritannica_).\n\nEvery being, according to Buddhistic teaching, attains Nirvana in the\nend; so may it not be in \"the times of the restitution of _all things_,\nwhich God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the\nworld began\"?\n\nIf symbolism were only taken for what it represents, every Buddhist\ncould join with the Christian in many of the exquisite invocations of\nthe Psalms. There is no rest to be found in the impermanent. To find\nthe peace which passeth understanding, we must ultimately have recourse\nto the unconditioned, the permanent, Nirvana, God. The prayer of the\nChristian as well as the aspiration of the pure Buddhist is to be,\nwhether living or dead, one with the Uncreate.\n\nProfessor Oldenberg says that \"the devotion of abstraction is\nto Buddhism what prayer is to other religions.\" There is here a\ndistinction without a difference. Abstraction is nothing more nor less\nthan true, perfect, sublimated prayer. Real, unadulterated prayer is\nonly possible when the mind is totally relieved of distractions.\n\nJesus went apart to pray; so the Buddhist monk seeks the silence of the\nforest or the seclusion of the cave to commune with the unconditioned,\nwith \"Our Father which art in Heaven,\" with the Uncreate of the\nAthanasian Creed. He who abstracts himself from the \"plurality of the\nphenomenal world\" anticipates the cessation of the impermanent.\n\n\"Come, then! Into solitude will I go, into the forest which Buddha\npraises; therein it is good for the solitary monk to dwell who seeks\nperfection. In the _s\u00eeta_ forest rich in blossoms, in the cool mountain\ncave, will I wash my body and walk alone.\"\n\nThe counting of inhalations and exhalations of the breath, and other\npractices of a like nature, are used as so many short cuts to this\nstate of abstraction or prayer. For this purpose they are as valuable\nas ceremonial magic professes to be for the ready acquisition of power\nover unknown laws and qualities of nature.[AR]\n\n [AR] \"Our prayer is to Him to preserve us in future, to assist us in\n our troubles, to give us our daily food, not to be too severe upon\n us, not to punish us as we deserve; but to be merciful and kind. But\n the Buddhist has far other thoughts than these. He believes that the\n world is ruled by everlasting, unchangeable laws of righteousness. The\n Great God lives far behind His laws, and they are for ever and ever.\n You cannot change the laws of righteousness by praising them, or by\n crying against them, any more than you can change the revolution of\n the earth. Sin begets sorrow, sorrow is the only purifier from sin;\n these are eternal sequences; they cannot be altered; it would not\n be good that they should be altered. The Buddhist believes that the\n sequences are founded on righteousness, are the path to righteousness;\n and he does not believe he could alter them for the better, even if he\n had the power by prayer to do so.... This has been called a pessimism.\n Surely it is the greatest optimism the world has known--this certainty\n that the world is ruled by righteousness; that the world has been,\n that the world will always be, ruled by perfect righteousness....\n The God who lies far beyond our ken has delegated his authority to\n no one. He works through everlasting laws. His will is manifested by\n unchangeable sequences. There is nothing hidden about His law that\n requires exposition by his agents, nor any ceremonies necessary for\n acceptance into his faith. Buddhism is a free religion. No one holds\n the keys of salvation but himself. Buddhism never dreams that anyone\n can save or damn you except yourself, and so a Buddhist monk is so\n far away from our ideas of a priest as can be. Nothing could be more\n abhorrent to Buddhism than any claim of authority of power from above,\n of holiness acquired, except by the earnest effort of a man's own\n soul\" (_The Soul of a People_, by H. Fielding).\n\nChristianity and Buddhism cannot be differentiated in this matter of\nabstraction. Gibbon writes: \"The fakirs of India and the monks of the\nOriental Church were alike persuaded that, in total abstraction of the\nfaculties of the mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend to the\nenjoyment and vision of the Deity.\" The opinion and practice of the\nmonasteries of Mount Athos will be best represented in the words of an\nAbbot who flourished in the eleventh century. \"When thou art alone in\nthy cell,\" says the ascetic teacher, \"shut thy door, and seat thyself\nin a corner; raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory;\nrecline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thy eyes and thy\nthoughts towards the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel, and\nsearch the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first all will\nbe dark and comfortless; but, if you persevere day and night, you will\nfeel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place\nof the heart than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light.\"\n\nHere, in these practices attributed to Christian saints, we have an\nexact parallel to those in use by Hindu ascetics even of the present\nday. It must be clearly understood, however, that the Buddhist attaches\nno merit to such practices, unless they conduce to the banishment of\nignorance. Asceticism, as a thing in itself, is useless.\n\nHeaven and Nirvana are unpainted pictures, undescribed actualizations;\nthey are realities, not materialities. There is a never-ending,\nunsatisfied, restless craving, conscious or unconscious, throughout\nthe Kosmos to enter upon reality. The suns and their satellites whirl\nabout aimlessly in search of it. The whole universe is in sore trouble\nbecause, through ignorance, it is not. \"The vulture's eye hath not seen\nit; the lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed\nby it. The depth saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not\nwith me.\" And yet it is there!\n\nThe use of such exaggerated terms as \"immense,\" \"infinite,\"\n\"illimitable,\" etc., is to be accounted for by referring the habit to\nunconscious efforts by the conditioned to express the unconditioned.\nThe sea, mountains, the heavens, owe their fascination to a suggestion\nof the unconditioned possessed by them.\n\nIn moments of attempted aspiration we are prone to look upwards into\nspace--a symbol of the boundless. On the other hand, when the mind is\nengaged in working out details and calculations, there is the habit\nof looking downwards. Not only men, but beasts of the field, look\nupwards for help in their dying moments; upwards into space, where the\nconditioned seemingly vanishes into the unconditioned.\n\nI have often witnessed the pleading expression of dying antelopes and\nother wild animals, their eyes being almost invariably directed to the\nsky above in their last moments of life.\n\nI was on one occasion more than usually struck with this beautiful\nexpression--appealing, as it were, to the skies for mercy--in the case\nof a wounded bear when in its death throes amid the snowy solitudes of\nthe Himalayas.\n\nLet us draw the curtains apart, and behold for a moment the scene of\nthe enacted tragedy. Out of the violet mists spread by the viewless\nhands of a yet unrisen sun, black crags uplifted their glacier breasts\nto receive the first ravishing kiss of dawn; and the forests, obedient\nto the silence imposed by the kingly peaks, stood austere and unstirred\nby the affectionate airs of heaven. The staining blood, the furry mass,\nthe clutching claws of the wild monster in his struggle with life and\ndeath, presented to the imagination some weird sacrifice consummated\nupon an altar, built of immaculate snow.\n\nIt was then that this remarkable pleading expression of the eyes\narrested the attention of my Himalayan huntsman, who, turning round to\nme, exclaimed: \"He is seeing God.\" The Psalmist says: \"I will lift up\nmine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help.\"\n\nHuman beings, as well as all animal nature, seem to make their final\nappeal for help or pity to something above or beyond this conditioned\nworld. The enhancement of the beauties of landscape and architecture by\nthe effects of mist and twilight is due to the obliteration of detail\nby these atmospheric conditions. Detail is fatiguing to the eye and\nbrain. These organs unconsciously demand the repose which the absence\nof detail confers. Hence the charm of impressionism in Art.\n\nIn the countenances of the blind, who possess one sensation the less\nto distract and weary them, there is not infrequently to be noticed a\npeculiar scintillation of peace which seems to speak to one of the time\nwhen all sensations will cease to be, and to herald the approach of\nthat eternal beatitude which is so highly uplifted above the joys of\nthis transitory world.\n\nThere is also a strong Nirvanic suggestion in the appearance of some\nof the eminent ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic faith, in those\ninstances where the flesh shows traces of the consuming fire of\nasceticism. Benevolence, compassion, love, genius, joy--all these are\npresented, but with a minimum of the earthy adhering to them. In this\naspect they create an impression very different to that communicated\nto us by the comfortable placidity of those who have only experienced\nhappiness of a less exalted description.[AS]\n\n [AS] The extraordinary veneration in which the Cowley Fathers and\n Roman Catholic priests are held in India has often been attributed,\n and rightly so, I think, to the unassuming asceticism which\n characterizes these lowly followers of the Great Master. Celibacy,\n self-denial, poverty, meekness--these never fail to win the admiration\n and respect of the people of Hindustan who cherish their ideals more\n fondly than is apparently the case in many other countries.\n\nIn \"stillness,\" another attribute of the unconditioned, there abides\nan enchantment that cannot be surpassed by other conditions. Yet even\nthe rapture engendered by the sight of a furious and incontinent sea\ncan be explained by the fact that the pleasure derived therefrom is\nsolely due and in proportion to the magnitude of the display, and\nmagnitude suggests the \"illimitable.\"\n\nThe ambition to scale the highest summits, in whatever position\nor capacity, the idea of resurrection, the fascination of the word\n\"eternal,\" the hope of everlasting rest--all these tend in the same\ndirection, all point to the Empyrean, where detail seems to fade into a\nvacuum, into Nirvana, into Heaven, into God.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nSOME CONCLUDING REMARKS.\n\n\nIt is only when we come to take a bird's-eye view of these two great\nreligions, which have exercised so enormous and so abiding an influence\nover the human race, and when clearness of vision is unobscured by\nnumberless petty details and dogmas, that we can perceive the factors\ncommon to both which have given them their present stability and\nstrength.\n\nNo religion, no system of morals, no philosophy, can be secure unless\nthey rest upon the groundwork of universal truth and necessity; and it\nis certain that, if Christianity and Buddhism did not possess these\nsupports, they would not now be what they actually are--the ruling\nforces to millions of human beings.\n\nIt has been said with much truth that the daily life of an ordinary\nman is a continual round of intoxication. Some form or other of\ninebriating excitement seems absolutely necessary to him, if he is\nto escape from the Slough of Despond of _ennui_ and all its evil\nconsequences. The remark is equally true of the human race as a whole.\nIt cannot survive, apparently, without constant stimuli to urge and\ngoad it forward. Were such stimuli wanting from time to time, man\nwould probably degenerate, and cease to show that love of progress and\nactivity which is so essential to his existence as man. Consequently,\nwe note, looking back through the vista of history which lies open to\nour view, the periodical appearance of some great religious reformer,\nwhose task it is to infuse new zeal and strength into the flagging\nenergies of his fellow-creatures. Gotama, Jesus, Savonarola, General\nBooth, are all greater or lesser instances in point; have all worked\nupon the same basic conception, however different the condition of\ntheir times may have required the superficial doctrines of their\nvarious creeds to be.\n\nSome--Jesus and Gotama, and possibly Mahomed--worked with the full\ncognizance of the task before them; others, who have not been gifted\nwith so large a measure of divine insight, have wrought and lived for\nthe same purpose, blindly, and unconscious of the complete significance\nof their action.\n\nBut, it may be asked, if Jesus and Gotama were gnomic, how comes it\nthat the Buddhism and Christianity of to-day are so radically different\nin their outward manifestations? To answer this question we have merely\nto take a broad glance at history.\n\nAt the time of the advent of Gotama the people of India were in\npossession of a civilization remarkable in many respects, but most\nremarkable, perhaps, in the freedom and latitude of thought prevalent.\nIt is difficult for many who have been brought up within the contracted\ninfluences of those who regard all alien religions and non-Christian\ncountries as so many black spots on the pages of history and on the\nmaps of the world, and who have been surrounded in their youth by the\ninnumerable restrictions placed upon all speculative propensities,\nto realize that, at the time when they were mere cave-dwellers and\nunclothed sojourners with the beasts of the field, a great and lofty\ncivilization was existent in what they would possibly consider a\nbarbarous corner of the globe, and that a people there held dominion\nwhose chief intellectual pastime was to range over the vast domains\nof speculative thought and all the interminable mysteries of life.\nThe Indian has been a philosopher by birth and breeding from time\nimmemorial; and only among a race of philosophers could such a religion\nas Buddhism, with its sudden iconoclasm, have been preached with so\nlittle opposition, and have taken root so rapidly, when we come to\nconsider the strong hold the Brahmanical ceremonial had upon the people\nat that time.\n\nWith the inception of Christianity, however, the case was very\ndifferent. At the birth of Jesus the inhabitants of Palestine, with\nthe exception of the Essenes, were sunk low in the mire of bigotry,\nprejudice, and priestly domination. The mind of the people was less\nphilosophically prepared to grasp a broad and exalted creed such as\nessential Christianity; it required dogmas more definite, doctrines\nmore easily comprehended; and Jesus had perforce to mould his\nutterances to the temperament and mental capacity of the people among\nwhom he preached.\n\nTo the east of the Holy Land was India, with its refined and more\nperfect civilization; to the west, Central Europe, with its savage\nand ignorant tribes, worshippers of trees, and in servitude to many\nsuperstitious practices and customs. Christianity, with its immense\npotential resources, its innate power for good, required some outlet\nfor its activities; and, as was only natural, it spread in the\ndirection where a pure and sublime religion was most needed, and\nexperienced little difficulty in eventually conquering the savage\nintellect of Central Europe. Becoming appropriated by men who, living\nin the far North, depended for their very life upon a ceaseless\nstruggle with adverse circumstances, it gradually lost the softening\nand refining influences which are so characteristic of the Oriental\ntemperament, and became the vehicle for the passions and ambitions of a\nrace more brutal and more unsympathetic than that among which it took\nits rise.\n\nAnd to what an extent has this religion of Christ, the evangel of\npeace and goodwill, been since prostituted! The mistaken--though, no\ndoubt, well-intended--dogmas formulated by the Holy Catholic Church\nproved to be, in their short-sightedness and complete lack of insight\ninto human nature, a prolific source of degeneration, bigotry,\npersecution, ignorance, immorality, and extreme ecclesiastical tyranny\nin the Dark Ages. The rigid and narrow doctrines inculcated by the\nPuritans have been almost as fruitful a cause of moral perversion and\nreckless narrow-mindedness. To-day it must be acknowledged that we have\noutgrown the gross and debasing Christianity of those medi\u00e6val times;\nbut many of us are still fast chained in the shackles of prejudice and\nintolerance, with all their concomitant delusions and hypocrisies.\n\nBruno, in his day, said: \"Christianity has been tried for eighteen\ncenturies; the religion of Christ remains to be tried.\" This remark,\nhowever, overstates the case considerably, for it must be confessed\nthat there have been many instances of individual lives which have\napproached as closely to the ideal as far as it has been practicable\nwithin human limits.\n\nTrue Christianity many of us have yet to learn; it is but the husk\nwhich exists with the many as yet. Nevertheless, we flatter ourselves\nsometimes as the elect of the earth, and despatch emissaries of\ncivilization to the darkest corners of heathendom to carry with them\nonly a very imperfect presentment of our great religion in practice and\ndoctrine.\n\nIt is but lately that stern necessity caused the deserts of the Soudan\nto be strewn with the corpses of many thousands of dervishes, and the\npietist section of the British press rejoiced at the great victory\nof Christianity over Islam, and the fulfilment of a long-cherished\n_revenge_ for the most truly Christian of English soldiers! To such\nan extent can inconsistency flourish among the most morally advanced\nof the earth's inhabitants. And if Europeans have been zealous in\nwaging war to the death against the heathen in the name of their common\nreligion, they have been no less ready to turn the gospel of peace into\nan apologia for such an internecine slaughter as few other causes have\ngiven rise to, until, at the present day, it is hardly possible to\nwrite seriously--in order that they may be taken seriously--the words,\n\"How these Christians love one another!\"\n\nWhen we turn to India, to Ceylon, and more especially to Burmah, we are\nbrought face to face with a very different state of things. It is true\nthat in some parts--Thibet, for instance--Buddhism has been debased to\nan even worse state than Christianity in Europe; but, after all, that\nis merely asserting that human nature is human nature. The broader\naspect of Buddhism in Asia must, to any unprejudiced observer, appear\nin striking contrast to the prostitution to which other religions in\nother corners of the earth have been subjected. It seems to be one of\nthe unalterable laws which govern human conduct that the teaching of\nany great religious reformer should, in the centuries which follow his\ndisappearance from the arena in which he had striven, be brought low\nand narrowed down, partly by the short-sightedness of its adherents,\nbut mostly owing to the unhealthy influences of ecclesiastical\ndomination such as was typical of medi\u00e6val Europe and Brahmanical\nIndia. That Buddhism should in great degree have escaped such a fate\nmust be attributed, not only to the intrinsic value of the system\nitself, but also to the character of the people among whom it has\nsurvived.\n\nThere have been many calumniators, from interested motives, of\nBuddhism; but no false representations, however frequently reiterated,\ncan serve to mask the purity and nobility of this remarkable religion.\nIt has never, like Christianity, been made the pretext of warfare\nand the conquest of alien races; no blood has ever been shed in its\npropagation; no despairing cries of martyred wives and orphan children\nrise up from the centuries that are past to stamp its forehead with the\nbrand of Cain. By reason alone has it spread and become endeared to the\nmany millions who now owe it allegiance; reason and truth are the only\nswords which have been unsheathed in the cause of its promulgation.[AT]\nIt has, in fact, conquered by its sweet reasonableness alone, unaided\nby artificial and compulsory means.\n\n [AT] \"No ravished country has ever borne witness to the prowess of the\n followers of the Buddha; no murdered men have poured out their blood\n on their hearthstones, killed in his name; no ruined women have cursed\n his name to high heaven. He and his faith are clean of the stain of\n blood. He was the preacher of the Great Peace, of love, of charity,\n of compassion; and so clear is his teaching that it can never be\n misunderstood\" (_The Soul of a People_, by H. Fielding, p. 88).\n\nThe gradually diminishing popularity of the religious war sentiment\nwhich actuates people to perpetrate such iniquities as Crusades and\nJehads will, it is presumed, afford relief in the future, at least\nto some sections of the Christian world, by removing an opportunity\nout of the way for the reproach of those who take their stand by the\nnon-resistance principle as enunciated by the founder of the Christian\nfaith. The carrying out of the non-resistance principle in its totality\nseems to increase in impracticability in proportion to the advancing\ncomplexity of social and national life. A very near approach to the\nachievement of the object embodied in the principle can only be\nimagined possible under the most primitive conditions of existence,\nnotably in such cases where the country inhabited provides the\nnecessities of life without involving any violent struggle for their\nacquisition. Christian nations, by the force of circumstances and the\nnature of their environment, are unfortunately impelled, it would seem,\nto disregard and set aside the very distinct teaching of Jesus on this\npoint; and some of us, facing both ways, endeavour to escape from the\ndilemma, and pour balm upon our consciences, by assuming that war is\namply justified by Scripture and expressly sanctioned by the Almighty.\nIn this connection it would perhaps be the most straightforward course\nfor us to frankly admit with Tolstoi that war is as fundamentally\nun-Christian as it is un-Buddhistic, and to be prepared to face the\nconsequences of its unlawfulness in the sight of God rather than to\ndislocate the teaching of Jesus with a view to the selfish satisfaction\nof our consciences, and for the ultimate purpose of settling down\ninto a comfortable frame of mind when brought into contact with this\nunpleasant subject.\n\nIn spite of the many detractors Buddhism has had, it has been\nappreciated in cultivated centres of Europe and America to an extent\nwhich is the surest token of its intrinsic worth. In Asia it is\ndifficult to realize how profound and enduring has been its influence\nfor good.\n\nPerhaps, on account of the presence of dogmas, such as the negation of\nsoul as a permanent individual entity and of immortality as it is known\namong us, which are to the average European intellect absurd and most\nrepugnant, it has been more readily assimilated as a belief by races\nwhich, unlike ourselves, are philosophic by nature and by birth. But by\nfar the most important part of Buddhism in its practical significance\nis the doctrine of Karma, which has proved so great a stumbling-block\nto many, and a medium of contempt for those professing other faiths. It\nwould hardly be exaggeration to describe this as one of the grandest\nethical theories ever devised by the brain of man, ranging as it does\nover the whole sphere of human activity and existence, and policing, as\nit were, the actions of human creatures.\n\nLest it should appear to any of my readers that I have laid undue\nstress upon the value and beauty of Buddhism in the foregoing pages,\nI would take this opportunity of disclaiming any intention on my part\nto draw invidious distinctions between the manifestations of the\ntwo faiths of which I have treated, and which, in my opinion, are\n_fundamentally_ one and the same.\n\nIn this connection my sole aim has been to give prominence to the many\nexcellent properties possessed by Buddhism, with a view to clearing the\nway for an impartial appreciation of this religion by those who have\nnever yet bestowed their attention or extended their sympathies to the\nsubject with unbiased minds.\n\nThe dissolution, not the destruction, of symbolism which I have\nendeavoured to accomplish in dealing with the metaphysic of\nChristianity and Buddhism--of that symbolism which is so apt, when\ntaken as a thing in itself, to contract our sympathies and darken\nour vision in respect of religions--will have achieved an object if\nit succeeds in carrying with it the conviction, at present[AU] so\nindisturbably possessed by the writer, that _essential_ Christianity\nand _true_ Buddhism cannot be differentiated; that the ultimate source\nof their power and loveliness is one; that they rest upon the same\nimperishable foundations, which are lost to sight in billowy clouds of\nmystery, in a splendour beyond imagining.\n\n [AU] \"In knowledge that man only is to be condemned who is not in a\n state of transition ... nor is there anything more adverse to accuracy\n than fixity of opinion\" (_Faraday_).\n\nThe priest in Zola's _Rome_ looked forward to the day when symbols\nand rites, so necessary in the infancy of the world, would disappear\naltogether--\"to the time when enlarged, purified, and instructed\nhumanity would be able to support the brightness of naked truth\"\nwithout their assistance.\n\nIt may be, however, that any premature abandonment of symbols, rites,\nand ceremonies might, under present conditions, prove disastrous, as\nsuch a course would go far to arrest artistic tendencies and stifle\nwithin us those cravings for the beautiful which are such undeniably\npotent and useful factors in conducting us onward to a realization of\nthe invisible. All that appears requisite in this direction at the\npresent moment is that the symbolic element in symbolism should be\nclearly recognized, and symbolism appraised at its true value.\n\nConcurrently with the development of a deeper insight into the\nrealities which subsist in symbols, there should arise in these\nNorthern latitudes a class of people who would demonstrate by their\ncharacter and actions that, under existing social conditions, and in\nall the turmoil of modern civilization, a nearer approach to the ideal\nlife than has yet been made by a community is within the range of\npracticalities. This is the most clamant need of the day.\n\nIn our Western world we are confronted with innumerable obstacles\nin the way of leading the ideal, or Christ-like, life. The ideal\n_life-germ_ is in all of us, but too often hidden away under the veneer\nof respectability, and much obscured by conventionalities. This germ,\nif not very apparent in our public capacity, is distinctly discernible\nin the family life as typical of these islands. We see it in the eyes\nof the wife, in the restraint of the son, and we listen to it in the\nvoices of our daughters. It struggles hard to develop itself in the\nface of stupendous difficulties. Its growth among our spiritual leaders\nis frequently handicapped by the isolating effects of aggrandizement.\nA cardinal, for instance--good and gracious as he invariably is--must\nalways be more or less inaccessible and appalling. Our charities, too,\nare vitiated by ostentation. Prospectuses demand that a royalty should\ntake the lead, and the titled figure as patrons, if the appeal made is\ndesigned to be irresistible. So that, to whichever side we turn, we\nfind ourselves hampered in our aspirations towards the ideal by the\nexigencies of society, by our customs and absurdities.\n\nTurning to the far East, we are face to face with other conditions,\nwhich undoubtedly lend themselves more readily to the impress\nof the ideal. Burmah is a country where strikingly successful\nendeavours continue to be made to hold constantly before the eyes\nof the people exemplars of the ideal life, and the results are\nastonishing--approximating a perfection which it is hardly possible to\nover-rate. Notwithstanding the enormous capacity and appreciation its\ninhabitants possess for the frivolities of existence, they are wont\nto support out of their slender resources a numerous staff of monks,\nwho are to be found in all parts of the land, and in every place where\ntheir fellow-creatures congregate in small or large numbers.\n\nHowever far laymen may deviate from the _Path_, the ideal life as\nexemplified by the monks must not be tampered with. It is the expressed\nwill of the laity that this example should be unremittingly preserved\nin all its integrity and purity, whatever may be the sum of their own\nfailings. It is this intense admiration and fervour on the part of the\nlay community for the ideal life, as known to them through the teaching\nof the Enlightened One, that has secured this incalculable blessing to\nthe people, and made Burmah a model for all nations in this respect.\n\nThere is a sadness unspeakable in the thought that perhaps, ere long,\nthis ancient and ennobling bond between the people and their religious\nteachers, between the material and the ideal, will be swept away in\nthe wake of commerce and utilitarianism, and all their attendant\ndebasements.\n\nMr. Fielding, in his book, _The Soul of a People_, brings all his\nunique experiences and intimate knowledge of the Burmese and the\nmonkhood to impress upon us this marvellous object-lesson in the effect\nof a religion whose abiding principles are an ever-present, living\nforce, and of which it may be truly said it is the same yesterday,\nto-day, and for ever.\n\nEverywhere, intermingled with this light-hearted people, delighting\nin colour, dress, and decoration of all kinds, there is ever to be\nseen the serene and passionless personality of the monk; no reviler of\nalien creeds; no possessor of priestly power; poorer than the poorest,\nyet rich in the inheritance of the Dharma; no figure-head of some\nillustrious superstition, mitred, and heralded through the streets;\nnought--save a lowly follower of the Perfect One, whose law it is that\nguides to the Great Peace, which,\n\n                                  \"like a star,\n  Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.\"\n\n\n\n\nAT\nTHE MALAGAWA TEMPLE,\nCEYLON.\n\n\n  I.\n\n  Hail! Gentle Master, Grave and Sweet!\n    Here at Thy shrine we bend the knee;\n  With island flowers we deck Thy feet,\n    And golden corn we bring to Thee.\n  Star of our Night, Orb of our Day,\n  Thou art our Refuge, Thou our Stay!\n\n  II.\n\n  Thy pitying eyes we see downcast,\n    Yet are they fain to tell us this--\n  Sometime, somewhere, life's ocean[AV] past,\n    We all shall taste immortal bliss!\n  Star of our Night, Orb of our Day,\n  Thou art our Refuge, Thou our Stay!\n\n   [AV] Sams\u0101ra--The ocean of Birth and Death.\n\n  III.\n\n  No adoration, praise, or prayer\n    Hast Thou enjoined whilst here we live;\n  But our great love can scarce forbear\n    To pay Thee all our hearts can give.\n  Star of our Night, Orb of our Day,[AW]\n  Thou art our Refuge, Thou our Stay!\n\n   [AW]\n\n       \"Atha sabbamahorattim\n       Buddho tapati tejas\u0101ti.\"\n\n   --_Samyutta-Nik\u0101ya_, edited by M. L\u00e9on Feer, p. 284.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\n_METRICAL ADAPTATIONS OF BUDDHIST LEGEND\nAND SCRIPTURE._\n\n\nTHE LAST WORDS OF GOTAMA BUDDHA TO\nHIS FAVOURITE DISCIPLE ANANDA.\n\n  Weep not, Ananda, sorrow not!\n    Have I not said ere this to thee\n  That from all things which man most loves,\n    From these, Ananda, man must flee?\n\n  How can it be, Ananda, then,\n    That Birth and Growth should not decay,\n  That all things made, begotten here,\n    Should not, Ananda, pass away?\n\n  That cannot be. But thou for long\n    In thought and words and holy deed\n  The Perfect One hast glorified.\n    Strive on, and thou shalt soon be freed.\n\n  It may be so, that thou shalt say\n    \"The Word has lost its Master here,\"\n  \"We have no Master more.\" Not thus,\n    Ananda, be thou fraught with fear.\n\n  The Law and Ordinance I taught,\n    These are your Master when I'm gone:\n  Each man his own salvation is,\n    Thus only is Deliverance won.\n\n\nSAMS\u00c2RA AND NIRVANA.[AX]\n\n [AX] From _The Gospel of Buddha, according to Old Records_, told by\n Paul Carus.\n\n  I.\n\n  Look on this life and meditate!\n    Herein are birth and growth's decay.\n  Atoms combine and separate;\n    Nought lasts: all things must pass away.\n\n  II.\n\n  As flowers are the glories of this world,\n    Full blossoms scent the morning shade;\n  The painted petals soon are furled,\n    And in the heat of noon-day fade.\n\n  III.\n\n  Lo! everywhere the panting breath\n    Of Pleasure and Pursuit of fame,\n  Of panic flight from pain and death\n    And fierce Desire's consuming flame.\n\n  IV.\n\n  The world is nought but endless change,\n    A restless, driven, surging sea.\n  Is it through lives we thus must range,\n    Ever becoming, never be?\n\n  V.\n\n  Is there no permanency, then?\n    No realm of rest where troubles cease,\n  Where birth is not, nor death of men,\n    No City of Eternal Peace?\n\n  VI.\n\n  Must anxious hearts for ever beat?\n    What power from all this ill redeems?\n  Will not our hot, earth-weary feet\n    At last be dipped in cooling streams?\n\n  VII.\n\n  Buddha, our Lord, with pitying eyes\n    Came and beheld this world of woe.\n  He found the path whereby we rise\n    Above all evil here below.\n\n  VIII.\n\n  Ye who for life unending crave\n    Know that there lurks immortal bliss\n  In transient form. There is no grave,\n    No death for those who know of this.\n\n  IX.\n\n  Ye who for riches vainly yearn\n    Take of the treasure He will give.\n  Ye who the mighty Truth discern\n    The birthless, deathless life will live.\n\n  X.\n\n  Truth is the immortal part of mind;\n    Possessing truth is rich to be.\n  In truth the changeless you will find,\n    The image of Eternity!\n\n\nREJOICE.[AY]\n\n [AY] From _The Gospel of Buddha, according to Old Records_, told by\n Paul Carus.\n\n  I.\n\n  Let the whole earth with joy resound,\n    Buddha, our Lord, the Blessed One,\n  The hidden cause of Ill hath found,\n    And for the world salvation won.\n\n  II.\n\n  He who the ravelled knot unwinds,\n    Buddha, our Lord, has rent the veil!\n  Illusion now no longer blinds,\n    Nor fear of death our hearts assail.\n\n  III.\n\n  Ye who of tribulation tire,\n    Ye who must struggle and endure,\n  Rejoice; ye, too, who truth desire,\n    For now is your deliverance sure.\n\n  IV.\n\n  Here is a balm for every woe,\n    Here for the hungry princely fare;\n  For those athirst the fountains flow,\n    And Hope triumphant kills Despair.\n\n  V.\n\n  On mountain heights, in valleys low,\n    O, darkened soul, where'er thou art,\n  This light ineffable will glow\n    With blessings for the pure in heart.\n\n  VI.\n\n  Bind up your wounds, ye bruis\u00e9d feet!\n    O broken, beating hearts, be still!\n  Drink, thirsty lips, the waters sweet;\n    Ye that are hungered, eat your fill!\n\n  VII.\n\n  O children of the night, arise!\n    The star of morning is on high.\n  O bleeding breasts, O suppliant eyes,\n    Be of good cheer, your bliss is nigh.\n\n  VIII.\n\n  Buddha, our Lord, the truth revealed,\n    Which gives us strength in life and death;\n  The sorrowing and the sick are healed,\n    And every evil languisheth.\n\n\nTHE GOAL.[AZ]\n\n [AZ] From _The Gospel of Buddha, according to Old Records_, told by\n Paul Carus.\n\n  I.\n\n  Why thus so long by Karma tied?\n    O Bhikshus, listen! You and I\n  The four great truths have set aside,\n    Not understanding--that is why!\n\n\n  II.\n\n  Through rock and plant and breathing things\n    Migrate[BA] the wandering souls of each,\n  Till they, beyond imaginings,\n    The perfect light of Buddha reach.\n\n   [BA] Although the expression \"migrate\" does not accurately represent\n   the process of transition in a Buddhistic sense, it is retained here\n   for want of a better.\n\n  III.\n\n  Karma inexorable reigns!\n    E'en though you fly from star to star,\n  The Past on you imprest remains,\n    And what you were is what you are!\n\n  IV.\n\n  To new births onwards you must press\n    Before the hill of light you see\n  Where shines the beacon Righteousness\n    From transmigration's bondage free.\n\n  V.\n\n  The higher birth I've reached, O friends;\n    I've found the truth, rebirth's surcease;\n  I've taught the noble path that wends\n    To kingdoms of eternal peace.\n\n  VI.\n\n  I've showed to you Ambrosia's lake,\n    Which all your sins will wash away;\n  The sight of truth your thirst will slake,\n    And Lust's destroying strife allay.\n\n  VII.\n\n  He who has crossed through Passion's fire,\n    And climbed Nirvana's radiant shore,\n  _His_ bliss the envious gods desire,\n    _His_ heart defiled by sin no more.\n\n  VIII.\n\n  As lotus leaves upon the lake\n    The pearly drops do not retain,\n  So they the noble path who take,\n    Though in the world, the world disdain.\n\n  IX.\n\n  A mother will her life bestow\n    To safely guard an only son,\n  But they unmeasured mercy show,\n    And give their lives for anyone.\n\n  X.\n\n  Steadfast in mind let man remain,\n    Whether he stand or walk or rest;\n  Living or dying, sick or sane,\n    Of all, this state of heart is best.\n\n  XI.\n\n  If truth's bedimmed by lust of sense,\n    Reborn, man must again o'erpass\n  The desert tracks of Ignorance,\n    Illusion's mirage, Sin's morass.\n\n  XII.\n\n  But, when Truth holds entire sway,\n    With it migration's cause departs;\n  All selfish cravings melt away,\n    And Truth its saving cure imparts.\n\n  XIII.\n\n  O Bhikshus, true deliverance this--\n    The only heaven to which we soar.\n  This is salvation's endless bliss!\n    Here, within sight, Nirvana's shore!\n\n\nBUDDHA AND THE HERDSMAN.\n\n(_Rhymed version of stanzas translated by Professor Rhys Davids._)\n\n  I.\n\n  Hot steams my food: all milked the cows--\n    The Herdsman Dhaniya said--\n  Hard by there stands where M\u0101hi flows\n    New thatched my lowly shed:\n  My friends are near, my hearth burns bright,\n  Then let the rain pour down to-night!\n\n  II.\n\n  Cool is my mind: no \"fallow\"[BB] there--\n    The Holy Buddha said--\n  One night for M\u0101hi's banks I spare,\n    And all unthatched my shed.\n  Lo! now extinguished is the fire;\n    The lamps of Lust have lost their light.\n  \"Dulness\"[BC] and Evil both expire--\n    So let the rain pour down to-night!\n\n   [BB] Referring to the five fallow lands of the mind.\n\n   [BC] Dulness is used here in the sense of inactivity of mind.\n\n  III.\n\n  There are no gad flies here, my kine--\n    The Herdsman Dhaniya said--\n  Are roaming where the meadows shine,\n    The rich grass is their bed.\n  In vain the fickle rain god's might!\n  So let the rain pour down to-night!\n\n  IV.\n\n  My basket raft was woven well--\n    The Holy Buddha said--\n  I've reached the shore, I've spoiled the spell,\n    From me four floods have fled;\n  These four--Delusion, Ignorance,\n  The lust of life, the lust of sense--\n  No longer powerful to blight.\n  So let the rain pour down to-night!\n\n  V.\n\n  Obedient is my wife: no wanton she--\n    The Herdsman Dhaniya said--\n  No evil word she spake of me\n    While she and I were wed.\n  Long dwelt with me my soul's delight.\n  So let the rain pour down to-night!\n\n  VI.\n\n  Obedient is my heart: set wholly free--\n    The Holy Buddha said--\n  Restrained, subdued; o'erwatched by me\n    Through passion's tempest led.\n  No evil dims my heart's pure light.\n  Then let the rain pour down to-night!\n\n  VII.\n\n  Earning my bread, I live at ease--\n    The Herdsman Dhaniya said--\n  My sons around by strength's increase\n    To ripening manhood bred.\n  No ill do they my joy to blight.\n  So let the rain pour down to-night!\n\n  VIII.\n\n  No man can call me slave; I roam--\n    The Holy Buddha said--\n  At will I roam, each spot a home,\n    And when I want am fed.\n  No need for wage or gain to fight.\n  So let the rain pour down to-night!\n\n  IX.\n\n  I've barren cows and calves yet young--\n    The Herdsman Dhaniya said--\n  And cows in calf and steers among,\n    A bull lifts up his head--\n  Lord of the cows, a kingly sight.\n  Then let the rain pour down to-night.\n\n  X.\n\n  No cows have I nor calves yet young--\n    The Holy Buddha said--\n  For cows in calf and steers among\n    No bull lifts up his head;\n  No lord of cows, no king of might!\n  So let the rain pour down to-night!\n\n  XI.\n\n  Then lo! a cloud o'er hill and plain\n  That moment thundering poured forth rain.\n  When herdsman Dhaniya heard with dread\n  The God's rain rush, he yielding said:\n\n  XII.\n\n  \"O, great the gain accrued thereby!\n    Since Holy Buddha came to-day,\n  We trust in thine all-seeing eye.\n    Be thou, O mighty Sage, our stay.\n  My wife and I obedient ever\n  To follow thee will make endeavour.\n\n  XIII.\n\n  \"Under the Happy One we'll lead\n    A holy life, and, as he saith,\n  We'll put an end to pain and need,\n    And pass beyond old age and death!\"\n\n\nBUDDHA AND THE KING.[BD]\n\n [BD] This is a rhymed version of the Pabbajj\u0101 Sutta, which is contained\n in the Sutta Nip\u0101ta. _Vide_ Professor Rhys Davids's _American Lectures\n on Buddhism_, p. 99.\n\n  I.\n\n  Their peace I praise who seek not here a home.\n    It is the peace the Blessed One hath found,\n  He who resolved in solitude to roam,\n    The sky his roof, his holy bed the ground.\n\n  II.\n\n  \"Fulfilled with hindrance is the household life,\n    It is the haunt of passion and of wrath.\n  Free is the homeless state from every strife.\"\n    He, meditating thus, went boldly forth.\n\n  III.\n\n  And, going forth, wrong deeds he set aside,\n    Wrong thoughts and words he scattered to the wind,\n  And in a life pure, calm, and sanctified,\n    He found that peace whoever seeks shall find.\n\n  IV.\n\n  To Bimbas\u0101ra's royal town he went,\n    Where lived the ruler of Mag\u0101dha-land.\n  Stately he moved, dispassionate, intent,\n    From door to door, an alms-bowl in his hand.\n\n  V.\n\n  King Bimbas\u0101ra saw him as he crossed\n    Beyond the terraced slopes of his domain.\n  So sweet he looked in meditation lost.\n    The king spake thus to his attendant train:\n\n  VI.\n\n  \"Be full of care for this most noble man;\n    In outward aspect great, all pure within.\n  His eyes stray not beyond a fathom's span,\n    So guarded moves he in this world of sin.\n\n  VII.\n\n  \"See how serenely he performs his task;\n    Of Royal birth must be this anchorite.\n  Let the king's messengers run forth and ask,\n    Where wilt thou rest, O mendicant, to-night?\"\n\n  VIII.\n\n  The messengers, despatched at royal behest,\n    The king's instructions hasten to obey;\n  Then, bowing low, the Bhikshu thus addressed:\n    \"Whither, O Bhikshu, dost thou wend thy way?\"\n\n  IX.\n\n  From house to house he wandered guardedly,\n    And at each door with eyes downcast he stood.\n  Mindful, restrained, dispassionate was he,\n    Filling his alms-bowl with the proffered food.\n\n  X.\n\n  His task performed, in meditation deep\n    He left the haunts of men, and silently\n  Set forth to gain Pand\u0101ra's caverned steep;\n    Then, turning, said: \"My dwelling there shall be.\"\n\n  XI.\n\n  Seeing him stop, the messengers stayed still;\n    One only to the king this message gave:\n  \"O king, he sits upon Pand\u0101ra's hill,\n    Like to a lion in a mountain cave.\"\n\n  XII.\n\n  The prince forthwith upon his chariot rode,\n    And hastened towards Pand\u0101ra's lofty crest;\n  Then, stepping out, along the path he strode\n    To where the mendicant had stopped to rest;\n\n  XIII.\n\n  And, bending low, thus spake he to the youth:\n    \"Young art thou yet, too delicate to face\n  The life of those who battle for the truth,\n    Thou seeming scion of an ancient race!\n\n  XIV.\n\n  \"O glory of the vanguard of a band\n    Of heroes onwards pressing to the fray,\n  What is thy lineage, where thy royal land?\n    O let me in these robes thy form array.\"\n\n  XV.\n\n  \"Hard by Hima\u0101laya's slopes there dwells, O king,\n    A S\u0101kya race, Kos\u0101las known by name,\n  Descendants of the sun; from these I spring;\n    From these gone forth, I seek not earthly fame.\n\n  XVI.\n\n  \"Seeing the danger of a carnal life,\n    I have set forth to battle to the end,\n  And in this struggle and protracted strife\n    Raptures ineffable my path attend!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's Notes\n\nObvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.\n\nVariations in spelling, punctuation and accents are as in the original.\n\nThe repetition of the Title on the first page has been removed.\n\nItalics are represented thus, _italic_.","title":"The Metaphysic of Christianity and Buddhism: A Symphony","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":41403}