



Produced by David Edwards, Les Galloway and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)







    THE METAPHYSIC

    OF

    CHRISTIANITY

    AND

    BUDDHISM.

    _A SYMPHONY._

    BY
    MAJOR-GENERAL DAWSONNE M. STRONG, C.B.
    (_Late Indian Army_),

    AUTHOR OF "SELECTIONS FROM THE BOSTĀN OF SÂDI,
    TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE."

    "Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon."--_Bible._

    LONDON:

    WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET ST.

    1899.




    LOVINGLY DEDICATED

    TO

    MY WIFE

    IN MEMORY OF OUR SOJOURN

    IN

    THE EAST.




CONTENTS.


  CHAP.                                         PAGE

  INTRODUCTION                                   vii

  I. JESUS AND GOTAMA                              1

  II. GOD AND THE KOSMOS                          33

  III. SOUL, SELF, INDIVIDUALITY, AND KARMA       55

  IV. HEAVEN AND NIRVANA                          82

  V. SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS                     103

  AT THE MALAGAWA TEMPLE, CEYLON                 113

  APPENDIX:--METRICAL ADAPTATIONS OF BUDDHISTIC
  LEGEND AND SCRIPTURE:--

    1. The Last Words of Gotama Buddha to his
    Favourite Disciple Ananda                    115

    2. Samsâra and Nirvana                       116

    3. Rejoice                                   118

    4. The Goal                                  120

    5. Buddha and the Herdsman                   123

    6. Buddha and the King                       126




INTRODUCTION.

 "Si notre foi diffère quant à la forme et aux dogmes, nos âmes restent
 toujours d'accord sur un principe éternel et divin."--GEORGE SANDS.


An immense difficulty has to be encountered by those who have been
deeply impressed by the value and beauty of Christianity when they are
called upon to consider the claims of other faiths. Anyone who has had
within his experience and under his observation such an exceptional
case as that of a sincere Christian who, from childhood to old age,
has set before him the ideal Christ and the Christian conception of an
all-compassionate Father--a Christian whose inner light has been so
pure that no darkness of doubt has ever dimmed it, and no doctrinal
warfare has ever stained its radiance--he, I contend, has an almost
insuperable obstacle to overcome when he attempts to associate holiness
and purity, of the same supreme order, with the followers of other
religious systems which have been formulated for the comfort and
salvation of humanity.

It is doubtful if any ordinary adherent of the Christian faith, however
extensive his sympathies towards persons outside his own flock, has
ever been able to pass this barrier, which always seems to interpose
itself when search is made for a common bond of union with an alien
belief.

A man may have lived many a year in the East, and witnessed there, with
deep appreciation, the purity, the endurance, the touching self-denial
of the devout peasantry, and the beautiful charity of the poor towards
the poor; or he may have associated with saintly ascetics in India,
and with the yellow-robed and gentle _religieux_ of Ceylon; he may
have surveyed the famous temple of that fair island, in the intense
stillness of a tropical night, till all identity of self seemed to
vanish in the solemnity of the surroundings, and the only sound was
that of a monk's intoning voice heard from within the dungeon-like
apertures of the building, and the only light that of the fitful
fireflies amid the lofty and drooping foliage;--yet, in each and all of
these experiences, that aroma of holiness, so perceptible at times in
our own religious atmosphere, would somehow seem strangely absent to
the unacclimatized senses, and no halo would be distinguishable by a
vision which had been restricted by prejudice.

Still more difficult is it to rise to the same height of reverence
for a saintly and surpassing personality if it is presented in
sacred records other than those to which one has owned a prior
allegiance. Nevertheless, the discovery in other religious systems of
a correspondence with one's own particular persuasion must assuredly
tend towards the attainment of that attitude of mind commended by St.
Paul of "being all things to all men." To pave the way towards the
acquisition of this mental posture in relation to religious concepts is
the main object I have had in view in composing this small book.

It has been said that no age has more needed a departure in this
direction than our own. "On the one hand, sectarian hatred and
dogmatism almost obscure the great truths _common_ to all mankind; on
the other, merciless and destructive criticism, in undermining much
that used to be generally accepted, seems at times to threaten even the
foundations of truth."

Some people, however, maintain that there is an appreciable value
to be attached to all dogmatic declarations, and that those who are
working in strictly-confined theological grooves are contributing, as
specialists, to a knowledge of the whole. Even if these workers are
possessed of all the uncharitable qualities sometimes attributed to
the narrow-minded, yet they may be held deserving of encouragement
in view of the probability that the more their limited ideas become
exposed to the light by their enthusiastic endeavours to assert them as
final truth, the sooner will their imperfections be obliterated. The
fragmentary opinions they cling to will then be discovered to possess
no value except as constituent elements of the whole.

Others go the length of advocating that the flames of bigotry should be
fanned to furnace-heat in order that the feeding fuel may be the more
rapidly consumed.

In any case, the more apparent it becomes that every religion worthy
of the name springs from a root common to all, and is really, at
bottom, the one true cosmic religion, and that the variations are
superficial and unimportant in themselves, the greater will be the
advantages accruing to humanity in the political, social, and moral
spheres. In other words, the advantage to be derived from the study of
the obscure phases of religions lies in this--that, in so doing, our
minds are better able to grasp the solidarity of religious thought and
aspirations throughout the world. We are enabled to see more clearly
that all religious forms, and even formless philosophies, however crude
and idolatrous the former may appear to people of wide culture, and
however mystical and evasive the latter may be regarded by those of
narrow vision, are but the effects of one cause common to all.

When we have got rid, Buddhistically, of the idea of separateness,
or, in a Christian sense, have exercised self-suppression, we can
then proceed to eliminate the notion of separateness in religions and
philosophies. Thus, whether we are Determinists or Indeterminists,
we shall experience the sensation that, according to the law of
development, it is in the scheme of things for us to struggle forward
on our several paths, not in antipathy to, but hand in hand with, those
who make use of different modes of progression towards one identical
goal.

Missionary propagandism, under these conditions, will have the same
_raison d'être_, and our cherished symbolisms will in no wise suffer.
Holding this view, I have felt no misgivings as to the propriety of
placing side by side, as it were, the historical and radiant figures of
Jesus the Christ and Gotama the Buddha, and of indicating an analogy
between the essential features of the two systems of religion which
these great deliverers of a world on earth have fashioned and commended
for the acceptance of their fellow creatures.

Indeed, Buddhism should occupy a very large place in the affections
and admiration of all true Christians on account of the many points of
resemblance discernible in the characters and gospels of Gotama and
Jesus.

St. Augustine, the great vindicator of Christianity, clears the ground
for an assimilation of the two systems. He writes: "For the thing in
itself which is now called the Christian religion really was known to
the ancients, nor was wanting at any time, from the beginning of the
human race until the time that Christ came into the flesh, from which
the true religion which had previously existed began to be called
Christian; and this in our day is the Christian religion--not as having
been wanting in former times, but as having in later times received
this name."

Köppen says: "As, from the standpoint of Buddhism, all men--nay, all
beings--are brothers, children of one sin, sons of the same nonentity,
thus all religions of the globe appear to it as related, as sprung from
one source; all pursuing the same end, and arriving at the same goal.
The religious views, creeds, etc., etc. ... of all nations, Churches,
schools, sects, and parties, however diverse they may seem, are hence,
according to the conception of the believing Buddhist, not alien,
but inwardly akin. They are merely peculiar forms, modifications,
obscurations, degenerations of the same truth--of one law, one faith,
one redemption. For him there is only one doctrine and one Way; and
all religions belong, in one way or another, to this doctrine, and are
all on that Way."

Among the things that can never be shaken are the foundations of
Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, and other cognate religious
systems. Here and there, perchance, a steeple may come down with
a crash, a minaret may fall, a pagoda crumble into dust; but the
foundation-stones, laid beneath the surface, buried in mystery, and
encompassed by darkness, remain irremoveable, changeless, and eternal.

It is, then, in this brooding darkness which envelopes their occult
sources that we must take our stand; and not until we have grown into
and become one with the encircling gloom, and been subjectively steeped
in it, can we hope to understand or pronounce a fair judgment upon what
is the less obscure and objective.

The comparative study of religions requires approach with an open and
receptive mind, and a large amount of intuitive sympathy with all. It
cannot be fairly undertaken if the initial object of investigation is
to mould the one or the other to the shape of personal fancy.

Mr. Arthur Lillie, a most interesting exponent of Buddhism in relation
to Christianity, says that the study of an ancient religion is not
philosophy, but pure history. This may be true, in a sense; but, at
the same time, it is necessary that the records of the past should be
studied in a philosophical and synthetic spirit, with an Impressionist
rather than a pre-Raphaelite tendency. Mr. Lillie hardly makes due
allowance for the measure of failure which must accompany all human
efforts to do justice to a great idea, and perhaps overstrains the
theory that literary and philological analysis have had their day, and
that archæology and history should now reign supreme.

In connection with the placing of too great a reliance upon the
"letter" of venerated records, a warning--serious enough if we
appropriate it to ourselves--has issued from the pen of the Rev. Spence
Hardy, who, in a passage of his book, entitled _Eastern Monachism_
(p. 166), emphasizes with tremendous force the precarious position of
those who take their stand solely upon sacred books. "The priests of
India," he writes, "are encompassed by weapons that may be wrested
from their hands and used to their own destruction. When it is clearly
proved to them that their venerated records contain absurdities and
contradictions, they must of necessity conclude that their origin
cannot have been divine; and, the foundations of the system being thus
shaken, the whole mass must speedily fall, leaving only the unsightly
ruin as a monument of man's folly, when he endeavours to form a
religion from the feculence of his own corrupt heart or the fancies of
his own perverted imagination."

It may be apposite here to demonstrate how far short of the Pauline
standard the cultivated European critic falls, by referring to some
remarks of the Rev. Prof. Bruce in one of his Gifford Lectures[A] of
last year, in which he treats of Gotama's views concerning the moral
order of the universe. Of the two leading doctrines of Buddhism, Karma
is called by him "fantastic" and Nirvana "morbid"; and, not content
with such a contemptuous dismissal of these remarkable conceptions, he
proceeds to say: "The well-being of the race demanded warriors, brave
in the field of battle against evil, not monks, immured in cloisters
and passing their lives in poverty, wearing the yellow robe of a
mendicant order."

 [A] _Vide Glasgow Herald_, January, 1898.

This rhetorical flourish may have sounded very effective and convincing
as a peroration, and have produced the desired result of clearing
the lecturer from any possible imputation of sympathy with Buddhism,
except as an ethical system of considerable excellence; but such a
summing-up of Buddhism is neither more nor less than a throwing of
dust in the eyes of beholders, and is, in my opinion, very far removed
from the dispassionate survey one would expect from a Gifford Lecturer.
Alighting on such a misrepresentation of his religious system, a
Buddhist would naturally feel aggrieved, and his belief in our
self-adopted reputation for fair-play all round might be rudely shaken.

"Karma" is undoubtedly one of the so-called mysteries of Buddhism; but
is it in any sense more fantastic than any other religious mystery? Is
this theory of the transmigration of character (as it has been somewhat
loosely described) more fanciful in its conception than that of the
transmigration of the soul, a "vaguely-apprehended, feebly-postulated
ego," to a dim locality such as heaven? Then, again, it may be asked,
what is there so objectionable in a quiet, unobtrusive resistance to
evil, that it should prompt the lecturer to magnify the importance of a
crude aggressiveness?

It is by no means true that Buddhist monks are usually immured in
cloisters; they, in fact, move about freely as examples, within human
limits, of the highest morality, and they chiefly occupy themselves
(as in Burma) with the education of children.[B] General Forlong, in
his _Short Studies in the Science of Comparative Religions_, says:
"Gotama's religion widened from Jaino-Buddhism into one of work and
duty towards his fellows; his instructions to the order of monks were
to the following effect: that they were not to _beg_ from door to door,
but only to accept gifts in return for services performed; and this was
their service--to be an example to all men."

 [B] Those who have not yet read that pathetically beautiful book, _The
 Soul of a People_, by H. Fielding, are referred to chapters x. and
 xi., wherein are set forth the true characteristics, functions, and
 aspirations of the Buddhist monkhood in Burma.

Condemnation of these monks for passing their lives in poverty sounds
strangely inappropriate coming from the lips of a Christian professor;
and, as to the well-being of the race not demanding the wearing of
yellow garments, one might reasonably ask if it demanded the wearing
of a black gown. We must, in all fairness, I think, credit Gotama with
possessing a large measure of that "Light which lighteth _every man_
that cometh into the world."

Sir Edwin Arnold, I believe, refers to the mysteries of Buddhism as
"blank abstractions," but I do not suppose he regards them as more
"blank" than the mysteries of other religions. All mysteries are, in
a sense, blank abstractions, and the blanker they are the nearer the
truth; and what religion is without them? It may be conceded, however,
that such a conception as "Ultimate Reality" upon which to fall back in
time of need might prove to some minds a more comfortless one than that
presented by the "Compassionate Father" of the Christian God-idea. But
even this Christian symbolism has an element of mystery in it.

Then there is the poetic phase of anthropomorphism, which is not
altogether to be despised from an æsthetic point of view. Such as the
Mohammedan Allah, who is described with exquisite imagery in the Bostān
of Sâdi as a beautiful cup-bearer at Sufistic banquets,

  "So fair, They spill the wine and stare,"[C]

which recalls the anthropomorphic Deity of the Psalms:--

  "In His hand is a cup, and the wine is red."

  [C] Author's translation of _Bostān of Sâdi_.

Another picture of great poetical merit is that of the Incarnate
Saviour of the Mexicans, who does not ascend to heaven on his departure
from the earth, but sets forth upon the wide ocean in a wizard bark of
serpent skins for the fabled shores of the kingdom of his Father.

Dr. Paul Carus, in his preface to _The Gospel of Buddha_, says: "A
comparison of the many striking agreements between Christianity and
Buddhism may prove fatal to a sectarian conception of Christianity,
but will in the end only help to mature our insight into the essential
nature of Christianity, and so elevate our religious convictions.
It will bring out that nobler Christianity which aspires to be the
cosmic religion of universal truth.... It will serve both Christians
and Buddhists as a help to penetrate further into the spirit of their
faith, so as to see its full width, breadth, and depth."

The theological formation which has gradually developed into what may
be called the crust of creeds, and which has probably now reached
its limits of hardening, is seen, from day to day, under varying
influences, to be cracking into wider and deeper fissures. The curious
inquirer now possesses ample opportunities of looking below the surface
and observing some of the conditions that have, in the course of ages,
given rise to the accretions.

The deeper we look, or the further our horizon recedes, the greater
perhaps is the sense of bewilderment and isolation; yet so to wander
is, at any rate, to be free; and we need not just at present fear
that ultimate knowledge is nescience, when our vision will no longer
be bounded by any horizon, and when even vision itself will at last
disappear.

As it has been stated of science, so it may be affirmed of all inquiry,
"that at a certain stage of its development a degree of vagueness best
consists with fertility."

Christianity and Buddhism possess three prominent features--"the
metaphysical," "the ethical," and "the biographical." As the two
latter have been so exhaustively contrasted in connection with these
systems, I have confined myself in the following pages chiefly to a
consideration of their mystical relationship.

  D. M. S.

 _Caledonian United Service Club, Edinburgh.
   February, 1899._




SANSCRIT AND PALI TERMS USED.


               {Includes everything of which impermanence may be
               {predicated, or, which is the same thing, everything
  SAMSKĀRA     {which springs from a cause. (Childers.)
  SANKHĀRA     {Gestaltungen--Oldenberg's _Buddha_, German edition.
               {Conformations--English translation of Oldenberg's
               {_Buddha_.

  SKANDHAS     The five attributes or elements of being--form, sensation,
               perception, discrimination, and consciousness.

  BHIKKHU      {Mendicant, monk, friar.
  BHIKSHU      {

  AKĀSA        Space.

               {The ocean of Birth and Death, transiency, worldliness,
  SAMSĀRA      {the restlessness of a worldly life, the agitation of
               {selfishness, the vanity fair of life. (Paul Carus.)

  MAHĀYĀNA     The great vehicle--viz., of salvation.

  HINĀYĀNA     The little vehicle--viz., of salvation.

  KARMA        Action, work, the law of action, retribution, results of
               deeds previously done, and the destiny resulting
               therefrom. (Paul Carus.)

ERRATUM.

For Professor Oldenberg's _Buddhism_ read everywhere Professor
Oldenberg's _Buddha: His Life, His Doctrine, His Order_.




CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM.




CHAPTER I.

JESUS AND GOTAMA.

"For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos;
are ye not carnal?"--BIBLE.


In any attempt to appreciate the relationship of Christianity to
Buddhism it is important to bear in mind, not only the differences
which have characterized the process of their evolution, but also to
recognize that the two religions are, in their origin, distinct as
to time and _locale_; that they developed on different soils, and
have borne fruit of very different kinds; and that the races which
subsequently appropriated them as religious systems were in many
respects dissimilar, and lived under widely divergent conditions.
Only by regarding these religions as growing apart, and in no manner
connected in this sense, can we ultimately arrive at a just and logical
estimate of the character of the founders.

It is not by confounding their sources at the start, or by attempting
to prove that the one system is a product of the other, that we can in
the end draw closer the bonds which seem to unite them. A consideration
of almost equal weight is that of the dual nature of the great
personalities of Jesus and Gotama. We must not confuse the significance
of the term "God" with the man Jesus, nor the mystical principle
embodied in the title "Buddha" with the personal and human Gotama. Both
Jesus as God and Gotama as Buddha are dual personalities, and combine
in themselves tangible and intangible realities. The former is to be
regarded as man and God, the latter as Gotama and Buddha.

But, while wishing to emphasize the fact of the independent origin of
Christianity and Buddhism, I have no intention of combating the fact
that a spurious Buddhism had, in the garb of Essenism, established a
footing in Palestine at a date anterior to the Christian era, and that,
under the influence of St. John the Baptist, the recognized leader of
the Essenes, a way was prepared and made ready for the great light
which was to shine forth afresh in the majestic humanity of Jesus. The
presence of Essene Buddhists in Palestine at that date is a matter
of history, and has been clearly established by prominent Oriental
scholars. Moreover, the Church of England itself has, through the
medium of some of its most reliable authorities, openly acquiesced in
the fact.

The Essenes, who were, from the second century before Christ
onwards, domiciled in the Holy Land, although virtually Buddhists, do
not seem to have preserved intact the tenets of Gotama, though the
ethics remained unadulterated. They retained many of the qualities
of the monastic Buddhists, such as asceticism, brotherly love, a
rare benevolence towards mankind in general, and the still rarer
consideration for animal life. Nor was any departure made from the vows
of chastity, the belief in the transitory nature of things, and in
their attitude of non-resistance to evil. It was rather with regard to
metaphysical obscurities that they wandered from the strict teaching of
Gotama; and we cannot wonder that such was the case when we remember
the doubts, difficulties, and uncertainties that must have beset
the paths of these followers of Gotama when they had no longer the
Enlightened One to point to them the way of truth.

Especially do they seem to have gone astray in the matter of the
doctrine of the soul. This they described "as coming from the subtlest
ether, and as lured by the sorcery of nature into the prison-house of
the body." The Essenes derived their Buddhistic tenets and practices
directly from Gnosticism, which is said to have prevailed in Alexandria
two centuries before the birth of Christ, and its existence in that
city owed its origin to the importation of Buddhism from India,
constant communication having been established in those days between
Egypt and the West Coast of India as far north as the mouths of the
Indus.

Further, the edicts of King Asoka go to prove that at about this time
he was on intimate terms and in frequent correspondence with the
Greeks; also, that during his reign and under his royal patronage
Buddhist missionaries found their way to Egypt, and there scattered the
seed from which arose the Gnostics, or Therapeuts, and the kindred sect
of the Essenes.

Mr. Arthur Lillie, in his _Buddhism in Christendom_, p. 75, writes:
"The most subtle thinker of the modern English Church, the late
Dean Mansel, boldly maintained that the philosophy and rites of the
Therapeuts of Alexandria were due to Buddhist missionaries who visited
Egypt within two centuries of the time of Alexander the Great. In this
he has been supported by philosophers of the calibre of Schelling
and Schopenhauer and the great Sanscrit authority Lassen. Renan, in
his work _Les Langues Sémétiques_, also sees traces of this Buddhist
propagandism in Palestine before the Christian era. Hilgenfeld, Mutter,
Bohlen, King, all admit the Buddhist influence. Colebrooke saw a
striking similarity between the Buddhist philosophy and that of the
Pythagoreans. Dean Milman was convinced that the Therapeuts sprung from
the 'contemplative and indolent fraternities' of India."

When we travel back from Essenism to Gnosticism we approach nearer
geographically and conceptionally to the source from which they both
originated. Gnosticism, however, presumes to tell us more than Gotama
chose to reveal as to the beginnings of things, and enters into details
about various spiritual emanations which are at variance with any
inferences that can be legitimately drawn from early Buddhism.

In the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, under "Gnosticism," we read: "The
Supreme Being, according to Gnosticism, was regarded as wholly
inconceivable and indescribable; as the Unfathomable Abyss; the
Unnameable. From this transcendant source existence sprang by emanation
in a series of spiritual powers. It was only through these several
powers that the Infinite passed into life and activity, and became
capable of representation. To this higher world was given the name of
Pleroma, and the divine powers composing it in their ever-expanding
procession from the Highest were called Æons."

Jesus, according to the Gnostic conception, was one of these higher
Æons or Buddhas "proceeding from the Kingdom of Light for the
redemption of this lower Kingdom of Darkness."

If the above was whittled down to the bare statement that the
Boundless, to be made perceptible, had to become active and creative,
and that thus it happened that the Boundless was manifested by and in
the universe, Gnosticism, on this point, would not greatly differ from
what was probably in the mind of Gotama when he pointed out that the
Uncreated or Unproduced must have existence, otherwise the created, the
produced, could not be.

In face of the historically-established fact that Buddhism had reached
Palestine before the Christian era had commenced, and that Buddhistic
influences were widely disseminated throughout the Holy Land when Jesus
arose upon the scene, I wish to maintain that Jesus, although nurtured
in the mixed society of ceremonial and Essenic Jews, cannot be claimed
as belonging to the Essenes or any other sect _after_ he emerged from
his long retirement and commenced his ministry. During the time of his
withdrawal from publicity it must be assumed that he was growing in
wisdom, and continued to do so until the perfect enlightenment came to
him, when the Holy Ghost descended upon him, and he knew himself to
be the Son and symbol of God, and, as such, capable of revealing the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven to those who had ears to hear and
eyes to see. This view, or reading, of the Scriptures was the cardinal
tenet of the adoptionist Christology of the Paulician school in Armenia.

Jesus, as human, was undoubtedly begotten, not made, and died. Jesus,
as divine, became so, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh,
but by taking of the _manhood_ into God--first the natural, after that
the spiritual, as St. Paul says. Jesus, as God, was immortal.

Jesus, as a perfected soul on earth, was a presentation of the
Logos, in the sense given to this term by Dr. Paul Carus, "as forms
of speech," which, containing in words eternal truth, is the most
important part of the human soul, when soul is regarded as the
formative factors of the various forms and their relations that have
been evolving, and are constantly evolving and re-evolving. Jesus was,
in this respect, altogether independent of his _entourage_, although
a part of it in all other relations. He utilized what was good and
answered his purpose in the tenets of the several sections of the
society in which he moved. He was an eclectic, and stood midway between
mystical and anti-mystical Israel.

The Essenes, as already stated, derived their doctrines and customs
chiefly from the Gnostics of Egypt, and the origin of the latter has
been traced to the propagation of Buddhism by Indian missionaries sent
to Egypt in the time of King Asoka.

Now, Gotama Buddha was, in point of time, an earlier presentation of
Logos; and, as Gotama's influences were at work in Palestine when Jesus
appeared, it follows in the natural course of things that Jesus, as a
presentation of this same Logos, or Bodhi, would have shown a stronger
leaning towards the tenets and practices of the Essenes than towards
those of the ceremonial Jews.

The position of Jesus in Palestine closely corresponded with that
of Gotama in Hindustan. Gotama was isolated between the ceremonial
Brahmin class and the extreme mystical party. He also assimilated, as
Jesus did, in furtherance of his mission, some of the tenets of each
party, with certain modifications. He shocked the ceremonialists by
showing disdain for rites as rites, and estranged himself from the
extreme mystical party by refusing to give his imprimatur to factitious
asceticism. In the same manner Jesus ignored some of the Essenic
restrictions by partaking of wine and animal food.

Brahmanism suffered corruption through the acquisition by the priests
of wealth and power. To the endowment of the Christian Church, and the
elevation of its priests to temporal sway by the Emperor Constantine,
has been attributed the beginning of the decadence of the Christian
ideal. The decline of true Buddhism in India was due in a great measure
to the munificence of King Asoka, who erected and enriched monasteries
and other religious institutions. This led ultimately to many serious
abuses, as well as to deviations from the precepts which Gotama had
endeavoured to inculcate.

In Palestine, at the commencement of the Christian era, the ceremonial
Jews or Pharisees,[D] though a numerically small section, were the
dominant party of Judaism, and were represented by dignitaries of an
overbearingly proud demeanour. Suppressed by them, the spirituality of
the Essene Buddhists was thrown into the shade, and, when the voice
crying in the wilderness was no longer to be heard and the commanding
personality of St. John the Essene disappeared from the scene, Essenism
as an organization came to an end.

 [D] An indiscriminate denunciation of the Pharisees is, I think,
 unjustifiable. They must be held deserving of commendation in so far
 as they were guided by conscience to a close adherence to the letter
 of that Law which had been delivered to them by the Almighty, through
 Ezra the Lawyer, for strict and undeviating observance.

To contend with these ceremonialists of Palestine and the corrupt
Brahmanism of India, and to further the success of their respective
missions in the face of these formidable forces, both Jesus in the one
case and Gotama in the other realized the expediency of initiating a
mode of proselytism which, by the humble bearing and unworldly aspect
of its agents, would differentiate it from the arrogant and exclusive
methods of the priestly classes. The missionaries whom these new lights
sent forth into the world to propagate the doctrine of salvation
received explicit instructions not to provide themselves with gold or
silver, or change of raiment and shoes; in fact, they were to pose as
examples of that humility and forbearance which was the keynote, in
their ethical significance, of the two systems as formulated for the
redemption of humanity. In both cases the spell of this evangelism
was soon to be lost in a resurgence of the very evils it was intended
to suppress--the pride of ecclesiasticism and the ascendancy of
ritual--under the widening shadows of which the underlying truths of
symbolism became obscured.

As told in the story of the Great Renunciation, Gotama goes into
retirement at an early age; Jesus also becomes a recluse. It is
probable that he spent the years elapsing between his adolescence
and the commencement of his ministry among the Essenes, who dwelt in
caves in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, where he would have found ample
opportunity for meditation, as well as genial companionship at hand, if
desired.

Jesus and Gotama both issued from their retreats and mystic
communions, impregnated with a deep sympathy for a suffering world,
for the weary and heavy laden. They both accentuated with the same
fervour of conviction the futility of laying up treasure upon earth,
and pointed to the same mysterious heaven where true joy alone was to
be found. But none of the dicta of Gotama have approached, either in a
doctrinal sense or in uncompromising severity, the declaration of the
Prophet of Nazareth as to the absolute necessity of renouncing the most
sacred family ties before acceptance could be possible as a true and
faithful disciple: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and
mother, and wife, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life too,
he cannot be my disciple."

The use of vehement declamations of this nature was probably forced
upon the speaker by the condition of those days, when it was more than
ever necessary to draw a sharp line and to emphasize the depth of the
chasm that must divide followers of the ideal from those in thrall to
the material. It has been remarked by Mr. Lillie that, if Jesus had had
to deal with people in a later or more advanced state of civilization,
other methods and other language would in all probability have been
used to suit the altered conditions.

The attitude towards relations which Jesus, in the above-quoted
passage, seems to have expected a disciple to assume may receive some
elucidation from a story told in Visuddhi-Maga, which is headed by the
translator, Mr. H. C. Warren,[E] "And Hate Not his Father and Mother."
The story, briefly related, is to this effect:--

A young man left his father's house, and, having joined the Buddhist
order of mendicants, was lost sight of by his parents. The mother
sorrowed for the long absence of her son.

 [E] _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 434.

Meanwhile the young monk had been allotted a cell in a certain
monastery. But it so happened that this cell had been provided at the
expense of his father, who was a devout layman. When the father heard
that the cell had been occupied, he set forth to visit the occupant,
and, as was customary, to beg him to seek his alms at his house for
a space of three months. The young monk appeared at the door of the
cell, in his yellow robe and with shaven head, and, unrecognized by his
father, accepted the invitation to receive alms at the house of the
layman.

Day after day he attended at the threshold of his father's house, and
took food from the hands of his parents. Still the mother continued to
grieve for her long-absent son, accounting him dead.

One day, as the monk was returning towards the monastery, after parting
on the road with his mother, the latter's brother, an elder, overtook
her. She fell at her brother's feet, weeping and lamenting for her son.

"Then thought the elder: 'Surely this lad, through the moderateness of
his passions, must have gone away without announcing himself.' And he
comforted her, and told her the whole story. The lay woman was pleased,
and, lying prostrate, with her face in the direction in which her son
had gone, she worshipped, saying: 'Methinks the Blessed One must have
had in mind a body of priests like my son when he preached the course
of conduct customary with the great saints, showing how to take delight
in the cultivation of content.... This man ate for three months in
the house of the mother who bore him, and never said, 'I am thy son,
and thou art my mother.'... For such a one _mother and father_ are no
hindrances, much less any other lay devotees."

On one occasion, when I was privileged to attend an ordination service
at Kandy, I was much struck with an incident which occurred at this
time-old ceremony. At the conclusion of the service, when the melodious
intoning of the celebrants had ceased to reverberate in the solemn
ruins of the dimly-lighted aisle, the young initiate was placed at
the bottom of the row of monks, who were seated, cross-legged, in the
nave of the temple. During the service the lay spectators had been
railed off at the entrance, which faced the shrine, beneath which the
chief abbot presided. But, when the newly-ordained monk had assumed a
sitting posture in the place assigned to him, the railing was removed,
and his female relations--perhaps his "beloved one" among them--came
forward and prostrated themselves at his feet. The initiate sat with
downcast eyes, unmoved by the demonstration, recalling to mind one of
those statues of Buddha in which the countenance is represented with
that abstracted yet compassionate expression so characteristic of the
Perfect One. Then also was brought to my recollection that saying of
Jesus recorded in the Gospel when he turned towards his mother and
exclaimed: "Woman, what have I to do with thee?"

It may, I think, be indisputably affirmed that the deep insight
of these great reformers into the problems of life, the profound
impression they made upon a vain world, their sublimated ideas, their
superhuman influences, their stainless lives--that all these proclaim
them to have been veritable embodiments of the mystic Sophia and one
with God. Separated only by the time appointed for their appearance in
the world, they were both presentations of the same Logos, called in
Buddhistic terminology "Bodhi" or Intelligence. Whether there was a
difference between the quality of presentation in the cases of Jesus
and Gotama, whether the one produced a more flamboyant light than the
other, and in what respects and how the media differed, are questions
that can only be answered by Christians and Buddhists themselves,
according to the light that is in them.

In the person of Jesus the human became divine. It was not a case of
the conversion of the godhead into the flesh.

The whole of the so-called Athanasian Creed, read in the light of
positive psychology, appears to be a statement of many important
truths, and, for all we know, it may be literally true that, unless
a man makes this creed his own and acts up to it, he cannot be saved
in the sense indicated. The creed is applicable to the needs of the
whole world, and, therefore, is rightly called the Catholic faith.
Unfortunately its patristic terminology has led the unenlightened to
conclude that it is exclusive and sectarian; consequently, many earnest
Christians have evinced an inclination to reject it, and efforts have
been made to have it expunged from the Liturgy of the Church of England.

Although it may be accepted as a true statement that the typical Hindu
mind, which ranges over such a vast area of speculation, will never
be induced by missionary zeal to confine itself within the apparently
limited formulæ of Christian doctrine, it must not be overlooked that
even the symbolism of Christianity represents and covers a shoreless
ocean in which thought can disport itself without ever coming into
contact with the limitations of the concrete. The Hindu mind binds
itself, as it has been said of Art, to no creeds, no articles of faith,
no schemes of salvation, no confessions. It cannot by its very nature.
The unconditioned is its country, its native land, its home.

Christ rose from the dead, as the purified soul of man will at last be
detached from the conditioned, though still remaining a quality of the
conditioned. The Christ principle, the Comforter, or the Holy Ghost,
does not, with the ascension of Christ, leave us comfortless, but stays
with us to the end.

With regard to the posthumous appearance of Jesus and all phenomena
of a like nature, it is not easy to find room in positive psychology
for such a thing as a docetic body; yet it would seem absolutely
needful for the logical expansion of such a science to include, as a
speculative possibility, the seeming existence of loose integrations
of matter with apparent form and outline, of vaporous counterparts of
animal organisms, of aspects of matter not familiar to mankind, having
a place in the general scheme of the apparitional world.[F]

 [F] Maimonides and the Kabbalists speak of Genii--semi-material
 beings whose bodies are of fire, air, water, mixed with fine earth
 and visible at times to man. _Vide Bible Folk-Lore_ (p. 190), by the
 author of _Rabbi Jeshua_.

Further, unless we doggedly refuse to rely on the published experiences
of eminent and trustworthy men, such as Mr. Myers and his associates,
the case of Mrs. Piper must be taken _au sérieux_. Those who accept an
animistic solution have undoubtedly cleared a fence, but there still
remains an obstacle before them in the shape of the definition of
"spirit."

In seeking for an interpretation that will harmonize with the general
tenor of Buddhistic philosophy and positive psychology, it is incumbent
that the irrefragable "Law of Causation," _à l'œuvre_ in the phenomenal
world, should be taken into account, and any attempted effort of
explanation of unfamiliar powers, such as those exhibited by mediums,
demands that a place should be found for them in the mosaic of cause
and effect. Mediumistic powers, it seems to me, are merely an extension
of the faculty of expression-reading. Efferent nerves discharge
impressions which can be read. Everyone, more or less, can read the
expressions of a face, and learn thereby, to a limited and imperfect
extent, the thoughts of an individual. In the case of the medium, the
terminal organs of the afferent nerves being hyper-sensitive, the
medium is able to do more than read in a general way the thought of a
person by the impression conveyed through the discharge of the efferent
nerves of a person. A medium, therefore, receives, in proportion to the
degree of hyper-sensitiveness possessed by the terminal organs of the
afferent nerves, the intimate knowledge harboured in the brain-cells of
another person, which is constantly being discharged by the efferent
nerves of that person. These powers, which I relegate to the realm of
causation, must not be confounded with "Bodhi," or "Logos," which is
not subject to any phenomenal law.

The founder of the Brahmo Somaj, Keshub Chunder Sen, idealized Christ
as a universal principle in these striking sentences:--

"As the sleeping Logos did Christ live potentially in the Father's
bosom, long, long before he came into this world of ours.... Wherever
there is intelligence, in all stages of life, where there is the least
spark of instinct, there dwells Christ, if Christ is the Logos. In
this right and rational view do not the Fathers all agree? Do they
not speak of an all-pervading Christ? Do not they bear unequivocal
testimony to Christ in Socrates? Even in barbarian philosophy and in
all Hellenic literature they saw and adored their Logos, Christ.... I
deny and repudiate the little Christ of popular theology, and stand up
for a greater Christ, a fuller Christ, a more eternal Christ, a more
universal Christ.

"I plead for the eternal Logos of the Fathers, and I challenge the
world's assent.

"This is the Christ who was in Greece and Rome, in Egypt and in
India. In the bards and the poets of the Rig-Veda was he. He dwelt in
Confucius and in Sakya Muni (Gotama Buddha). This is the true Christ,
whom I can see everywhere, in all lands and in all times, in Europe and
in Asia, in Africa, in America, in ancient and modern times. He is not
the monopoly of any nation or creed. All literature, all science, all
philosophy, every doctrine that is true, every form of righteousness,
every virtue that belongs to the Son, is the true subjective Christ,
whom all ages glorify. He is pure intelligence (Bodhi), the word of
God, mighty Logos. Scattered in all schools of philosophy and in all
religious sects, scattered in all men and women of the East and the
West, are multitudinous Christ-principles and fragments of Christ-life,
one vast and identical Sonship diversely manifested."

The writer of an article in a review[G] says that the expression,
Logos, is introduced "with startling suddenness by St. John in the
exordium of his Gospel, and that there is nothing in the Old Testament
or in the Synoptic Gospels to prepare the way for it, or to explain
it." He inclines, the writer says, to attribute the introduction of the
idea by St. John to the influence of Philo-Judæus, who elaborated it
from the account of the Creation given in Genesis, to such an extent
that he came to call the Logos, or intermediary power, the Son of God.
Philo, after profound meditation, to quote his own words, "heard even
a more solemn voice from my soul, _accustomed often to be possessed by
God and to discourse of things which it knew not_, which, if I can,
I will recall." Philo, the writer says, must have "observed that the
Mosaic cosmogony leaves the _modus operandi_ of creation in obscurity.
The account given is '_God said_, Let there be light,' and so on.
Thus the spoken word of God is represented as the efficient cause of
creation. But to attribute speech to the Most High was manifestly a
concession to the frailty of the human intellect."

 [G] "St. John and Philo-Judæus," by W. E. Ball (_Contemporary Review_,
 January, 1898).

Mr. W. E. Ball concedes that the Logos-idea was prevalent in the
East long before the time of the Evangelist, and in this connection he
refers to the Vedic vach or speech. This notion also possibly emanated
from a cosmogony similar to that found in Genesis. He proceeds to say
"that the editors of the Septuagint deliberately set themselves to
soften down those passages in the earlier books of the Bible which
were conceived to be most open to the charge of anthropomorphism. A
single example will suffice. In Exodus xxiv. 9-11 it is related that
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders, ascended Mount
Sinai '_and saw the God of Israel_.' The Hebrew text is clear beyond
dispute; but in the Septuagint the passage reads, 'and saw the place
where the God of Israel stood.'" Then we are referred to the "one
living and true God, who, according to the Christian articles of faith,
is without body, parts, or passions." As, however, in the Christian
Scriptures it was recorded that he had been seen and conversed with,
it became necessary to assume an emanation or intermediary power for
this speaking and visible phase of God; hence, first, the unpersonified
Logos of Philo, and afterwards the Logos made flesh in the person of
Jesus according to St. John. The writer thinks that, however much the
conception of Philo in the direction of a Logos as the Son of God
may be minimized in its importance (on account of Philo's silence on
the divine human as a Messiah) with reference to its bearing upon
the writings of St. John, there is no doubt that Philo supplied "a
theological vocabulary for the expression of Johannine and Pauline
doctrine." "St. John grasped Philo's conception of the word as not
only the revelation of the _silent_ God, but also as a reflection
of the invisible God." "Jesus never described himself as the son
of God." Such endeavours, however, as the above to fix the genesis
and growth of an idea from a concrete statement in a book, and to
hypothecate its translation from one leader of thought to another,
leaves out of reckoning the possibility of ideas finding a place in
individual minds by means of a mystical faculty, or what is commonly
called revelation. This mystical faculty is the power of sublimating
ideas, a power, evolved from materialities, that, at a certain stage
of thought, produces a capacity for abnormal insight into the nature
of things, a capacity that can be developed by training; that is to
say, when the faculty of knowledge becomes so far removed from the
mechanical influences of the brain that its connection with the nervous
system may be considered to be on the verge of absolute severance.
This faculty is due to no individualized external power, but is simply
a development from the totality of things, their inherent qualities,
their relationship and interactions.

Both Philo and St. John may be credited with the possession of a
certain amount of this abnormal power, and considered as presentations
of Logos, but not in the same perfection as Jesus and Gotama. "Bôdhi,"
Dr. Paul Carus says, "is that which conditions the cosmic order of
the world and the uniformities of reality. Bôdhi is the everlasting
prototype of truth, partial aspects of which are formulated by
scientists in the various laws of nature. Above all, Bôdhi is the
basis of the Dharma; it is the foundation of religion; it is the
objective reality in the constitution of being from which the good law
of righteousness is derived; it is the ultimate authority for moral
conduct."

It is evident from historical sources that there were many Buddhists
living at and after the time of Gotama, when traditions and legends
accumulated, who had not assimilated his doctrines in their entirety
and purity. So it was in the case of Jesus, whose followers and
interpreters arrived at various conclusions in respect of his teaching.

Some who have emancipated themselves from the "letter that kills," and
have acquired the power of grasping realities, have conceived the true
position of Jesus and Gotama to have been that of clairvoyants, and,
consequently, it is not to be expected that a complete mastery of the
meaning of their communications would ever be attainable by ordinary
human knowledge. This latter conclusion, in respect of Jesus, is most
clearly established by passages to be found in the New Testament.

Jesus and Gotama laboured under the same difficulty: they knew
more than was translatable into language, or communicable to their
followers. Parables were attempted as media for imparting a glimmering
of this knowledge to the ignorant and obtuse. Professor Oldenberg says:
"When we try to resuscitate, in our own way and our own language, the
thoughts that are embedded in the Buddhist teaching, we can scarcely
help forming the impression that it was not a mere idle statement which
the sacred texts present to us, that the Perfect One knew much more
which he thought inadvisable to say than what he esteemed it profitable
to say."

Jesus withheld all explanation as to how evil came into the world. He
dealt with it as a fact. He did not even theorize about the origin of
evil. He taught, on the principle of his well-known saying, "He that
hath ears to hear let him hear." "A careful regard to audience is
traceable in his use of apocalyptic language about his second coming;
it is to Jews only--the Twelve, or the high priest, or the Sanhedrin,
or Nathaniel, the 'Israelite indeed'--that he speaks of cleft heavens,
cloud chariots, and attendant troops of angels. With the Roman governor
he avoids Jewish metaphors" (_Encyclopædia Britannica_, "Eschatology").

Both Jesus and Gotama must have realized the hopelessness of
imprinting their so-called esoteric teaching (which underlay and
intertwined with the ethical) upon the understanding of those who
had not cultivated noumenal instincts. Gotama had need, even on
his death-bed, to explain everything all over again to his closest
companion, the beloved disciple Ananda. In how many ways Jesus
endeavoured to convey the meaning of the kingdom of God to his hearers!
Yet to this day how few have grasped a fraction of its import. The
meaning must be felt rather than understood by the intellect. In fact,
it is necessary to become a Parsifal to do so ("for not many wise men
after the flesh are called"). Also, one must get as far as possible
away from the bondage of the intellect, which handicaps one in the
attempt. A full knowledge of such mysteries cannot be attained until
the machinery of the brain is left a considerable distance behind;
until ideas are no longer in positive connection with the neural
vibrations of the brain. The clock cannot hear what is going on around
it for the noise of its ticking. Plotinus says: "To reach the ultimate
goal, thought itself must be left behind; for thought is a form of
motion, and the desire of the soul is for motionless rest, which
belongs to the One."

Neither Jesus nor Gotama committed themselves to writing; hence we are
entirely dependent, in our judgment of the purport of their mission,
upon the general tenour of communications vouchsafed to us by the
special correspondents of their era. It is upon these synoptists
and other recorders that people build their theories, and pile up
interpretations in various very restricted senses.

But defining is truly dethroning in the cases of Jesus and Gotama. Like
the dove in the Song of Solomon, they abide in the clefts of the rocks,
in the secret places of the stairs. The suppliant can only satisfy his
thirsty soul with an invocation: "Let me see thy countenance, let me
hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely!"
Theism, Atheism, Deism, and many other 'isms must be cast out of our
minds into the bottomless pit before we can hope to place our trembling
feet within even the threshold of their presence. There, perforce, we
must arrest our progress, lost in transcendent wonder. This, as Carlyle
says, is worship in its highest sense.

No allusion was made either by Jesus or Gotama to the miraculous
circumstances said to have attended their nativity; and, although there
exist no data for the assumption that the historians of the latter
were inspired writers like those of the New Testament, the messianic
halo with which Buddhist tradition has encircled the figure of Gotama
tends to bring together the personalities of the two reformers into
closer pictorial relationship. But this blending of the portraiture
cannot be taken in any sense as a help towards wheeling into line
the psychological forces in the field of inquiry. Nevertheless, the
interest attaching to these traditions as coincidental, and the
consideration that the date of the Buddhist chronicles is anterior to
that of the New Testament, render them worthy of brief notice.

M. Ernest de Bunsen[H] says: "Among a circle of Indians prophecies
were accredited which announced the incarnation of an angel, called
the Anointed or Messiah, who should bring to earth the Wisdom or Bôdhi
from above, and establish the kingdom of heavenly truth and justice. He
would be of royal descent, and genealogies would connect him with his
ancestors. The 'Blessed One,' the 'God among Gods,' and the 'Saviour
of the World' was, according to Buddhistic records, incarnate by the
Holy Ghost, of the royal Virgin Maya, and he was born on Christmas Day,
the birthday of the Sun, for which reason the Sun became the symbol of
Gotama Buddha. To be like Gotama is to reach the ideal[I] which has
been set to humanity, and to be like God. Salvation does not depend on
any outward act, but on a change or renewal of the mind, or a reform
of the inner nature, or faith in the innate guiding power of God, of
which the celestial Buddha, incarnated in Gotama, was held to be the
highest organ. The saving faith, therefore, was brought by, and centred
in, the incarnate Angel-Messiah, the Saviour of the World. Salvation is
by faith, and faith comes by the Maya, the Spirit or Word of God, of
which Gotama, the Angel-Messiah, was regarded as the divinely-chosen
and incarnate messenger, the Vicar of God, and God himself on earth.
According to Chinese-Buddhistic writings, it was the Holy Ghost, or
Shing-Su, which descended on the Virgin Maya. The effect produced by
this miracle is thus summed up in the most ancient Chinese life of
Buddha which we at present possess, translated between A.D. 25 and 190:
'If the child born from this conception be induced to lead a secular
life, he shall become a universal monarch; but if he leaves his home,
and becomes a religious person, then he shall become Buddha, and shall
save the world.'"

 [H] _The Angel-Messiah of Buddhists, Essenes, and Christians_, pp. 25,
 32.

 [I] "Jesus is the father of all those who seek in dreams of the ideal
 the repose of their souls" (Renan).

Dr. Paul Carus, in his _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_, pp.
150-51, says: "According to the orthodox Buddhist conception, there
is no doubt about it that the incarnation of Buddha, in the person of
Gotama Siddharta, has passed away. Gotama has died, and his body will
not be resurrected. But Buddha continues to live in the body of the
Dharma--_i.e._, the law or religion of Buddha; and, in so far as he is
the truth, he is immortal and eternal."

"The whole world may break to pieces, but Buddha will not die. The
words of Buddha are imperishable."

The idea of the appearance of a periodical Messiah was extant
throughout the Jaino-Buddhist times, thousands of years before Gotama
Buddha entered upon his mission in the field of religious reformation.
"Millions of Buddhists still believe that their Lord will come again to
redeem his people, appearing as Maitri."[J] The twenty-three Buddhas
who preceded Gotama--"the immortal saints universally acknowledged
by the Jains as coming to earth in divers ages to aid and bless
mankind"--have been recorded, with their names, fathers' names, and
symbols, reaching as far back, it has been calculated, as 6,000 B.C.
"The Blessed One said: 'The Buddha that will come after me will be
known as Maitrâiya, which means he whose name is Kindness.'"

 [J] _Vide_ General Forlong's _Short Studies in the Science of
 Comparative Religions_.

The conception of a mystical Trinity was introduced into both the
Christian and Buddhist systems of belief at a late stage of their
development. In the case of Buddhism it arose from the simple formula:--

 "I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge
in the Sangha"--

that is, in the Prophet, the Law, and the Church. These afterwards were
interpreted to stand for the Self-Existent, the Son (Logos) or Sophia
(Wisdom), and the Holy Ghost (or uniting principle).

Gotama has also been said to possess three personalities, and every
one of them is of equal importance.[K] "There is the Dhârma Kâya;
there is the Nirmâna Kâya; there is the Sambhôga Kâya. _Buddha_ is
the all-excellent truth, eternal, omnipresent, and immutable; this
is the Sambhôga Kâya, which is in a perfect state of bliss. _Buddha_
is the all-loving teacher, assuming the shape of the beings whom he
teaches; this is the Nirmâna Kâya, his apparitional body. _Buddha_
is the all-blessed dispensation of religion; he is the spirit of the
Sangha and the meaning of the commands which he has left us in his
sacred word, the Dhârma; this is the Dhârma Kâya, the body of the most
excellent law."

 [K] _Vide Gospel of Buddha_, by Paul Carus, p. 227.

"It was proclaimed," says Mr. Lillie, "that Gotama possessed a
superfluity of good Karma, or Righteousness, which was available for
all men to partake of, whereby salvation might be had." He quotes from
the Bible as a parallel to this idea: "By the righteousness of one the
free gifts came upon all men unto justification of life"; also: "By the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

To be saved by "the blood" in a realistic sense is another way very
much accentuated by St. Paul. To be saved through "faith in the blood"
has been taken to mean, by some interpreters, through faith in the
genealogy, or divine stock, from which Jesus traced his descent, as
well as through "faith in the life" (which is the blood)--that is, by
following the life-example of the Son, in contradistinction to the
idea of salvation through a materialistic reliance on the details of a
violent death.

The doctrine of Predestination, which holds such a prominent
position in Christian theology, cannot be excluded altogether from a
consideration of Buddhistic philosophy, in which, however, it bears
a somewhat different signification. Although both Jesus and Gotama
made use of the language of "free-will" as we talk of to-morrow, which
never is, one is forced to conclude that, by virtue of their position
as manifestations of the Logos, they were both aware of the scientific
certainty of the non-existence of what is commonly understood as
"free-will." The very fact of the law of causation being the pivot
around which Buddhist philosophy revolves seems to assure us that this
was, in the knowledge of Gotama, the central law of the Kosmos, and
such that it could not be affected by the will of an individual who
was not an independent individual, but simply part and parcel of the
molecular contents of the apparitional world.

As Gotama recognized that the mind and sense of humanity were so deeply
ingrained with the notion of free-will, he was constrained to use the
_argumentum ad hominem_, and outwardly base his ethical system on a
free-will which seemed natural to humanity to believe in, but which was
nevertheless a delusion.

The several passages in the New Testament in which the doctrine of
Predestination is plainly set forth are too well known to necessitate
their quotation here. St. Augustine says: "What happens of thee he
himself [God] works in thee. Never anything happens of thee which he
himself does not work in thee.... Never is anything done by thee unless
he works it in thee."[L]

 [L] _Cf._ "I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and
 create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things" (Bible).

The universal feeling that we possess "free-will" is no proof of
its reality, and only on the basis of the axiom that nothing is too
unscientific or extraordinary to be possible (which is sound enough)
can it be accepted as a possibility. Even Locke could not, for the life
of him, reconcile omniscience and free-will, although he believed in
both.

Taking free-will as a sensation, we must pronounce it to be just as
illusory as any other sensation, except as a sensation. On the other
hand, the Determinist view cannot be classified as a sensation, but is
rather a product of reason. Professor James says: "Genuine Determinism
affirms, not the impotence of free-will, but the unthinkability of
free-will."

St. Paul writes, with reference to sin: "It is no more I that do it,
but sin (or evil Karma) that dwelleth in me." And we are instructed in
some parts of the Christian Scripture that all good is of God, and not
of ourselves. Here, then, there appears to be a complete obliteration
of the idea of free-will in respect of actions either good, bad, or
indifferent; and in confirmation of this view it is necessary to
remember that the language of free-will was used for convenience
sake, that God is distinctly said "to have called those things which
be not as though they were." St. Paul says: "The creature was made
subject to vanity, not willingly." Possibly he may have had in mind
when he delivered this dictum the vanity, or vain conceit, of assuming
free-will.

If it be permissible to assert that we exercise no control, in the
sense of free-will, over the functions of our digestive organs,
which perform their work without our being sensibly conscious of it
(except in the case of abnormal disturbance), one would think the
assertion might be extended in regard to cerebral functions also. We
conceive thought to precede many of our actions, but if thought is the
non-spatial accompaniment of cerebral cell-action, and the latter is
no more amenable to the control of free-will than our digestive organs
are, then those actions which are the sequences of thought cannot be
"free-will" actions.

It is generally admitted that there are occasions when an individual
acts without exercising free-will; when, for instance, a man loses
his head, as the expression goes, in a sudden catastrophe. There are
also distinctly involuntary actions, such as blushing, turning pale,
perspiring, etc. It seems, then, that an individual only exercises
his will, according to general belief, under certain conditions. But
if free-will is acknowledged to be absent under some conditions, may
we not reasonably conclude that it may be absent altogether, and only
exists as an illusion of the senses?

Anyhow, circumstances--or, in other words, the molecular activities
of the universe--appear to be the dominant factor in determining our
actions. These activities, when working through cerebral cells, turn
out thoughts; when operating through the skin pores, they produce
perspiration.

Locke, in his chapter on "Power" (human understanding), seems to draw
very near to an admission of Determinism, but then flies away from
it, evidently alarmed by the spectre of irresponsibility. He labours
to demonstrate that uneasiness or desire determines the will to the
successive (so-called) voluntary actions whereof the greatest part of
our lives is made up, and by which we are _conducted_ through different
causes to different ends. This is, as far as it goes, unadulterated
Determinism.

Dr. Paul Carus defines freedom of will as the power to do that
which one wills, not as the freedom of a man to will what he wills.
Indeterminism he declares to be based upon error, because it attributes
to man an exceptional place in the universe. Man is supposed to be
exempt from the uniform and inexorable law of cause and effect which
rules in the universe. He says: "The decision of a free man depends
upon his character"; but character is only the result of innumerable
causes, which has become a cause upon which other effects follow,
according to the cosmic law of causation, which must include in its
impartial sway man as well as all other integrations of matter.

Determinism is morally safe, because man cannot escape from the
_feeling_ that he possesses free-will, which, nevertheless, is an
illusion, in the sense that "illusions are ideas that have not
originated from the data of experience."

In _Light_ (April 18th, 1898) there is quoted the following, as part
of a discourse on "The Evolution of Mind," delivered by Professor
Jordan: "The plant searches for food by a movement of the feeding parts
alone.... The tender tip is the plant's brain. If locomotion were
in question, the plant would need to be differently constructed. It
would demand the mechanism of the animal. The nerve, brain, and muscle
of the plant are all represented by the tender growing cells of the
moving tips. The plant is touched by moisture or sunlight. It 'thinks'
of them, and in so doing the cells that are touched and 'think' are
turned towards the source of the stimulus. The function of the brain,
therefore, in some sense exists in the tree, but there is no need in
the tree for a special sensorium."

A comment in _Light_ on this discourse runs as follows: "In higher
organisms the mind becomes more and more localized, until in the
higher animals it has a special organ--the brain, which, however, is
shut up in darkness and 'has no knowledge except such as comes to it
from the sense-organs through the ingoing or sensory nerves.' Being
filled with these impressions, some of which are actual sensations,
while others are memories of past sensations, _the brain must make a
choice_ among them by fixation of attention, if it is to act properly.
To find data for such a choice is the function of the intellect. This,
Dr. Jordan tells us, is the difference between mind and mere instinct,
or inherited habits. Mind chooses, instinct cannot, for it is but an
automatic mind-process inherited from generation to generation."

It must be remembered, however, that this faculty of choosing, said to
be possessed by the brain and acquired by a process of development, is
not free, but conditioned. The terminal organs of the afferent nerves
also may be said to possess this faculty of choice, yet limited by
their qualities and the nature of the external influences to which they
are submitted.

The admission of a faculty of choice does not involve the idea of
absolute freedom, nor need it disturb the Buddhist conception that
there exists nothing behind the organism in the shape of an ego-entity,
or soul, which chooses or remembers, and that there is no hidden agent
which prompts the conveyance of impressions.

If we admit this faculty of choice to be possessed by the brain and
terminal organs of the afferent and efferent nerves, it simply involves
the concession that the stored-up memories in the brain, and the
habits acquired by the muscular organism, as results of past external
influences, act in the _manner_ of choice; and in this sense only, it
would seem, can the notion of "freedom" be scientifically and logically
entertained.

If the faculty of choice, in this restricted sense, as the possession
of a pluricellular organism such as man, is accepted in confirmation
of the existence of "freedom," then we must accord the possession of
"freedom" to the simplest form of life. The cellule composed only of
protoplasm and a nucleus possesses the very same faculty.

M. Alfred Binet tells us of the highly-developed psychical functions
of the spermatozoid; how it searches out the locality of the
ovule situated at a distance; how, with a sense of direction, it
traverses the whole length of the intervening space, overcoming all
obstacles--which are many--in its path, to attain the desired object;
and he maintains that such actions cannot be explained by simple
irritability, nor by chemical affinity. The brain may possess this
faculty, and the power to carry into effect the choice, as qualities
of its mechanism; but there is no discrete entity behind the brain as
agent.

"Is it quite certain that, when consciousness seems to affirm that 'I
can choose so and so,' it means more than 'it is possible such and such
a choice will take place in my mind'? If it does not mean more than
this, its affirmation is not against Determinism" (_Mind_, April, 1898,
p. 191). Even if the faculty of choice is granted, it is limited in the
sense that choice does not always produce the effect chosen.

"Locke and Hume say 'Liberty is a power to act as _we_ choose.' But can
_we_ choose? Are _we_ the original causes of our choice? And what is
the power to which action is subjected? Must it not be subject to some
other power, and, therefore, not free, unless it is a self-existent
power?"

Enough has been said, perhaps, on this subject to explain the author's
position in assuming that both Jesus and Gotama must have been, by
necessity of their omniscience, well aware of the truth of Determinism.
Yet, having to deal with phenomenal beings, they were constrained to
treat them as such, and address them in phenomenal terms, and to lower
themselves to the level of those sensations from which the illusive and
unconquerable feeling of responsibility arises.

The fact of occult powers having been attributed to Jesus and Gotama
makes it necessary to include in this chapter a brief reference to the
subject of magic,[M] and to consider in what light we should regard
this art in connection with these two characters.

 [M] Magic I define as the art of visualizing and utilizing those
 aspects and qualities of matter that are not familiar to the normal
 senses.

It has been remarked that the opposition to magic has seldom been
connected with sceptical doubts as to its reality, and that the
distinction drawn between white and black magic was due to the
assumption by the priestly class of the sole right to the exercise of
magic in their rites, and "hence magicians who were outside the pale
of priesthood were called sorcerers, or dealers in black magic." The
pages of the Christian Bible are aflame with magic, and, on opening the
Old Testament, one seems to stand on the threshold of an unmeasurable
cavern, where dreams the Great Magician that inhabiteth Eternity.

No one who has not made of magic, in its several branches, a close
study--who has not literally soaked in mysticism (that "powerful
solvent of definite dogma")--or who is not gnomic, intuitionally
"in the know" without study, can possibly pose as an authoritative
interpreter of God's Holy Word.

An authority on the Hermetic Philosophy says that astrology is to be
found "throughout the Bible, from the very first chapter of Genesis,
when the stars were set for _signs_ and seasons and days and years,
on to the Book of Revelation, where the wonder was seen in heaven,
the woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and all
the great astrological problems in that book; and the great truth,
the Incarnation itself, announced by the star of the Epiphany.... All
the occult methods of divination more or less find their place in the
Bible and in the scheme of religion. The divination by Urim and Thummin
is a well-known form of clairvoyance which is practised now. Joseph's
divining-cup was merely a species of magic mirror, the form of which is
well known now, and is used by some clairvoyant seers. The use of music
by the prophet Elisha, when the kings of Israel and Judah went out
against Moab, is precisely the same as is now used by many Spiritualist
mediums and seers, though not with the same effect ordinarily. And so
one might go on with all the forms of divination. It can be clearly
proved that divination by cards was known and practised in Biblical
times by the Biblical prophets; all this showing that during the times
of the Old Testament, and with _commendation_ from the prophets, and
in use by the prophets, were modes of divination which postulated the
truth of the Hermetic science."

It stands to reason that Jesus as God, and Gotama as Buddha, must have
been acquainted with all the laws of nature, and, consequently, were
in full possession of so-called occult powers. The manifestations of
these powers enter more largely and distinctly, as true records, into
the life of Jesus than into that of Gotama. The acts of Jesus were one
continuous demonstration of occult power, and his disciples were, in a
lesser degree, gifted with the same powers.

That which is known as ceremonial magic was not made use of to any
extent by Jesus and Gotama as a method or means for the production of
these powers. This was not requisite with them, as it is in the case
of ordinary individuals, who must have recourse to those aids which
have been found by occultists, after long experience, to be the most
efficient means of attaining their object.

Clumsier methods have been used with a minimum amount of success; but,
if the operator desires to arrive at any degree of perfection in the
art, it is just as necessary for him to observe closely the rules laid
down by the ceremonialists of magic as it is for a gamekeeper to make
use of the accepted symbolism in the training of a retriever--that is,
if the object is to accomplish the undertaking with the least trouble
and the best results. Jesus and Gotama,[N] on account of their unique
position as being _en rapport_ with this power, had no occasion,
therefore, to resort to ceremonial magic.

 [N] "Gotama, as Buddha, possessed an intuitive insight of the nature
 of every object in the universe, a knowledge of the mind of all
 beings, and of the finality of the stream of life" (_The Gospel of
 Buddha_, by Paul Carus, p. 244).

The Indian saint Mozoomdar (whose acquaintance I had the privilege
of making in India), in his introductory remarks to _The Oriental
Christ_, a book published by him in 1883, points out how estimates of
character vary if viewed from different standpoints, and how, when
the singularity of a nature happens to lie in its manysidedness,
representations of it may be conflicting, but quite genuine and
correct. The whole of the introduction to this work shows such
remarkable and original insight into the character of Jesus, as judged
from an Oriental point of view, that I cannot forbear to give a few
quotations, more especially as they may tend to help forward the
purpose of this chapter by demonstrating how the personalities of Jesus
and Gotama are interchangeable under certain aspects in respect of
their mystic significance.

Early in the introduction the writer says: "It is held that the
celestial figure of the sweet Prophet of Nazareth is illumined with
strange and unknown radiance when the light of Oriental faith and
_mystic_ devotion is allowed to fall upon it. It is a fact that the
greatest religions of the world have sprung from Asia. It has, with
some accuracy, been said, therefore, that it is an Asiatic only
who can teach religion to Asiatics. In Christ we see not only the
exaltedness of humanity, but also the grandeur of which Asiatic nature
is susceptible."

In the following very plain terms he distinguishes Christ as the Logos
of the Gospel of St. John, with which may be classified the "Bodhi," or
Intelligence of the Buddhists: "He was the thought and energy of God.
He was the plan of God. He was the light of divine reason and love, as
yet involved within the great impenetrable. In that sense the whole
universe was at one time merely the thought of the Infinite Being. And
every one of us has sprung from the formless ocean of divinity that
spread through all."

"John the Baptist," he writes, "had announced the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus pointed to it. Pointed where?... He pointed to the kingdom of
heaven in his own heart. He pointed to the inner sphere where his
disembodied spirit communed with the eternal spirit of life; and,
beholding God in him and himself in God, he exclaimed: 'I and my Father
are one.'... He also beheld his brethren in him, and cried: 'Abide in
me, and I in you.'"

This, the writer says, is pure Idealism, and Christ even idealized his
flesh and blood, and administered them to his disciples as a sacrament.

Finally, this enraptured saint of Hindustan places before the reader
two characters in illustration of the distinctions which may be said
to exist between Eastern and Western conceptions of Jesus: "One of
them is an elaborately learned man, versed in all the principles of
theology. His doctrine is historical, exclusive, and arbitrary.... He
insists upon plenary inspiration, becomes stern over forms, continually
descants on miracles ... condemns men to eternal darkness and death. He
continually talks of blood and fire and hell ... he hurls invectives
at other men's faith.... All scriptures are false which have grown up
outside of his dispensation, climate, and authority.... He is tolerated
only because he carries with him the imperial prestige of a conquering
race. Can this be the Christ that will save India?

"By his side another figure. He is simple, natural. He is a stranger
to the learning of books. Out of the profound, untaught impulses of
his soul he speaks.... His doctrines are the simple utterances of a
fatherhood which embosoms all the children of men, and a brotherhood
which makes all the races of the world one great family.... All nations
respond to his mystical utterances about heaven and earth.... His
self-immersed air, absent eyes ... which show that his spirit is far,
far away, point him out to be the Prophet of the East, the sweet Jesus
of the Galilean lake.

"Throughout the whole Eastern world the perfume of his faith and
devotion has spread. The wild genius of Mohammed knew and adored him
amid the sands of Arabia. The tender, love-intoxicated soul of Hafiz
revelled in the sweetness of Christ's piety amid the rosebuds and
nightingales of Persia. Look at this picture and upon that.... When we
speak of an Eastern Christ we speak of the incarnation of unbounded
love and grace; and when we speak of a Western Christ, we speak of
the incarnation of theology, formalism, ethical, and physical force.
Christ, we know, is neither of the East nor of the West; but men have
localized what God meant to make universal."

Happily there is no need to substantiate the fact of the immense
consolations derived by humanity from the Christian mode of regarding
the past, the present, and the future, with all its dazzling
possibilities, in the direction of a New Jerusalem; but it must,
indeed, seem strange to those nurtured amid Christian influences that
a religious system such as Buddhism, which does not recognize a God
or Soul or Immortality in the Occidental sense of these terms, should
claim to have as its product that _cœur léger_ temperament which is
said to be, and to have been, the distinctive characteristic of its
countless adherents.

When the mind wanders afar from the dogmatic of the scholiast, the
life of Jesus presents itself with a dramatic force of loveliness and
grandeur which, of its kind, cannot be surpassed; and the poetic pathos
of the New Testament, though not so resonant as that to be found in the
pages of such works as Job and the Prophets, possesses a pastoral charm
of its own at once soothing and stimulating.

In Buddhistic literature, and in the intensity of Buddhistic thoughts,
there are extraordinary and unrivalled beauties which are emphasized in
a remarkable manner, in the sympathetic rendering accorded to them by
such exponents as Professor Oldenberg and Mr. Lafcadio Hearn. One must
be insensitive to a degree if such writers and interpreters of Buddhism
do not succeed in striking a chord of overwhelming harmony throughout
the system.




CHAPTER II.

GOD AND THE KOSMOS.

  "Differences veil a fundamental unity."--BRUNO.


Both Christianity and Buddhism can be set to the same music, the music
of the unconditioned. The definition of the Christian God as invisible
and eternal, and as that which has not parts, body, or passions, is
incontestably an attempt to convert our thoughts to a belief in, and
appreciation of, the unconditioned. The entire teaching of Jesus moves
in this direction; and this will be recognized at once if we permit
ourselves to interpret his symbolic utterances in the right and only
logical sense. To be saved--that is, to realize the unconditioned--we
must believe in Jesus; namely, in his teaching.

If humanity could assume this attitude of mind--if it could attune
its thoughts to what Christian symbolism really means, or ought to
mean--then all the magnificent ritual of the Holy Catholic Church,
the realistic hymnology, even the shibboleths of the Salvationist,
would no longer give rise to the supercilious contempt of the
so-called intellectual world, but would everywhere be recognized as
the expression of the most exalted philosophy, and consonant with the
latest results of <DW43>-physiological research. "The proud have held
me exceedingly in derision, yet have I not shrinked from thy law."
Everything that teaches us that the end of all things and the goal
of all men is a complete realization of the "unconditioned" is the
acceptable word of God.

Gotama, using a symbolism of his own, and by means of parables not
wholly dissimilar to those employed by Jesus, taught the self-same
truth. The flesh has to be crucified--that is, the idea of separateness
has to be eliminated--and then only will Heaven, Nirvana, at-oneness
with the unproduced (with God), be a reality.

It is legitimate to speak of Jesus as God, and Gotama is known as
Buddha. Here we have, then, Jesus-God and Gotama-Buddha. But God and
Buddha are but two different terms used for the expression of one
identical idea. The recognition of "Buddha" as an equivalent for "God"
has been very generally ignored by interpreters of Buddhism; hence the
confusion of thought which has existed in this connection. This in some
measure may also be due to the fact that Gotama, in preaching to the
Brahmins, made use of the word "Brahma" to denote God.

Jesus and Gotama were gnomic, or divinely wise--that is, they _knew_
of the "unconditioned." They both ardently desired to communicate this
knowledge to the world, and the way of escape from absolute bondage to
the conditioned to a realization of the unconditioned. If, knowing the
way, man still elects to continue in bondage to the conditioned state,
in a hell of misery or through a series of incarnations, he can do so
by disregarding the injunction, "Set not your affections on things on
earth."

Gotama pointed out the _straight_ path that leads to a union with
Brahma (God); but there was also a circuitous path indicated by him,
by which we can make "golden stairways of our weaknesses." To the
different symbolism employed by Gotama, and the meaning attached to
this symbolism by his exponents, may also be attributed the failure of
many acquainted only with the outlines of Buddhism to assimilate the
term "Buddha" with that of "God" in its universalist sense.

When we come to a careful and impartial study of the Gospel of Buddha,
it is astonishing what a close connection is to be found therein
between the God idea of the Christian community and the Buddha idea of
the Asiatic world. Gotama does not, as many suppose, exclude the notion
of God as that of all-pervading Love. "The whole wide world," he says,
"above, below, around, and everywhere, will continue to be filled with
Love, far-reaching, grown great and beyond measure." "Buddha is the
all-loving teacher, assuming the shape of the beings whom he teaches."
This is the second person of the Buddhist triad, the apparitional body
of Gotama.

The splendid symbolism of the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity,
three persons and one God, common to both Christianity and Buddhism,
falls like the cloudy hangings of a gorgeous sunset between us and
the unconditioned. Many of the spectators are held spellbound and
enslaved by the beauty of the phenomena alone; a few see its meaning,
and realize the noumenon. The symbol is, as it were, a yearning of the
visible to suggest the invisible, the conditioned speaking to us of
the unconditioned. The small minority--the Blessed Ones, the Arhats
of Buddhism, the saints of Christendom--they are those who know the
Lord, who see God. Yet there remains for every being a sure hope of the
deathless life.

After many a weary round of births and deaths or long sojourns in
Purgatory, after many a climb up the dark ladder of life, every being
at last will reach the desired goal, and see the fulfilment of prophecy
when God will _be_ all and _in_ all.

A great Orientalist has pronounced Buddhism to be the most godless of
all heathen religions. If this assertion means that the god of the
heathens is anthropomorphic and that of the Buddhists is not so, then
the statement of this distinguished scholar, though a little staggering
at first sight, may be regarded as containing an element of truth, but
not the whole truth.

The question whether the true Buddhism of Gotama recognized a
god in any sense of the expression still exercises the minds of
controversialists. At the very outset of our inquiry into the
Buddhistic conception of a god or no-god, we are confronted by directly
conflicting conclusions arrived at by two eminent authorities.
Professor Rhys Davids regards the true Buddhism of Gotama to be nothing
but blank Atheism, whereas Mr. Arthur Lillie unflinchingly pronounces
it to be Theism _pur et simple_.

In my judgment, all the controversy that rages around the Hinayâna[O]
and the Mahayâna, which represent respectively the Southern and
Northern schools of thought, only confuses the issue; and the opinions
of sectarian Buddhists, or even the edicts of Asoka, cannot, I think,
be accepted in themselves as directly supporting any hard-and-fast
theory regarding the Theistic or Atheistic tendencies in the teaching
of Gotama.

 [O] The Hinayâna, or Small Vehicle of Salvation, was the abstract
 and philosophical presentment of Buddhism as first conceived. It was
 more adapted to the sage than to the masses who required a symbolic
 presentation, such as is afforded by the Mahayâna, or Great Vehicle
 of Salvation. We see the same kind of development holding a place in
 the history of Christianity. Upon the enigmatical utterances of Jesus
 and the mystical sophisms of St. Paul there has been raised a splendid
 fabric of dogmatic ecclesiasticism; and under the shadow of its
 symbolism the poor in spirit, the ignorant and the weak, have found
 consolations which would not have been theirs if no such development
 of the abstract principles of the faith had taken place.

With reference to the evidence of the edicts, it must not be overlooked
that Asoka figured as a good Theist while Viceroy at Ujain, and for
some years subsequent to his becoming Emperor of India--a fact which
several of his edicts, I believe, confirm.

A God, one Person (yet three Persons in One), without body (yet
walks), without parts (yet seen), without passions (yet with
compassion), a spirit, an indefinable, an illocatable, incomprehensible
substance in which we live and move and have our being, that cannot be
known, yet can be found (those that seek after me shall find me), which
some people have beautifully symbolized as a loving Father and others
have debased into a jealous and vindictive tyrant--of such a God only,
as an eternally conditionless mystery, it can surely be established,
from a review of Buddhistic evidence, that it is not, and has not been,
totally ignored.

It is difficult to see the force of denoting God as super-personal or
super-anything. He or It is personal, and everything else as masked
by materialities, and in the sense of all things being his contents.
Particles of matter are the contents of form. Form cannot be manifest
without matter. God is pure or shapeless form, as well as the formative
power of form.

Dr. Paul Carus, in referring to the God idea of the Buddhists, says:
"No religion can exist without belief in the existence of an ultimate
authority of conduct; but in this sense Buddhism, too, teaches a
belief in God. The Abhidharma, or Buddhist philosophy, distinctly
rejects the idea of a creation by an Ishvara--_i.e._, a personal
creator; but it recognizes that all deeds, be they good or evil, will
bear fruit according to their nature, and they teach that this law,
which is ultimately identical with the law of cause and effect, is
an irreversible reality; that there are no exceptions or deviations
from it. Thus law takes, to some extent, the place of the God idea,
and Buddhists gain a personal attitude to it, similarly as Christians
do when speaking of God, in quite a peculiar way. The doctrine of
the Trikâya, or the three bodies, teaches us that Buddha has three
personalities. The first one is the Dharma-Kâya, or the body of the
law; it corresponds to the Holy Ghost in the Christian dogmatology. The
second personality is the Nirmâna-Kâya, or the body of transformations;
it is transient in its various forms, and its most important and
latest appearance has been Gotama Siddhârta. This corresponds to the
second person of the Christian Trinity, to God the Son, or Christ....
The third personality of Buddha is called Sambhoga-Kâya, or the body
of bliss. It is the Christian idea of God the Father. Buddha, in his
capacity as Sambhoga-Kâya, is described as eternal, omnipresent, and
omnipotent. He is the life of all that lives, and the reality of all
that exists. Thus he is the All in All, in whom we live and move and
have our being."[P]

 [P] _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_, by Paul Carus.

General Forlong, in his _Short Studies in the Science of Comparative
Religion_, informs us that "the first great Hindu Creating Father was a
real Prajā-pati, 'Lord of Creations'--a true Hermaik Brahmā; and, being
depicted as a potent masculine Zeus, like to Yahvê, Chemosh, Amon,
etc., he in time naturally became distasteful to cultured and pious
philosophic minds searching after a _great ideal_, and no magnified
man, solar or royal governor. As did Vedantists, so have others
developed a _great neuter Brahm_; even pious Christian philosophers
have sought, and some few dared to own, a Brahm, despite the direct
anthropomorphic teaching of the Christian and Hebrew Scriptures. Thus
the Rev. Principal Caird, D.D. (Glasgow University), boldly says, in
his Gifford Lectures, 1895-6, that in his view 'Christianity knows
no such thing as a First Cause, or an Omnipotent Creator and moral
governor of the world, a being framed after the image of man, an
anthropomorphic potentate seated on a celestial throne and dispensing
rewards after the manner of an earthly sovereign or magistrate.'"

It is remarkable to find a parallel conception of Law, as associated
by Buddhists with the idea of divinity prevailing among the Egyptians,
who "recognized a divinity in those cases only when they perceived
the presence of a fixed Law, either of permanence or of change. This
_regularity_, which is the constitutive character of the Egyptian
divinity, was called Maāt. Maāt is, in fact, the Law and Order by which
the universe exists. Truth and Justice are but forms of Maāt as applied
to human action."[Q]

 [Q] _Vide Book of the Dead_ (British Museum).

In Mr. Arthur Lillie's book, _The Influence of Buddhism on Primitive
Christianity_, there is struck a note of playfulness which almost leads
one to suppose that the writer does not intend that he should be taken
seriously everywhere in his fascinating pages. This is apparent even
in his treatment of the Jewish conception of an Almighty ruler, when
he takes for his text (Judges i. 19): "The Lord was with Judah, and He
drove out the inhabitants of the mountains, but _could not_ drive out
the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron." In
a similar spirit in this connection he would probably handle rather
roughly the notion of omniscience.

Mr. Lillie, further on in his book, quotes a conversation that is said
to have taken place between Gotama and some Brahmins on the subject
of ultimate union with the Eternal Brahma. Gotama points out that all
their talk about union is foolish talk, because they know nothing about
him. But this does not necessarily imply, as one would gather from the
commentary, that Gotama knew nothing of a Brahma, or quality of the
kosmos or Buddha, which was indefinable, and could only be adumbrated
in language, and no more. His sole intention, it seems to me, was to
impress on his audience that this Brahma could not be approached by
a factitious asceticism, and that all speculations as to his nature
and origin would be mere waste of time and energy. Subsequently,
on p. 83, Gotama is made to refer to this Brahma as a non-Theistic
"It"--evidently the neuter Brahm--the absolute, or the great "I am" of
the Christian Bible.

Here I would refer _en passant_ to the following passage which occurs
on p. 84: "There are two schools of Buddhism, and they are quite agreed
in this, that Buddhism is the quickening of the spiritual vision."

This, Buddhistically understood, is true enough, but there is a danger
of the Christian reader associating with the expression "spiritual" the
idea of the existence of a spirit in man as an ego-entity. Interpreted
in this sense, the expression would be wholly inapplicable to any
possible phase of Buddhistic thought or doctrine. Gotama knew of no
independent spirit-entity in man, so there could be no such thing as
animistic vision in Buddhism.

In the New Testament it is evident from the context that Jesus,
when negatively describing a spirit as that which hath not flesh
and bones, was not alluding to spirit in the sense given to it by
modern psychologists as "ideas," or as applied to the Sankhâras by
the translator of Professor Oldenberg's book on Buddhism, but had in
view those presentations of matter of human shape, without flesh and
bone development, the appearance of which from time to time has been
confirmed by not a few rational and reliable people.

With reference to Mr. Lillie's comments on the Jewish conception of an
Almighty Ruler, it may be remarked here that _executive_ omnipotence
and omniscience convey the notion of qualities that cannot be
philosophically applied to the absolute as conceived by Brahmins. This
is very clearly enunciated in the philosophy of the Upanishads.

Mr. A. E. Gough, in his book on this subject, writes: "The Self
(Brahma, or Reality) is said to be omniscient, but the reader must
not be misled; this only means that it is self-conscious.... The
omniscience of the Reality is its irradiation of all things."

It (Reality) knows but knows nothing, it sees but sees nothing, it
loves but loves nothing; because "It" is knowledge, sight, love,
etc. It transcends the relation of subject and object. In the New
Testament we meet with the expression, "God is love"--that is, a
quality with no objective application. It is the unseen and eternal in
contradistinction to the seen and temporal.

"Brahma is Beatitude. But we must be cautious. Brahma is not Beatitude
in the ordinary sense of the term. It is a bliss beyond the distinction
of subject and object.... The Indian philosophers everywhere affirm
that Brahma is knowledge, not that Brahma has knowledge."[R]

 [R] _The Philosophy of the Upanishads_, by A. E. Gough.

This is very like Schelling's idea as portrayed in his account of the
ultimate goal of the finite ego: "The ultimate goal of the finite ego
is enlargement of its sphere till the attainment of identity with the
infinite ego. But the infinite ego knows no object, and possesses,
therefore, no consciousness or unity of consciousness, such as we mean
by personality. Consequently, the ultimate goal of all endeavour may
also be represented as enlargement of the personality to infinity--that
is to say, as its annihilation. The ultimate goal of the finite ego,
and not only of it, but also of the non-ego--the final goal, therefore,
of the world--is its annihilation as a world."[S]

 [S] _Vom ich als Princip der Philosophie._

Mr. Gough, in the book already referred to, remarks "that Buddhism is
the philosophy of the Upanishads with Brahma left out; that in Buddhism
Brahma, or the inner light, is replaced by zero, or a vacuum; that
there is no light of lights beyond the darkness of the world-fiction;
that the highest end and final hope of man is a return into this
vacuum, or aboriginal nothingness of things. This is Nirvana, the
extinction of the soul; the path to it is the path of inertion, apathy,
and vacuity."

Buddhism expounded in this fashion is likely to produce a very
erroneous conception of what it really proves to be.

In the first place, such expressions as "vacuum," "emptiness,"
"voidness," must not be interpreted solely in a negative sense; there
is a positive sense also to be taken into account. The positive
aspect of such expressions has been very clearly set forth by the
great Chinese philosopher, Lau-toze, in the following manner: "The
thirty spokes unite in the one nave, but it is on the empty space (for
the axle) that the use of the wheel depends. Clay is fashioned into
vessels, but it is on their empty hollowness that their use depends.
The door and windows are cut out (from the walls) to form an apartment,
but it is on the empty space (within) that its use depends. Therefore,
what has a (positive) existence serves for positive adaptation, and
what has not that for (actual) usefulness."[T]

 [T] Taken from _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_, by Paul Carus.

Secondly, although Gotama preached a kind of quietism, it was not the
quietism of inertion and apathy. He exhorted his followers to vigorous
activity in the acquisition of knowledge: "He who does not rouse
himself when it is time to rise, who, though young and strong, is full
of sloth, whose will and thought are weak, that lazy and idle man will
never find the way to knowledge (enlightenment). If anything is to be
done, let a man do it; let him attack it vigorously."[U]

 [U] _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xvii., pp. 68 and 75.

Mr. Gough says that to gain this extinction the sage must loose himself
from every tie and turn his back upon the world.

This is very much akin to the way in which a Christian must act,
according to the teaching of the New Testament, if he would gain
heaven, union with God, with Love, with a quality. But it would be
doing injustice to the spirit of Christianity and Buddhism to describe
their ultimate goals as annihilation, aboriginal nothingness, and
extinction, and the path to it as one of inertion, apathy, and vacuity,
in the ordinary sense of these terms.

The expression "annihilation" has much to answer for. It has been
flaunted scornfully in the face of Buddhism by Vedantists of bygone
ages and by Christians of this century; it has been hurled from pulpits
with tremendous vehemence into the ears of bewildered congregations,
and it has formed a text for delighted and triumphant denunciation
in innumerable articles--in fact, with annihilation inscribed on its
banners, the whole host of Buddha's army has been depicted as marching
inevitably to utter and irretrievable ruin.

At this juncture let us turn to a later authority, Mr. Lafcadio Hearn,
who, in answer to the question, What remains to rise above all forms
and the total disintegration of body and final dissolution of the
mind? sets forth the Buddhist conception in the following manner:
"Unconsciously dwelling behind the false consciousness of imperfect
man--beyond sensation, perception, thought--wrapped in the envelope of
what we call soul (which, in truth, is only a thickly-woven veil of
illusion), is the eternal and divine, the absolute Reality; not a soul,
not a personality, but the All-self without selfishness--the _Muga no
Taiga_--the Buddha enwombed in Karma. Within every phantom-self dwells
this divine; yet the innumerable are but one. Within every creature
incarnate sleeps the Infinite Intelligence, unevolved, hidden, unfelt,
unknown, yet destined from all the eternities to waken at last, to rend
away the ghostly web of sensuous mind, to break for ever its chrysalis
of flesh, and pass to the supreme conquest of Space and Time."[V]

 [V] Lafcadio Hearn's _Gleanings in Buddha Fields_.

There is no doubt, as General Forlong informs us in his _Short Studies
in the Science of Comparative Religions_, that Buddha's followers
"finally revered him as a god, mixing up the first high and pure
teaching of his faith with all the varied old and new doctrines, rites,
and follies peculiar to each race and land which developed it. Every
religion has to submit to this ordeal."

It cannot be too often reiterated that a personal moral ruler of the
universe, "a gigantic shadow thrown upon the void of space by the
imagination," or a sublimated edition of man located in the sky, is
entirely foreign to true Buddhism; and, although Gotama deprecated
as futile all speculations into the ultimate origin of things, he,
in his "Buddha" capacity, was aware of the theory of an uncaused
cause, whether called "Akâsa" or "Dzyu," or anything else, from which
everything has issued in obedience to a law of motion inherent in
it.[W] This uncaused cause has its counterpart in the incomprehensible
Uncreate of the Athanasian Creed. It is the God without and the kingdom
of heaven within. A Buddha and It are one.

 [W] _Vide_ _Buddhistic Catechism_, by Colonel Olcott.

In the "White Lotus of Dharma" Gotama is made to declare that, though
in the form of a Buddha, he is in reality the Self-existent.[X] On the
other hand, from a purely phenomenal point of view, "a Buddha is simply
a very wise man, and means 'The Awakened.'"

 [X] _Vide_ Lillie's _Buddhism_.

"Buddha, as a Buddha, knew all about the ultimate origin of the Kosmos.
The personal Buddha, however, abstained from any such speculations,
holding that, for the purposes of practical ethics, the wise man not
only may, but must, avoid the distraction of speculation as to any
ultimate cause" (Rev. Spence Hardy). "Self-conquest and universal
charity, these are the foundation thoughts, the web and woof of
Buddhism, the melodies on the variations of which its enticing harmony
is built up" (Professor Rhys Davids). Such, too, according to the
Christian Scriptures, is religion, pure and undefiled, before God and
the Father.

The Rev. A. Sherring points out how the success of Gotama in
overcoming the forces opposed to him "is unparalleled in human
history.... That a solitary man, prince and ascetic, after pondering
for five years over all the great doctrines of religions, priestcraft,
falsities, the immoralities, shams, and confusions of those times,
and the groans and miseries of his countrymen, that he should devise
an entirely new system, think it out, and put it in order to meet
objectors and overcome their arguments, and then go forth to the
gradual conquest of India, and send forth missionaries who have
converted 500 millions of people--that all this was the ultimate
result of that one man's energy, sagacity, and resoluteness of will is
assuredly one of the most astounding events in the annals of the world.
He was a simple philosopher, reasoner, and calm disputant, employing
no physical force whatever; while the morality which he enforced was
the purest the world ever saw." General Forlong, in quoting this
passage, says: "Such, divested of a few professional words, is the
deliberate opinion of one of the best, the most learned and experienced
missionaries."

Professor Rhys Davids seems to level a shaft at the typical Christian
when he says that the Buddhist saint does not mar the purity of his
self-denial by lusting after a positive happiness in a world to come;
nor, it might be added, does the essential Christian who realizes the
kingdom of heaven within.

If we take the word "God" in a restricted anthropomorphic sense, and
the word "soul" to mean an entity that survives the body, it will
appear strange to many, as Professor Rhys David says, that a religion
which ignores the existence of such a God, and denies the existence
of such a soul, should be the very religion which has found most
acceptance among men. The same authority remarks that of any immaterial
existence Buddhism knows nothing. This is true if "immaterial" or
"spiritual" is taken to mean something altogether divorced from matter.

The universe, according to Buddhism, is not merely an arrangement
of matter into forms and substances, but it consists also of the
qualities of matter, and the relationship of the different particles
and qualities to each other. The philosophy of Buddhism, in this
connection, is Monism, which is described by its exponents as "a
unitary world-conception, but not a one-substance theory. It does not
imply that the world consists either of matter alone or of spirit
alone, or that all its phenomena are motions only; but that our
concepts of spiritual, material, mechanical, and other processes are
abstractions, representing special features of reality; reality itself
being one inseparable and indivisible entirety."

The phenomenal is a mode of the noumenal, as heat is a mode of motion.
"_Ex_-istence" is a mode of "istence." There is no "beyond," no "behind
the veil"; it is all one. If we take, as a provisional analogy, the
flower of a tree to be the noumenal, and the root the phenomenal, they
are both--as belonging to the tree--the same, and yet not the same. The
soul might be likened to the blossom at the apex, at a point farthest
away from the earth. The more perfect this soul-blossom becomes, the
nearer it approaches the possibility of entering upon the unconditioned
as immortal beauty--

                  "Like to the flower
  That fades into itself at evening hour,"

and becoming thereby identical with truth.

  "Beauty is truth, truth beauty--that is all
  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Many people assign to music a power, exceeding that of all other arts,
of sublimating the emotions of the human heart. Altering somewhat the
form of the definition of Poetry as given by Theodore Watts, in his
article on the subject in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, one might
say that absolute music is the _non_-concrete and artistic expression
of the human mind in emotional and rhythmical sounds. The state of
the mind under the influence of music has been compared to a "sea of
emotion--uncurdled by thoughts." This mental condition may also be
super-induced, I think, by means of sculpture, painting, and poetry.
In fact, I would maintain that the success of an artist, whether he be
musician, poet, or painter, must always be measurable by his power of
suggesting the unconditioned, or of bringing the human mind as near as
possible to a _thoughtless_ state of emotion, and, finally, to that of
non-emotion.

In the gospel according to Buddha it is written:

"There lurks in transient form immortal bliss."

The true artist can cause this immortal bliss to be felt, in all its
Nirvanic beauty, by those naturally susceptible to such influences, as
well as by those who, by a course of training, have rendered themselves
capable of receiving them.

There is no line of demarcation between the noumenal and phenomenal.
The one fades into the other, as all forms and outlines would disappear
into the surrounding atoms or cosmic dust under a sufficiently
powerful magnifying glass. "Appearance (the world of phenomena) is
the real, as confusedly and partially understood.... The real is
the apparent completely understood, and seen in the light of the
whole.... Appearance is the appearance of reality.... If we know 'only
phenomena,' we must thereby know _something_ of that of which they are
phenomena."[Y]

 [Y] _Vide Mind_, October, 1898; "The One and the Many," by D. G.
 Ritchie.

According to Buddhistic teaching, there are two worlds, so to
speak--the one ruled by the law of causality, the other over which
the law of causality has no power. A Buddhist would say that "the man
who applies to the strictly unconditioned predicates such as being
and non-being, which are used properly enough of the finite, the
conditioned, resembles one who attempts to count the sands of the
Ganges or the drops of the ocean."

With much the same sort of reasoning Jesus referred to the mysteries of
the kingdom of heaven when addressing those who had eyes and did not
see, and ears and did not hear.

In view of the apparent fact that the human body has reached its
utmost limits of development, as a physical organism, there seems to
be a thinkable probability that it will eventually, by a devolutionary
process and by the atrophy of its present clumsy and imperfect organs,
return, step by step, during the gradual cooling of this planet, to the
condition of the psychic life of a simple cellule, and ultimately to
the unconditioned; back, as Huxley puts it, to the indefinable latency
from which we arose; or, as Carlyle expresses it, "pass stormfully
across the astonished earth from God and to God."

Starting from the simple cellule, we see, in a way, how "Tanha," or the
desire to extend the scope of activities, has persistently striven in
this direction until the ultimate possibilities of the development of
physical organism have been reached in man.

This highly-differentiated organism has become more and more sensitive
to pain, more and more dissatisfied with its limitations; and man,
recognizing these limitations, desires to abandon them altogether.
Consequently, he seeks refuge in the hope of a future life, where
limitations will no longer curb and embarrass him, and where he will
cease to be subject to pain, passion, and sorrow.

Jesus and Gotama have indicated how by the suppression of this "Tanha,"
how by detachment from the things of the world, we can approach that
simple cellular life-stage which is on the road to Heaven, Nirvana, and
the Unconditioned. It is easy to realize how much pleasanter it would
have been for us all if the simple cellule from which we spring had
not been so persistently ambitious in the direction of activities. Its
relatively prescribed functions suggest a most desirable condition of
peace compared to that "unrest which men miscall delight."

Human life is but a drop in the ocean of organic existences on this
planet--about 1,500 millions only among countless myriads of beings.
It cannot, then, be accounted strange in a world containing so great
a variety of organisms, with their varying tastes and needs, that man
should find much that is distasteful and unsuitable to him which is
pleasant and acceptable to other beings. The vulture feasts on carrion
loathsome to man. Man partakes of food at which a rhinoceros would
shudder.

Morality, as a law and corollary of organized life, being confined to
humanity, it follows that immorality, as subversive of this law, would
be of necessity abhorrent to those who appreciate a law without which
social life would become intolerable, and not worth living. But, when
we come to consider why it should be that the exquisite process of the
decomposition of flesh should be less pleasing to the senses than the
formation and fading of a sunset, we are forced to the conclusion that
the world was not made for man, but man for the world.

The "part" working indiscriminately with and for the "whole" is an
ethical law observable throughout the universe. All individuals are,
unconsciously for the most part, carrying into effect the will of God
by the will of God. We speak about individual effort to attain this
perfection or avoid that evil, because we cannot divest ourselves of
the feeling of free-will. To speak and act under a sense of free-will
is forced upon us by the delusion of separateness.

It is often the case that God is only recognized in the beautiful
aspects of nature. St. Paul says: "There are diversities of operations,
but it is the same God that worketh _all_ in _all_." We have to see
God, not only in the sweet waters, but also in the deadly swamp; in the
healthy child as well as in the fœtid diseases of the sick. "That art
thou," as the Buddhist truly says. The delicious and the disgusting are
equally necessary as factors in the scheme of the universe; there is
in both the same cosmic law fulfilling itself. "Dragons and all deeps:
fire and hail fulfilling his word." A difference only exists in the
appreciation of them.

This Monistic view of nature in no respect stands in the way of our
regarding God as the sublimated reality of an ideal existence. Dr. Paul
Carus, in his booklet on _The Idea of God_, says: "If the idea of God
is an empty dream which we must expel from our minds, why not expel all
ideas and all ideals? They are just as much and just as little real....
From this point of view a denial of the existence of God would, with
consistency, lead us also to a denial of an integral, or a logarithm,
or a differential. An integral is just as little a concrete object as
is God. And the idea of God is just as important in the real life of
human activity, human thought and emotion, as the idea of honesty is in
the mercantile world, that of courage among warriors, and that of faith
in science."

Buddha has taught that there are worlds more perfect and developed,
and others less so, than this earth; and that the inhabitants of each
world correspond in development with itself.[Z] Mr. Lafcadio Hearn
says: "The Buddhist denial of the reality of the apparitional world is
not a denial of the reality of phenomena as phenomena, nor a denial of
the forces producing phenomena objectively and subjectively.... The
true declaration is, that what we perceive is never reality in itself,
and that even the ego that perceives is an unstable plexus of feelings
which are themselves unstable, and in the nature of illusions. This
position is scientifically strong, perhaps impregnable."

 [Z] _Vide Buddhist Catechism_, by Colonel Olcott.

Indian philosophers have attempted, with a fair measure of success, to
overcome the perplexity presented by the idea of diversity in unity.
They say that, "as an individual can conjure up visions of various
phenomena in his waking state without destroying his sense of unity as
an individual, so there may be a multiform creation in the One Absolute
without any suppression of its unitary nature. To the Unconscious
Absolute phenomena stand in the relation of dreams to the individual
who is conscious of dreams on awaking. But the Unconscious Absolute
does not awake; therefore 'It' remains unconscious of phenomena. The
variety of the world is like the variety of a dream."

In a commentary on the Essence of the Upanishads the fictitiousness of
emanations from unity is thus illustrated:--

"A belated wayfarer mistakes a piece of rope lying on the road for a
snake; the delusion disappears, but the rope remains the rope. So with
the apparitional world: the delusion passes, and unity remains.[AA]

 [AA] _Cf._ "Illusions are sensations wrongly interpreted" (D. G.
 Ritchie).

"All the figments of the world-fiction may be made to disappear in such
a way that pure thought, or the self, shall alone remain, in the same
manner as the fictitious serpent seen in a piece of rope may be made to
disappear, and the rope that underlies it may be made to remain. The
rope was only the rope all the time it falsely seemed to be a snake.
The fictitious world may be made to disappear as the fictitious snake
is made to disappear, and this is its sublation."[AB]

 [AB] _Philosophy of the Upanishads_, by A. E. Gough.

Professor Seth, referring in his book, entitled _The Position of Man
in the Kosmos_, to Mr. Bradley's _Appearance and Reality_, remarks:
"Reality 'must own' and somehow include appearance." In another part of
his book he writes: "We are ourselves immersed in the process of the
universe. We can only live our own life, and see through our own eyes.
If we could do more, that would mean that we ourselves had vanished
from the universe; the place which had known us would know us no more;
and there would be, as it were, a gap created in the tissue of the
world."

Under "Mysticism," in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, we read: "Our
consciousness of self is the condition under which we possess a world
to know and to enjoy; but it likewise isolates us from all the world
beside. Reason is the revealer of nature and God; but, by its acts,
reason seems the thing reasoned about. Hence mysticism demands a
faculty above reason, by which the subject shall be placed in immediate
and complete union with the object of his desire--a union in which the
consciousness of self has disappeared, and in which, therefore, subject
and object are one."

The Great Self, or Immanent Power--expressions barely communicable
to the understanding by the rather restrictive sounding and abrupt
terminology of the word "God"--perhaps nearer in thought to the Will
in Nature of Schopenhauer--with which the Brahmins of India sought
communion, has been to them from time immemorial the Alpha and Omega
of their being. When religion steps in it is a frame of mind, not a
set of opinions. They cannot in truth be called superstitious; they
are, to coin a word, _substitious_. They sink, plummet-wise, into the
fathomless; the line is severed, and they are lost in the depths and
caverns of nescience. The concrete, with them, has always ranked lower
than the abstract.

Vamadéo Shastri, writing in the _Fortnightly Review_ of November, 1898,
on the theological situation in India, says:--

  In Europe, as I understand, your churches have long ago closed the era
  of unlimited metaphysical speculation, retaining only certain mysterious
  dogmata that are authoritatively prescribed as facts--that are
  not philosophical discoveries, but are declarations of revealed truth.

  You have drawn up your creeds; you have settled finally all essential
  beliefs in future rewards and punishments, in man's redemption from
  sin and resurrection, and, above all, in a Divine Personality. You have
  numbered and ended the list of your sacred books; you look for no
  fresh revelation; you have regulated by ordinances the rites and
  ceremonies which unite the worshippers and divide the Churches....

  But I want you to understand that we are still wandering in the
  metaphysic wilderness, and that Christianity, returning at last after an
  interval of so many centuries, finds us still engaged on the same
  problems as those which occupied the schools of Antioch and Alexandria
  and the secret professors of the Jewish Kabbala.

  We have never yet set limits, either by philosophic criticism or by
  ecclesiastic ordinance, to the range of free inquiry or to the thinking
  faculty. We cannot submit to the restrictions placed by faith
  upon inquiry into mysteries; we are driven by our mental constitution
  to overleap the bounds of sentient experience, and to construct, like
  your ancient heretics, some intelligible theory of the unconditioned.

  We are incapable of apprehending a Personality, except in the sense
  of something that masks or represents an incomprehensible notion; and
  dogmatic systems are to us no more than the formal envelopes of
  spiritual truth.

         *       *       *       *       *

  Two cardinal ideas run through our deeper religious thought. One
  is the Maya, or cosmic illusion, which cuts the knot of any difficulty
  touching the relation between Spirit and Matter, and produces Unity
  by exhibiting the visible universe as a shadow projected upon the
  white radiance of eternity; the other is the notion of the soul's
  deliverance by long travail from existence in any stage or shape.

         *       *       *       *       *

  In short, we have a religion, but no theology.

"By Plotinus 'The One' is explicitly exalted above the 'νοῦς' and the
'ideas'; it transcends existence altogether, and is not cognizable
by reason. Remaining itself in repose, it rays out, as it were, from
its fulness an image of itself, which is called 'νοῦς,' and which
constitutes the system of ideas, or the intelligible world. The soul is
in turn the image or product of the 'νοῦς' and the soul, by its motion,
begets corporeal matter. The soul thus faces two ways--towards the
'νοῦς,' from which it springs, and towards the material life, which is
its own product" (_vide Encyclopædia Britannica_).

A consideration of the theosophy of the "Sohar," or Book of Splendour,
does not afford a key to the solution of this problem. We meet there
with the same difficulty, the inconceivable transition point, where the
"inactive" mingles with the "active." Ensoph is the Absolute, the great
"I am," the endless, the boundless, the incomprehensible.

Mr. Bradley, in his book on _Appearance and Reality_, asks whether
we really have a positive idea of an absolute defined as "one
comprehensive sentience"; and he answers that, while we cannot fully
realize its existence, its main features are drawn from our own
experience, and we have also a suggestion there of the unity of a whole
embracing distinctions within itself. "Identity only exists through
differences, unity through multiplicity. Such is the constant thesis of
the Hegelian philosophy."[AC]

 [AC] _Vide_ Professor Seth's _Position of Man in the Kosmos_.

The apparent connection between the Buddhist and Christian conceptions
of a God is very ably stated by Dr. Paul Carus, and with the following
extracts from his writings I may fitly close the subject of this
chapter:--

"Buddhism is commonly said to deny the existence of a God. This is
true, or not true, according to the definition of God.

"While Buddhists do not believe that God is an individual being like
ourselves, they recognize that the Christian God idea contains an
important truth, which, however, is differently expressed in Buddhism.
Buddhism teaches that Bôdhi, or Sambôdhi, or Amitabha--_i.e._,
that which gives enlightenment, or, in other words, those verities
the recognition of which is Nirvana (constituting Buddhahood)--is
omnipresent and eternal."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Christianity possesses in the idea, and, indeed, in the very word
'God,' representing the authority of moral conduct in a most forcible
manner, a symbol of invaluable importance; it is an advantage which has
contributed not a little to make Christianity so powerful and popular,
so impressive and effective, as it has proved to be. In this little
word 'God' much has been condensed, and it contains an unfathomable
depth of religious comfort."




CHAPTER III.

SOUL, SELF, INDIVIDUALITY, AND KARMA.

  "Verily every man is altogether vanity; for man walketh in a vain
  show, he disquieteth himself in vain."--BIBLE.


The feat of mental gymnastics performed by Gotama regarded as a
phenomenal being, which led to the abrogation of "soul" as an
ego-entity from its dominion in the minds of men, combined with the
amazing fact that nearly a third of the population of this planet has,
for many centuries, enthusiastically acquiesced in this dethronement of
animism, must be regarded as one of the most striking wonders in the
religious history of the human race.

As astronomical science disposed of the geocentric theory of the
universe, greatly to the advantage of theological progressiveness, so
the exponents of modern psychology hope to dispel the delusion of the
ego-centric theory of man, and to clear the way for a more scientific
and a truer conception of that which is commonly understood by the word
"soul." According to the teaching of these psychologists, there is no
ego-entity, or hidden and mysterious factor, that stands behind the
psychic and physical organism of man.

The soul of man consists of a group of ideas, and these ideas are in
intimate connection with the so-called external world, as also with
what may be expressed as the internal world of a Being wherein has
taken place the development of the hereditary germ.

In Buddhism it appears to me to be a matter of choice whether we apply
the term "soul" to a group of ideas, which, in the case of the Saint,
as sublimated ideas, synchronously cease with the formative faculty,
and vanish ultimately into the unconditioned, or to the effects of a
man's disposition, which continue as impressions on the characters of
those who receive them.

"Man" is a name for a materialized presentation of reality--that
is, for particles of matter assuming form under the influence of a
formative faculty and the results of the interactions, relations, and
qualities peculiar to the particles and this particular aggregation.

On the occurrence of what is known as death the components of the body
are no longer held together, as it were, by the formative faculty, and
the body loses its vitality. But, in the ordinary course of things, of
form there remains this formulative faculty, or impulse to re-combine.
"Form is destructible, yet it remains 'form' in the sense that it has
within it the power to renew form."

The most important factor in the formation of man is not the material
particles that make up his body, but "form." This "form" is a reality,
but not a materiality. If the interaction of the component parts, under
the influence of externalities, ceases to work towards the preservation
of the formative faculty or re-combining influence, a material
presentation of "form" will not re-ensue, and the discontinuance of the
formative element is Reality, Truth, Nirvana, God.

If the desire to describe a triangle on paper does not exist, the
materialized presentation of a real axiomatic triangle will not be
formed, while the perfect triangle still remains a Reality. In this
case, under certain influences, the formative faculty has been subdued,
and the consequence is that the material form of the triangle, in its
necessary imperfection, has not been produced. The perfect triangle is
the undescribed triangle. Should bubbles on the surface of the ocean
be deprived of this formative faculty which made them as they are, the
power to resume their shape after dissolution would be gone for ever.
But if the faculty to re-form remained, they would again crop up on the
surface of the sea, the formative faculty making use of the materials
at hand under the influences of "form."

Analogously, the Saint, according to Buddhism, who is rid of the
formative faculty, does not re-exist as a phenomenal being. It might be
objected that to make use of the expression "formative faculty" is only
to revert to the doctrine of essences and faculties as principles of
explanation, and to rely on the exploded superstition of _apriorism_.
But this is not the case. The formative faculty is a quality of form,
and form is an experience. The intangible and manifest, such as form,
can as reasonably be credited with qualities as the tangible and
material.

"The soul is a special form of life, as the flame is a special form of
motion." It is also a product of life, and life is the arrangement and
re-arrangement of matter, subject to form, with which are associated
the qualities of matter and the relations and interactions of these
qualities.

"Gotama," Dr. Paul Carus remarks, "strange to say, anticipated the
modern conception of the soul as it is now taught by the most advanced
scientists of Europe." St. Paul, too, may be reckoned as one who, if he
had lived in these days, would have given his support to that positive
philosophy which regards the soul as a product of materiality; for, he
says: "Howbeit that was not first which was spiritual, but that which
was natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual. The first man is
of the earth earthy; the second man (the soul) is the Lord from heaven."

When the distinction between the expressions "materiality" and
"reality" is clearly discerned, it removes a difficulty out of our
way when we come to consider a means of bringing into harmony the
Christian and Buddhist conception of "soul." It has been contended
that, if you deny substance to the soul, it is tantamount to asserting
the non-existence of the soul. But if it is admitted that "reality" has
existence as well as "materiality," this objection falls to the ground.

The definition of matter as that which occupies space is not a
comprehensive one. It is only the definition of a supposed quality of
matter; it is abstracted in our minds from other qualities. Therefore,
if we regard "soul," more especially in its sublimated condition, as
something akin to a quality of matter after matter, as we perceive
it, has been abstracted, we have a residuum which both Christians and
Buddhists alike can accept as an approximate explanation of the nature
of "soul."

The eschatology of the soul, as indicated in the two systems, is less
easy to harmonize. The soul, according to Catholic notions, after the
death of the body, undergoes a purgatorial process; and, in the general
view of Protestants, awaits--sleeping or waking--in the ante-room of a
judgment-hall until a final verdict is pronounced on the Day of Doom;
and then, and not till then, is it allotted its ultimate rest or unrest.

On the other hand, that which is in Buddhistic thought the counterpart
of this soul, whether we call it a "group of ideas" or the "effects of
Karma," must submit, till absolutely bereft of the formative faculty
or desire to live, to continuous incarnations. This, however, does
not involve a process of transmigration, as is sometimes incorrectly
assumed.

Several illustrations have been made use of to explain the
migrationless nature of the process. "When a lamp is lit at a burning
lamp there is a kindling of the wick, but no transmigration of the
flame." A thought is conveyed by words from one to another, but of the
thought itself there is no migration. Neither is there migration of any
part of an object to a photographic plate, nor in the reflection of an
object in a mirror.

It is matter for speculation whether the Christian idea of tarriance
in an ante-room, and more especially the purgatorial process, might
not be strained in meaning so as to imply that re-incarnation on this
planet is the fate of some souls, prior to their ultimate reception
into Paradise or condemnation to everlasting fire. Some such idea,
maybe, was afloat in the lifetime of Jesus, when the question was
asked: "Is this Elias come again?"

The Christian and Buddhist conception of "soul" differs considerably as
to position. The one stands isolated; the other is not so posited. The
soul, according to the Buddhist, is not a "self-in-itself." "Buddhism
does not deny the existence of a soul or individuality, but denies
the independent existence of a soul or individuality." The Christian
conception of the soul corresponds with that of Kapila, the founder of
the Sankhya philosophy, in so far as he conceived the soul to be a kind
of transcendent, sublimated body, the thinker of our thoughts and the
doer of our acts. This dualism was rejected by Gotama.

It is necessary to bear in mind, with a view to the proper
comprehension of Buddhist teaching in regard to the immortality of
the soul, that, "although the Samskâras, or soul-forms, constituting
our existence, come to an end as activities in the case of the saint
who has extinguished desire, there remains an immortal residuum in
the unconditioned elements of soul-form which are beyond the reach of
death." After death such a saint might be said to have a continued
existence (as others have) in the effects shed upon others by his Karma
during his lifetime. The difference, as I understand it, is this:
that, in the case of the saint, the _formative_ element of Karma, as
it has taken shape in bodily existence, ceases to be from the date of
his sainthood; and subsequently the effects of Karma, which _must_
continue to be shed on others as impressions as long as he lives, are
informative--that is, do not carry with them a desire to live; and,
consequently, the saint, from the date of his sainthood, may be said to
have no continuing existence in the life of another sentient being.

Dr. Paul Carus, in his handy little book, entitled _The Dharma; or,
The Religion of Enlightenment_, remarks: "Buddhism sheds a new light
upon Christian doctrine. Thus the continuity in the evolution of life,
which does away with a wrong conception of a separate self, explains
and justifies the Christian idea of original sin (or, as it ought to be
called, 'inherited sin'); for men inherit not only the curse of their
ancestors' sin, but actually consist of their sinful dispositions;
every man is a re-incarnation of previous deeds, and represents, for
good and for evil, their legitimate continuation."

"Being," in a Buddhistic sense, in the words of Professor Oldenberg's
translator, is the procession regulated by the law of causality--of
continuous being at every moment, self-consuming and anew-begetting.
What is termed a "souled" being is one individual in the line of this
procession, one flame in a sea of flame.

So quaintly beautiful is the following dialogue between King Milinda
(the Greek King Menander) and the Saint Nagasena that, notwithstanding
its frequent quotation, I venture to reproduce it:--

"The Saint Nagasena says: 'It is not the same being, and yet they are
separate beings, which relieve one another in the series of existences.'

"'Give an illustration,' says King Milinda. 'If a man were to light a
light, O great king, would it not burn through the night?'--'Yes, sire;
it would burn through the night.' 'How, then, O great king, is the
flame in the first watch of the night identical with the flame in the
midnight watch?'--'No, sire.' 'And the flame in the midnight watch--is
it identical with the flame in the last watch of the night?'--'No,
sire.' 'But how then, O great king, was the light in the first watch
of the night another, in the midnight watch another, and in the last
watch of the night another?'--'No, sire; it has burned all night long,
feeding on the same fuel.' 'So, also, O great king, the chain of
elements of being (Dhamma) completes itself; the one comes, the other
goes. Without beginning, without end, the circle completes itself;
therefore it is neither the same being nor another being which presents
itself last to the consciousness.'"[AD]

 [AD] From _Buddhism_, by Professor Oldenberg.

Omar Khayyam says:--

  "We are no other than a moving show
  Of magic shadow-shapes that come and go."

The body disappears, even in Christian eschatology, as an earthly body
for ever; but its scattered chemicals are re-utilized, according to
some, to clothe the soul in heavenly places, or for purposes of torture
and indescribable anguish. Others have sought consolation in the
thought of the reappearance of the body's elements in various beautiful
forms--in the ruby goblet, in the flowers, in the foam of the sea:--

  "And this reviving herb, whose tender green
  Hedges the river-lip on which we lean--
    Ah, lean upon it lightly; for who knows
  From what once lovely lip it springs unseen!"

Of those believing in the separateness of the soul there may be many
who fondly crave that the "gentle dews" of eternal sleep may fall at
last upon its suppliant eyes.

  "He giveth His beloved sleep."

A writer in the _Monist_ of January, 1898, makes the following
remarks in a reference to "self": "In the psychological theories of
Christianity and Buddhism there is more agreement than at first sight
appears, for it is difficult to say what we must understand by self.
'Personality' is used by Christian thinkers in a very loose sense. In
the doctrine of the Trinity it is not incompatible to speak of three
personalities in One."

He quotes texts from St. Paul's epistles to the Corinthians: "I have
planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So, then, neither
is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that
giveth the increase. Now, he that planteth and he that watereth are
one." In this connection the writer observes: "Here, apparently,
everyone is supposed to have no separate existence whatever, except in
God and through God."

The self, soul, or individuality, which continues after the dissolution
of the body, has been broadly described as character or disposition;
therefore, in using the term "self" in a Buddhistic sense, we must
put aside every idea beyond what is conveyed to the mind by this
interpretation. This character or disposition does not come to an
end as an activity until "Tanha," or the thirst to live for living's
sake, is extinct. Therefore, when Buddhistic thought is converted into
conventional language, we must be cautious how we interpret such a
statement as "_We_ are saved by our individual merits." The "we" here
means only "character," which, if improved during a lifetime, carries
with it this improvement, of which a new being will reap the benefits.

Professor Rhys Davids calls the mystery of Karma "a desperate
expedient, a wonderful hypothesis, an airy nothing, an imaginary
cause beyond the reach of reason." But he previously states that it
affords an explanation quite complete, to those who can believe it,
of the apparent anomalies and wrongs in the distribution here of
happiness and woe. So it may be said, also, of the mysteries attaching
to Christianity. They satisfy the believer, though they present
difficulties to the reasoner. According to the Christian formula,
we are, as Burton says, fallen beings, not through our own fault;
condemned to death, not through our own demerits; ransomed by a Divine
Being, not through our own merits.

The Buddhist saying, "From birth came death," and the story of the
Garden of Eden, seem to possess some figurative connection with the
transition of micro-organisms from a fissiparous to a duogynous
condition. The amœba is endowed with the potentialities of eternal
life; but when the spermatozoid and ovule (the symbolic serpent
and apple) appeared on the scene, when the luminous Adam passed
successively through the fissiparous and androgynous states, and
finally became man and woman, death entered into the world.

The writer in the _Monist_ already referred to, commenting upon
the text, "Every man shall receive his own reward according to his
own labour" (1 Cor. i. 5), says: "The coincidence of Buddhism and
Christianity is remarkable in this passage; for, as the Buddhist
Scriptures speak of the fruits of Karma, so Paul speaks of the rewards
of one's labour."

Mr. Lillie, in referring to the doctrine of re-incarnation, quotes from
an article in the _Church Quarterly Review_,[AE] in which, he says,
"the author of the article, in proof of the existence of this doctrine,
adduces the question put by the disciples of Christ in reference to
the man born blind. And if it was considered that a man could be born
blind as a punishment for sin, then it must have been plainly committed
before his birth." In the _White Lotus of Dharma_ there is an account
of the healing of a blind man: "Because of the sinful conduct of the
man (in a former birth) this malady has arisen." He also remarks that,
in the case of the paralytic (Luke v. 18), the cure was effected, not
by any physical processes, but by annulling the _sins_ which were the
cause of the malady.

 [AE] October, 1885.

The Rev. Mr. Spence Hardy, in his _Manual of Buddhism_, observes that
"no one can tell but a Buddha how Karma operates or how the chain of
existence commenced. It is as vain to ask in what part of the tree the
fruit exists before the blossom is put forth as to ask for the locality
of Karma." When the King of Ságal inquired where Karma resides, its
locality, Nagasena replied: "Karma is like a shadow that always
accompanies the body. But it cannot be said that it is here, or that it
is there; in this place, or in that place."

It has, I believe, been stated by some writers that it would have
been as well if Gotama had not encumbered his teaching with such a
complex and metaphysical theory as Karma, and had confined himself
to the admirable moral precepts which form the real backbone of his
system. It has been thought, too, that in introducing Karma into his
scheme of things he was playing the _rôle_ of an opportunist, because
he felt it to be necessary for the success of his mission that it
should not be altogether severed in outline from such a conception as
that of metempsychosis, which was deeply implanted in the minds of the
Brahmanic philosophers of those times. Buddhism would certainly have
been incomplete if it had not included mysteries, as Christianity would
not be Christianity without an admixture of the indefinable.

"Karma," as "working," may, I think, be regarded as one of the
essential components of Christian thought with regard to the soul.
It is the working of the soul at the same time, the being-made-soul
or disposition. As the latter it is heritable and appropriable; its
effects are endless, and this "working" is carried on, so to speak,
from generation to generation, organically and inorganically--in the
rock, in the flower, and in all animal life--the same producing the
same, and yet not the same.

The doctrine of Karma is justifiably proclaimed as the most important
tenet of Buddhism, for on it depends the whole system of morality and
of individual responsibility; and yet, strange to say, there is no part
of Buddhism which has occasioned so much controversy and difference of
opinion. It is at once the foundation of belief for millions of true
believers and the basis of scepticism on the part of many who would
otherwise willingly concur in the dogmas of this religion. In this
respect it holds an analogous position to that of the doctrine of the
resurrection of the body in the judgment of Christianity.

Is it possible, some ask, that a belief in the doctrine of Karma, which
has exercised so enormous an influence for good over countless millions
of human creatures--many of them men of the highest order of culture
and intellectuality--should only be resolvable into an "airy nothing"?
We may have to acknowledge that the reason is not able to follow the
idea of Karma through all its phases, nor yet to assimilate the various
postulates which it demands. But can Christianity boast of doctrines
which are always reducible to the canons of reason and common sense? We
think not.

Here, again, we find a common ground between these two religions.
Neither is capable of being wholly defended by matter-of-fact methods;
both demand a certain measure of faith from their adherents. The
strength of the dogma of Karma lies rather in the fact that, like the
ideas of free-will, heaven, and God, it is innate in a large portion
of mankind; and it would be sheer presumption to dismiss with a few
contemptuous phrases a belief which is deeply embedded in nearly
one-half of the human race.

The seeming injustice of the unequal distribution of happiness and
suffering among human beings is a problem which Christianity does
not attempt to solve. Buddhism, on the other hand, grapples with the
difficulty; and we have the much-debated doctrine of Karma as the
result. There can be no doubt that this doctrine, once accepted,
removes all difficulty out of the way. Karma is literally "action," or
"doing." This action, after death, and during life too, bears fruit,
for the consequences of action cannot be destroyed. It is, in fact, the
scientific theory of the conservation of energy.

When the individual dies his Karma effects are re-incarnated, as
it were, in another being, and form the connecting link between the
two individuals--the one the author of the Karma effects, the other
the inheritor of them. In this particular way we have a sufficient
explanation and justification of moral retribution.

How this second individual comes into existence expressly for the
purpose of inheriting the Karma of the first, and the nature and mode
of the transmigration of Karma, are questions which have generally been
placed beyond the scope of the human intellect, and will be considered
later on.

A way out of this difficulty has been proposed, by which, while
still adhering to the essentials of the doctrine of Karma, we can
reduce it to a form more capable of being grasped and supported by
our reason; but it has no authority among the utterances of Gotama,
and, in accepting it, we should be diverging somewhat from orthodox
Buddhism. Suppose we take as an analogy the case of a river, which,
after flowing some hundreds of miles, is dried up by the heat of the
sun. It is evident that the river, while flowing between its banks, has
been absorbed in a great measure by the porous earth, and has gone to
fructify the soil. The trees, grass, and crops which have been produced
by its moisture are, of course, its Karma--the effects of its action,
or "doing." When it has ceased to flow, the whole of its Karma has been
dissipated into various effects, which, in their turn becoming causes,
exercise their influence over practically the whole earth. There is
no Karma, intact and integrated, which, according to some views of
Buddhism, should be the _raison d'être_ of another _river_.

In the same way, an individual, while alive, scatters his Karma (or
the influence of his character) among his surroundings. When he has
ceased to live he has also ceased to act, and, consequently, there
can be no more Karma. This is one way of getting rid of the idea
of a lump of Karma, which after death, in some way or another, is
supposed to produce, or to have produced, for it another body, into
which it may carry the defects, virtues, vices, and follies of its
originator. Another weakness which has been considered inseparable
from the orthodox teaching of Buddhism is the fact that it seems to
fail to account fully for the action of heredity. When two people have
children, does it not appear right to think that their children should
inherit their Karma? But it is obviously impossible that this should
be the case, except in the unlikely contingency of both parents dying
exactly at the moment of their children's birth. And, again, why should
a man's Karma be embodied in an individual having no visible connection
with his offspring; or how can we reconcile the non-existence of
self-hood as a permanent entity with the recognition of a more or
less self-sufficient Karma, which preserves its separateness not only
through life, but after death, and into life again? These and other
similar questions arise, and demand explanation from the bewildered
brain.

These questions, it has been contended, do not arise as difficulties
impossible of solution, if we consider the analogy given above.
The children of two people are obviously their Karma, and they
appropriate, so to speak, a very large proportion of the effects of
their "doing"--as it is only just and reasonable that they should
do. Innumerable actions on the part of the parents have led up to
acquaintance and union, and the birth of the child is merely the climax
of an endless chain of causes and effects.

But this process of reasoning closely borders on the confines of
metempsychosis, in the phraseology of which the doctrine of Karma
has often been mistakenly expounded. The doctrine of Karma is a
modification of metempsychosis, and, as such, certainly stands on a
more scientific and rational basis than its prototype.

In consequence of the intermixture of the two theories in the minds
of exponents of Karma, much misapprehension has arisen, and this
doctrine continues to be a stumbling-block to students of Buddhism. A
considerable amount of confusion arises also, I think, from the fact
that writers on Buddhism fail to discriminate between Karma, the law
of Karma, and the effects of Karma, although the word Karma includes
the two latter. It is a mistake to assume that Karma, interpreted
as "thoughts, words, and actions," is perpetuated as such, for each
thought, word, and action passes for ever away while it happens; each
dies, yet each continues for all eternity in the effect it produces.

"The being of a past moment of thought has lived, but does not live,
nor will it live."

"The being of a future moment of thought will live, but has not lived,
nor does it live."

"The being of the present moment of thought will live, but has not
lived, nor will it live."

It cannot be held, therefore, if we read Buddhism aright, that Karma in
itself possesses continuity.

"The 'I' of to-day has to take all the _consequences_ of the _actions_
(Karma) which the 'I' of yesterday performed. Thus the individualized
Karma of future times will reap all that which the individualizing
Karma of the present time _sows_."[AF]

 [AF] Paul Carus.

Professor Rhys Davids (_Buddhism_, p. 103) says: "Identity is preserved
in that which alone remains when a man dies; in the result, namely, of
his action, speech, and thought, in his good or evil Karma (literally
his 'doing') which does not die." This statement would have gained in
clearness if he had written "_in the result_ of his good or evil Karma
which does not die," in the concluding sentence.

If we allow ourselves to consider Karma, taken in the sense of
"doing," as retaining a separateness apart from its diffusion of
influences, and being carried on from generation to generation as an
individualized compound, then we at once find ourselves in direct
conflict with the doctrine of "inseparateness," which is the mainstay
of the rationality of Buddhist thought, the basic concept of Buddhism.

If we understand by the Samskâras that phase of a man's soul which
is impressed upon other generations by heredity and education, and
that which "is preserved by the law of Karma and conditions the
continuity of man's existence in the whirl of constant changes," it
must be exclusively in the sense that these Samskâras are formative
faculties peculiar to, and always to be found (in normal cases) in
interconnection with, those temporary aggregations which present
themselves to our perceptions as human beings, but which are not
permanent.

It is only when the expressions "Karma" and "action" are used in their
widest meaning, and include this formative faculty, that they can with
propriety be regarded as possessing continuity, but not permanency. The
particular formative faculty ceases to be, in those exceptional cases
when "it directs itself to the cessation of all conformations."

This self-forming formative faculty, in its normal condition, is the
cause of the continuity of being, or becoming. Its disappearance is
happiness. We find this Buddhistic truth very clearly stated in the
New Testament. "He who loses his life shall find it"--which, being
interpreted, is "He who loses the formative faculty shall find the
deathless."

Karma, as "thought, speech, and action," must be regarded as the
ethical individuality, and the body as the corporeal individuality. As
things in themselves they are both impermanent, but the effects of both
are lasting. There are physiological and local as well as psychological
results to be taken into account.

The body is continually shedding effects, and lives again after death
in its diffused elements; so Karma gives off effects and lives again
in its moral results; yet both these individualities are inseparably
connected as long as the individual's life lasts.

The text so often quoted in this connection should, for purposes of
Buddhistic exposition, read: "What a man sows, that will _the race_
(not he) reap." "Herein is that saying true, one soweth and another
reapeth" (John iv. 37).

  "Man weaves and is clothed with derision;
    Sows, but shall not reap.
  His life is a watch and a vision,
    Between a sleep and a sleep."

What has been called physical or local Karma is applied to the effects
of locality and climate upon the development of races and individuals.

A writer in the Journal of the Maha-Bodhi Society (November, 1898)[AG]
says: "The theory of Karma, as Gautama formulated it, is all-embracing
and comprehensive. It ranges over the whole field of life and morality.
It ascribes causes for things; explains the working of the complicated
machinery of the cosmos; abolishes the unwholesome idea of universal
chaos and absence of motive power; substitutes in its place a definite
and well-arranged system admirably suited to the needs of mankind;
and finally establishes firmly the supreme importance of individual
morality and responsibility. What more can one desire? 'All very well,'
the sceptic replies. 'It may perform all you say it does, but I must
be able to grasp it thoroughly and work it out in my own mind. I will
take nothing for granted. I must be able to follow, to understand it,
and harmonize it with facts of which I have certain knowledge. None
of your vague insinuations for me.' I reply: How can you with your
limited and finite empirical knowledge fully understand that which is
limitless and infinite? The doctrine of Karma embraces all the greatest
problems of life and the cosmos; and how can you, a mere atom in the
universe, expect to grasp the whole? It is sufficient that you should
have a working theory which fulfils your requirements, and is at the
same time sanctioned by your reasoning power. More you cannot expect to
have. The doctrine of Karma, in short, marches step by step with our
reason. At no point does it break away from the laws of common sense.
The difficulty lies in the fact that, while our reasoning at a certain
point comes to a halt through lack of further material, the doctrine of
Karma perseveres onwards into the spheres of higher knowledge whither
our limited brain capacity cannot follow.

 [AG] _The Doctrine of Karma_, by Henry Melancthon Strong.

       *       *       *       *       *

"There are two methods by which the doctrine of Karma may be
explained--viz., by individualization and by generalization; the
former is the more orthodox and popular, the latter more sound and
philosophical. But, although we find in the recorded sayings of Gautama
support of the former and little or none of the latter, I think we may
infer that his attitude was due to the exigencies of the conditions
under which he lived and the ignorance of the masses who surrounded
him. For the same reason Christ was forced to clothe his teachings in
simple and primitive guise in order that they might be readily grasped
by the popular mind. As an outcome of this necessity, we have the
parables of the New Testament and much of the veiled language therein
contained. To these are due in large measure the controversies and
differences of opinion which now exist as to the proper interpretation
of the words of Christ. The significance of many of Buddha's utterances
has been similarly degraded. Countless 'birth stories' have sprung up
to satisfy the popular craving for something concrete and simple in
which to believe. Their themes have no real authority in Buddhistic
teaching, but they serve the same purpose as do the Christian parables
and myths. The student of Buddhism who stumbles upon them by chance may
be led into false notions with regard to the religion, and accept as
authoritative that which has no real authority. Herein lies their harm.
That they are not strictly in accordance with Gautama's teachings there
can be no doubt. The theory of soul-transmigration upon which these
tales are chiefly founded is an excrescence on Buddhism, and should be
regarded in the light of a heresy. As Professor Rhys Davids observes:
'Buddhism does not teach the transmigration of souls. Its doctrine
would be better summarized as the transmigration of character.'
Professor Oldenberg puts with much clearness the teaching of the action
of transmigration and Karma when he says: 'Buddhism teaches: "My action
is my possession, my action is my inheritance, my action is the womb
which bears me, my action is the race to which I am akin." What appears
to man to be his body is in truth the action of his past state, which,
assuming a form realized through his endeavours, has become endowed
with a tangible existence.'

"The same idea is expressed in a slightly different form by Dr. Paul
Carus, who says: 'We ourselves continue in the accumulated results
of our actions.' In these concise and seemingly simple statements we
have the fundamental dogma of Buddhism and the foundation of Gautama's
system _as it has been handed down to us_. When we come to analyze them
carefully, the difficulties which at first lie hidden become apparent.
We see that a man during his lifetime scatters the effects of his
actions (_i.e._, his Karma) in all directions. Upon his death a new
sentient being, 'realized through his endeavour,' comes into existence
to inherit and carry on his Karma. These two beings are not connected
in any way the one with the other. There has been no transmigration
of soul or of the ego, for Buddhism denies the existence of either
as a permanent entity, but describes them as temporary aggregations
only. How, then, does moral retribution act? or how can we reconcile
the non-existence of self as a permanent entity with the recognition
of the existence of a more or less integral and permanent Karma which
preserves its separateness, not only through life, but after death and
into life again. How, too, is it possible that his Karma, although
scattered in all directions during his term of life, at the moment of
death is intact and whole for transmission to another body?

"Moreover, it is obvious that, if the death of one human being is
the cause of the birth of another, the human race would not progress
numerically. The very fact of the numerical increase of mankind
defeats this theory and renders it untenable by all those who desire
to believe only what their reason sanctions, and to eschew whatever
demands the acceptance of authority or the exercise of faith. In short,
as Professor Rhys Davids has put it, the weakness of the Buddhistic
conception is that 'the result of what a man is, or does, is held not
to be dissipated ... but to be concentrated together in the formation
of one new sentient being.'

       *       *       *       *       *

"By digressing somewhat from strict Buddhistic teaching, and leaving
behind the _letter_ (not the spirit) of the law, we can, I think,
arrive at a more satisfactory explanation by a method I have called
'generalization,' in contradistinction to the method just dealt
with--viz., Individualization.

"According to the orthodox conception, an individual takes up
the Karma of another while it is intact and has not suffered from
distribution and dispersion. But there is a broader and less primitive,
albeit more heterodox, manner in which we may regard the doctrine, and
one which, I think, we may infer was in the mind of Gotama himself
when he enunciated the narrower conception in order to simplify it
sufficiently to be capable of being grasped by the ignorant. Instead of
a man's Karma being individualized--_i.e._, handed on in an integral
state from individual to individual--we should regard it rather as
having been generalized and disintegrated during life, leaving no
residuum at death. Thus, what is inherited at birth is not the Karma of
any one person, but rather the Karma of the race as a whole. 'The souls
of men continue to exist as they are impressed upon other generations
by heredity and education,'[AH] but the soul of the individual does not
continue to exist. It is the soul of the race, not of the individual,
which is perpetuated.

 [AH] Dr. Paul Carus in _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_.

"The Karmas of all are, as it were, cast into the mixing-pot and
thoroughly sifted, and then, and not till then, embodied in different
forms. Seeming inequality of division must be accounted for by the
action of local Karma.[AI] There is obviously an advantage associated
with this theory not applicable to the theory of individualization.
Whereas the latter tends to promote the fallacious idea of personality
and self-hood, the former has a wider significance, and tends rather to
promote the belief in universal brotherhood by merging personalities
into one great whole. It is, in fact, more truly Buddhistic, and, by
inspiring a more cosmopolitan sentiment of fellowship, is calculated
to overcome, in a great degree, that fallacy most difficult of all
fallacies to overcome--the idea of the ego as a permanent entity. The
difficulty, also, which is universally felt of accounting for the birth
of a new sentient being at every death is by this means obviated....

 [AI] _Local Karma._--The term is used to express the character stamped
 upon any place by the action of former dwellers therein. Those who
 follow afterwards are supposed to inherit the Karma of the locality.
 Thus we see the nations at the present day expiating the sins of
 their forefathers, or enjoying the fruits of their good deeds. It is
 a well-known fact, also, that crimes tend to repeat themselves in the
 same districts, and even houses.

"Most assuredly we require an explanation of our present condition,
and we must accord all honour to Buddhism for having afforded us one
both rational and satisfactory. When men come to see and to realize
that by every deed committed, and by every word uttered, they are
carving out, for evil or good, the future of the race, and that the
suffering they now endure they owe entirely to the past sins of
humanity, their sense of responsibility will be increased, their hold
upon morality strengthened, the bond of unity, 'the brotherhood of
man,' confirmed. Abolish the fallacy of cosmic chaos; substitute in its
stead the idea of a definite system and purpose; show that man is the
only framer of his destiny, the only author of his existence, the only
cause of his own suffering--and the foundation of morality will be made
sure, the redemption of the race brought within measurable distance.
This is the end for which the doctrine of Karma was formulated, and to
this end it has been labouring, a silent but progressive force, for
many centuries."

The Rev. T. Sterling Berry, D.D., in his _Comparative Study of
Christianity and Buddhism_, treats the latter as a whole in a spirit
of commendable catholicity; but when he comes to points of contrast
he fails signally to preserve equanimity of judgment, and distorts
the import of Gotama's precepts in the most amazing fashion in his
endeavour to bring them into opposition to the teaching of Jesus. His
view of Karma, however, is, I think, a valuable contribution to the
literature on the subject, and worthy of reproduction. He writes:
"Strange and well nigh unintelligible as this theory seems, it is
nevertheless possible, I believe, to get at the real thought that
moulded Gotama's conception--actions of every kind as possessing the
nature of seed sown; men were found, to some extent, to reap the
consequences of their actions during their lifetime; but this takes
place only in a limited and incomplete sense during the existence to
which the actions belong. At the close of a life many acts remain like
seed sown, but not yet grown up. Hence the theory that when a man dies
he leaves the sum-total of the acts of his life as a kind of complex
seed, made up of good and bad elements, which, by his death, springs up
into a fresh existence, the same and yet not the same; in somewhat of
the sense in which it might be said that ordinary seed which springs
up as identical and yet not identical with that which is sown. Viewed
in this light, the theory loses its apparent absurdity. It becomes,
in fact, a mode of expressing partly what we understand by the law of
heredity, which involves a transference of character and a reproduction
of the consequences of action; and partly the law of retribution, that
'Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.'"

The continuance of an individual's Karma, conceived as the effects of
a man's character upon individuals whom he influences, is a perfectly
thinkable process, and a generally accepted fact. But, when we are
called upon to consider how it comes about that, on the death of a
sentient being, a new sentient being is at once produced, to take up
the effects of the deceased one's Karma, then we seem to be launched
into a mystery that can only be explained by another mystery.

If such a doctrine is to be interpreted literally, it would seem to
necessitate a numerical equality of births and deaths; a new-born babe
would have to be ready at each death to receive the Karma-effects of
the deceased. It might, however, be made faintly thinkable by including
available births in other solar systems, and by allowing for a certain
number of Karmas coming to an end by the attainment of Nirvana. This
planet is held by Buddhists to be in sympathetic relationship with the
other worlds, and there are countless millions of beings who change
places. A number of men die somewhere on this earth, and they may not
be re-born here at all; a number of beings die in some other planet,
and may be re-born here at the same time.

This particular phase of the doctrine of Karma has been so distinctly
enunciated in Buddhist writings that it becomes a question for the
interpreter of Buddhism to decide whether it should be retained as a
literal statement, and so dismissed as an unthinkable, or whether it
should be given the chance of being classified as rational by expansive
treatment.

Buddhism is so systematically and eminently rationalistic throughout
its teaching that one feels impelled to a supreme effort to sustain
its reputation in this one respect. In any case it would seem just to
assume that it had a rationalistic basis in the mind of Gotama, however
difficult it may be for us to discover the foundation of Rationalism on
which it rests. An apparently irrational theory should not be rejected
as irrational as long as it is within the bounds of possibility that
the apparent irrationality is due to the limitations of our reason,
or the absence of data, that have not come under our experience and
knowledge of Cosmic laws. Everything may be contrary to what we think
it to be; and everything may be opinion only.

As some beautiful poems cannot be thought out in connection with one's
immediate environment without a loss of poetic value, but require
mental transposition to a distant and different scene for their
beauty to be fully and poetically realized, so, unless we remove our
imagination from its every-day associations to an entirely different
"scenery" of thought, we cannot expect to intelligently appreciate the
complete significance of Buddhistic conceptions. As Professor Oldenberg
puts it, we must, when approaching the study of Buddhism, divest
ourselves wholly of all customary modes of thinking.

Buddhism lays stress everywhere upon the connectiveness of everything
with everything; and everything is, at all times, something other than
itself. Consciousness (Vinnâna), for instance, is described as "that
which enters into the womb, and from which arise name and corporeal
form"; yet consciousness and name and corporeal form have no individual
existence.

"Body, perceptions, and sensations vanish, but not conscience; but
consciousness only exists as long as it is connected with name and
corporeal form. Consciousness, however, is not essentially different
from perceptions and sensations; it is also a Samskâra, and, like all
other Samskâras, it is changeable, and without substance."[AJ]

 [AJ] In the place of a "sphere of being," with its supply of
 ready-made consciousness for the transmissive process in the brain,
 as hypothecated by Professor William James in his lecture on _Human
 Immortality_, I would substitute a formative faculty immanent in the
 universe, and assume the metamorphosis into consciousness, as we
 know it, to be a function of the brain. This theory would be quite
 reconcileable with the physiological view that consciousness is the
 final phase of the activity of the sensory nerves in the cortex of
 that organ. Fechner's conception of a <DW43>-physical threshold
 would also adapt itself to this theory as well as to the other; the
 threshold being understood as representing the functional capacity of
 the brain to extend or limit the scope of consciousness. The ultimate
 extension of consciousness would result in a return to the elemental
 informative. In the case of limited extension, consciousness would be
 carried on as a consciousness-germ, or Skandha, into a new being, on
 the death of a being.

Consciousness has been described as the director of the organs, and,
in this sense, vaguely assumes the place of an ego. Consciousness, as
a "highly-developed and insubstantial product of the brain," possesses
the faculty of acting _in the manner_ of choice; it is derived from
conformations, and conformations from ignorance.

There is a continuance of soul-forms after the death of an
individual--that is, of the impressions caused by the character of
an individual. This is the preservation of form by means of Karma
(deeds). Obviously these soul-forms cannot continue unless there is
an individual to receive the impression. Therefore, when it is said
that, immediately upon the death of a sentient being, another sentient
being is produced to receive the effects of the deceased's Karma, the
statement may have been only intended to imply that for the continuance
of soul-forms there must always be sentient beings to receive their
impressions.

It does not seem necessary to suppose that on A's death B takes up
the whole of A's Karma. The effects of A's Karma have been impressed,
more or less, on all those who have come in his lifetime, and will come
after his death, within range of his influence. In the latter case the
influence is continued in the effects of his writings, speech, or other
actions.

An individual during his lifetime will be impressed with the effects
of the Karma of many individuals, and has to take the consequences,
whether good or bad, with power of adding to or modifying the received
effects. "The same character of deeds reappears wherever his deeds have
impressed themselves on other minds."

The subject of Karma becomes hopelessly complicated if such a statement
as the following is taken literally: "Buddhism is convinced that, if
a man reaps sorrow, disappointment, pain, _he himself_, and no other,
must at some time have sown folly, error, sin; if not in this life,
then in some former birth." The language here employed is liable,
unless the reader is on his guard, to take him back to the heresy of
Metempsychosis, which Buddhism arose to destroy.

It perhaps needs reiteration that the "He Himself" in a former birth
is not even the deeds of a different set of Skandhas--of a body of
different constituent parts. The "He Himself" is only the effects of
deeds done by a constantly becoming and constantly vanishing set of
Skandhas, the particles of the human tornado which assume temporary
form. The effects received become the "He Himself"; herein is the
retributive phase of the doctrine of Karma.

The effects of Karma on their passage through preceding births on to
future births are the only existent and continuing "I." A, who has
received good influences from B, bad from C, and indifferent from D,
has lived before, in a Buddhistic sense, in B, C, and D.

Buddhistic birth stories should, I think, be read in this light. When
A performs an action similar to one performed centuries ago by B, it
is to be understood that the effects of that particular action in B
have reached A through many intervening lives in either a modified or
unmodified form. Other actions of A which had not been performed by B
must be traced back in their effects to C, D, E, etc. A has only lived
as B by virtue of the effects of particular and similar acts reaching
him through the law of cause and effect.

"Within the sphere of causality we can all exclaim with Jesus: 'Before
Abraham was I am.'"

There is yet another direction in which we may look for a solution
of the problem. Life or being is frequently compared in Buddhistic
expositions to a flame which is the same, and yet not the same, from
the time it is lighted to the time of its extinction. Each moment of
being passes away as, simultaneously or concurrently, a moment of being
commences; and in this sense, on the death of a being, another being is
simultaneously produced, until being comes to an end with death, as the
flame expires at the moment of extinction.

This view agrees with that part of Buddhistic philosophy which asserts
that nothing _survives_ being except the effects of being; "being," in
this connection, being taken as the entire life-history of an organism,
whether animal or vegetable, and as the existence of a flame from its
inception to its extinction.

The working of the law of Karma has been found so intricate that many
Buddhists have relegated it to the category of Unthinkables. They
regard it as such that it can only be understood by those who have
attained to the "_intellectus mysticus_." The one thing considered
requisite for the comprehension of its complexities is to solve the
problem of the Four Noble Truths by following the Noble Eight-fold
Path. A study of Buddha's psychology, they contend, is absolutely
necessary to the disciple who wishes to know the processes of the
ever-changing consciousness. The mind in itself is pure, but by coming
into contact with impurities such as anger, harbouring of anger,
selfishness, etc., it is soiled.

The practical psychology of Buddhism is based on ethics, and the
student has to cut off all the impurities from the mind to enable him
to properly comprehend the Nirvanic condition. So long as one thinks
of self, so long is he re-born. Unless self is absolutely surrendered,
unless "Thou hast lost thyself to save thyself, as Galahad,"[AK] Karma
continues; and that means ignorance; and ignorance can have no vision
of the Holy Grail, fails to reach Nirvana, unites not with God!

 [AK]

    "Galahad, when he heard of Merlin's doom,
    Cried: 'If I lose myself, I save myself!'"

    --_The Holy Grail_ (Tennyson).


There is no cessation in the continuous flow of thought between one
life and another until Nirvana is reached. The "being" born in another
life is absolutely not the same that died here, nor absolutely another;
but is the result of the one. "My substance was hid when I was made in
secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth."




CHAPTER IV.

HEAVEN AND NIRVANA.

  "Soles occidere et redire possunt.
  Nobis, quum semel occidit brevis lux,
  Nox est perpetua una dormienda."

  --CATULLUS.


Innumerable figures of speech have been brought into requisition
to convey to the imagination the import of the terms "Heaven" and
"Nirvana." None of these, taken either separately or collectively, can
be held to include all that is indicated by the above expressions.
To speak of reaching Heaven, or Nirvana, is somewhat misleading; no
measurement of space is applicable to them; no phenomenal expression in
itself will pass muster.

A later and more material aspect of heaven, known as the Western
Paradise, and only referred to, I think, in the Mahāyana, has been
provided, it would seem, for the satisfaction of those who require a
temporary halting-place for thought before moving on to more abstract
conceptions. This heaven is illustrated with all those inimitable
colours and touches which oriental inventiveness uses with such
alluring effect. It is naïvely located ten millions of miles to the
west.

There, in a light that never was on land or sea, where lotus flowers of
every imaginable hue vie with each other to cluster at his holy feet,
sits enthroned the Buddha of Infinite Light, the Compassionate, the
Perfect One.

The sweet radiance of his pitying smile pervades the heavens for
thousands of leagues. The beautiful expressions of his countenance
cannot be numbered, for they are as countless as the sands of Gunga's
sacred stream; nor can his compassion be measured--it is illimitable
as a shoreless ocean. The magical grace of his form is compared to
the "moon on high when she marches full-orbed" through the unclouded
expanse of the Empyrean. If ever so "gentle a zephyr blows amid
the trees," the atmosphere vibrates with all delicate and enticing
melodies. The voices of the Devas are heard chanting his praises. An
aerial choir, the birds of Paradise, answer back with antiphons of
rapturous song as they soar above in the gilded air which fills the
pavilions of the Blest. Such, and much more, is the "Pure Land," the
land of Amita, the Buddha of Infinite Light.

The introduction into the picture of pavements of gold, crystal
streams, precious stones, jewels, and many of the paraphernalia which
the pageantry of this nether world demands for its embellishment brings
to remembrance the splendours enshrined in that final revelation of
things to be, which was delivered to man in the person of St. John the
Divine.

Nirvana has been called "The Imperishable," "The Infinite," "The
Eternal," "The Everlasting," "The Transcendent," "The Serene," "The
Formless," "The Goal," "The Other Shore," "Rest," "The True," or
"The Truth." It has been compared to an "island which no flood can
overwhelm," to a "City of Peace," "The Jewelled Realm of Happiness,"
"An Escape from the Evil One."[AL] For the Christian Heaven, in like
manner, a great variety of metaphors abounds.

 [AL] Taken from _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_, by Paul Carus.

But the mere gazing at, and admiration of, these pretty pictures will
not conduce to a comprehension of them--will not help us to discover
what formulated in the mind of the artist the design of the picture
he painted. For this needful purpose it may not prove unprofitable to
have recourse, in the first instance, to the metaphysics of the grand
old Oriental mystic, St. Paul. By his assistance we may find that these
conceptions, Heaven and Nirvana, on which so much wealth of imagery
has been lavished, and about which controversy has well-nigh exhausted
itself, will resolve themselves into something less indefinite, and
more thinkable, of one nature and of one significance.

In his Epistle to the Corinthians he tells us "God hath chosen the
things that are not to bring to nought the things that are." Now,
the "things that are not" must assuredly be taken to mean that
which is, figuratively speaking, beyond the threshold--something,
in this respect, more than the subliminal[AM] reveals; in fact, the
ultra-liminal, and, consequently, the immutable. They are the quality
Truth, residing in, but inseparable, as long as senses last, from,
the "things that are"--namely, in materiality as we perceive it;
materiality being here understood as "potential feeling, from which
develop ideas, or the soul of man."

 [AM] "Subliminal" I use here in a strictly etymological sense--_sub
 limen_, up to the lintel.

Ultimately perfected ideas, or soul, become this quality, Truth; they
become that which is within and outside all things--in short, what
Jesus calls "the kingdom of God within," as well as the Heaven around
us.

The expression "bring to nought" has its equivalents in the terms
"annihilation" and "extinction," so often used in connection with
Nirvana, for the desperate purpose of depreciating the Buddhist
conception of Heaven. The "things that are" are material objects as
we perceive them, which are mutable, and never the same one moment
together--never really are, but are for ever undergoing a process of
becoming ("God calleth those things which be not as though they were,"
Rom. iv. 17). Material objects are mutable, and Heaven and Nirvana are
immutability. Plotinus says: "The return to God, or The One (or Truth),
is the consummation of all things, and the goal indicated by Christian
teaching." This oneness, however, does not imply extinction. "He who
has entered upon Nirvana is not annihilated; on the contrary, he has
attained the deathless."

The identical idea is prevalent both in New Testament teaching and in
Buddhistic doctrine, that the realization of that state of blessedness
which is called "Heaven" in the one case, and "Nirvana" in the other,
could be brought about during the lifetime of the saint. "But I tell
you of a truth, there be some standing here which shall not taste of
death till they see the kingdom of God" (Luke ix. 27).

"The kingdom of heaven is within you" is also a sufficiently explicit
statement on the part of the Christian Scripture to substantiate the
possibility of such an experience.

In an article published in the _Monist_ of January, 1898, and bearing
on this subject, there occurs the following passage, accompanied with
extracts from the works of several Christian mystics:--

"The Buddhist idea, that salvation consists mainly in dropping our
own self, in becoming nothing, in self-annihilation for the sake
of becoming Buddha--viz., divinely incarnate--can be found in many
Christian writers. The highest religious aspirations are not the result
of an anxiety for the salvation of one's own soul, but a yearning for a
union with God."

Scotus Erigena writes: "In God all things will be put to rest and
remain One, Indivisible, and Immutable."...

"God does not perceive what is Himself."

According to St. Augustine: "If the soul is to comprehend God, it must
forget itself, for if the soul sees and comprehends itself it neither
sees nor comprehends God."

"If the soul loses itself through God and forsakes all things, it
finds itself again through God."...

"Whenever the soul comes to uniting itself with God it becomes
annihilated."...

"All perfection and all bliss consists in this, that man enters into
the ground that is groundless."...

"How shall I love God? Thou shalt love Him as He is--a not God, a
not spirit, a not person, a not image; but rather as He is--a true,
pure, clear One, separated from all two-hood; and in this One we shall
eternally disappear _from nothing into nothing_."[AN]...

 [AN] I.

 O Bhikshus, the uncreated, the invisible, the unmade, the elementary,
 the unproduced, exists (as well as) the created, the visible, the
 made, the conceivable, the compound, the produced; and there is an
 uninterrupted connection between the two.

 II.

 O Bhikshus, if the uncreated, the invisible, the unmade, the
 elementary, the unproduced was nonentity, I could not say that the
 result of their connection from cause to effect with the created,
 the visible, the made, the compound, the conceivable, was final
 emancipation.

 III.

 O Bhikshus, it is because of the real existence of the uncreated,
 the invisible, the elementary, the unproduced, that I say that the
 result of their connection from cause to effect with the created,
 the visible, the made, the compound, the conceivable, is final
 emancipation.--(_Verses from the Buddhist Canon_, translated from the
 Thibetan of the Bkah-hgyur, by W. Woodville Rockhill.)

Erckhart says: "How shall that man be who shall behold God? He shall be
dead. Our Lord says: 'No man shall see me and live.'"

According to Buddhistic teaching, "He who has conquered ignorance and
got rid of desire enjoys the supreme reward already in this life. His
outer man may still be detained in the world of suffering, but he knows
that it is not he himself whom the coming of the Sankharas[AO] affects."

 [AO] "Sankhara is both the preparation and the prepared.... To the
 Buddhist mind the made has existence only and solely in the process
 of being made; whatever is is not so much a something which is as the
 process rather of a being, self-generating, and self-again-consuming"
 (Oldenberg).

Enlightenment and Nirvana are synonymous. "Buddha is said to have
entered upon Nirvana when he died. Yet at the same time we are told
that Buddha had attained Nirvana already during his life."[AP]

 [AP] Paul Carus.

"If thou knowest the destruction of the Sankharas, thou knowest the
Uncreated" (Dhammapada); or, as Professor Oldenberg's translator
renders it, "Let others pursue the uncreated by their erroneous paths
which will never carry them beyond the realm of the created. As for
thee, let the attainment of the Uncreated consist in this, that thou
reachest the cessation of the created."

Gotama, in a conversation between himself and an unbeliever, said:
"Illustrious disciple, Nirvana may be compared to the nothingness
defined as the absence of something different to itself. We may justly
define Nirvana as that sort of non-existence which consists in the
absence of something essentially different."[AQ]

 [AQ] Pari Nirvana Suttha, chap. xxxix., i.; as given in Oldenberg's
 _Buddhism_.

There are to be found several passages in the New Testament which
seem to confirm the interpretation given to St. Paul's saying about
the "things that are not." Heaven is spoken of as an inheritance
that fadeth not away--that is, the "things that are" fade away, but
the things that are not do not fade away. The things that are not
seen (that are not) are eternal, and the things that are seen (that
seemingly are) are temporal.

This it hath not entered the heart of man to fully understand. We only
see through a glass darkly; through the web of illusion. "But if we
hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."

Jesus answering his interrogators, exclaims: "What _house_ will ye
build me, or what is the _place_ of my rest?" This was a rebuff to
those who endeavoured to localize the illocatable. "The Most High
dwelleth not in temples made with hands." "My kingdom is not of this
world." Jesus spoke to the people in parable because it was not given
to them to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

Gotama said: "Whatsoever has not been revealed by me let that remain
unrevealed, and what has been revealed let it be revealed."

With reference to the saying of Jesus, "_Multa habeo vobis dicere, sed
nunc non potestis portare illa_," St. Augustine remarks: "_Manifestum
est non esse culpandum, aliquando verum tacere._"

Dr. Paul Carus, in a chapter headed "Hinâyâna, Mahâyâna, Mahâsâtu"
(p. 230, _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_), deals in a most
masterly and effective manner with the value of the symbolic in
contradistinction to the essential phases of Buddhism and Christianity.
In judging the Mahâyâna system (of Buddhism) and its fantastical
offshoots, he says: "We must consider the mental state of those nations
for whom it was adapted, and it may be that a purer religion would
have failed utterly where cruder allegories of what appears to us as
childish superstitions exercised a beneficent influence. The Mahâyâna
has changed the savage hordes of Central Asia, from whom proceeded the
most barbarous hordes, dreaded by all their neighbours, into a most
kind-hearted people, with a sacred passion for universal benevolence
and charity."

With reference to the Christian Church, he remarks: "What does it
matter that, during the development of the Church, the letter of
symbolically-expressed truth has crystallized into fixed dogmas?...
He who believes in a myth that contains, in the garb of a parable, a
religious truth, and accordingly regulates his moral conduct, is better
off than he who is void of any faith. The truth hidden in the myth
teaches him and serves him as a guide; it comforts him in affliction,
strengthens him in temptation, and shows him in an allegorical
reflection the bliss that rests upon righteousness."

The words "rest," "peace," and "sleep" are in the New Testament more
often associated with the conditions of a future life than such
expressions as "joy" or "happiness." The word "joy" is only to be
found once in direct connection with the word "heaven" in the New
Testament--_i.e._, when there was joy in heaven over the repentance of
a sinner.

The omission may have been intentional, so that the world might
understand that the joy of heaven would be something absolutely
different from what we conceive of joy; that there will be a kind of
joy, in which joy, as it is known here, is absent.

"There remaineth, therefore, a rest for the people of God."

"He that hath entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own
works as God did from his."

"Let us labour therefore to enter that rest."

"Ye shall find rest unto your souls."

Such texts seem to draw heaven and Nirvana very close together.

It is undoubtedly implied in some portions of the Christian Scriptures
that the souls of the departed are asleep, and will not be disturbed
till the coming of the Lord and the final judgment.

"Does not the testimony of the Bible lead us to this conclusion; from
the cry of the tired spirit of Samuel, awakened from its sleep by the
Witch of Endor, 'Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?' to the
saying of the spirit in the Revelation, 'Yea, they rest from their
labours.' In the case of Lazarus we have the words of Jesus to this
effect: 'Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out
of sleep'" (from _Light_).

Many are in love with the satisfying beauty of this sleep which has
lasted since death began to be, and desire that it might never be
disturbed. This is that yearning for the rest of Nirvana, for the peace
that passeth understanding. The true mission of religious symbolism, of
music, of poetry, and the plastic arts is, not to excite the physical
emotions of man, not to crystallize appearances, but to translate his
soul to this condition of delicious swooning, to turn his gaze inwards
to what Brahmanic philosophy calls the fontal essence of things.

From a poetical point of view, it is perhaps melancholy to reflect that
the seers of India are being rudely awakened from their reveries, to
be at last, as seems probable, completely absorbed into the relatively
sordid environment of Occidental progress--in fact, to dream no more.
The West has murdered dreams.

Apart from the physical influences of climate and country, the strange
yearning of the Indian for an ultimate heaven of unconsciousness may
be accounted for by tracing it to a vague remembrance in the human
organism of the happy condition from which it primarily emerged, before
even animal existence had entered upon the fairly peaceful life-history
of an amœba.

The process of transition from the condition of "are" to that of
"are not," from the phenomenal to the noumenal, has been conceived
by Buddhists and Christians alike to be gradual. As a parallel to
the "house of many mansions," so often taken to mean by Christians a
progressive ascent through a number of heavens to a heaven of heavens,
I give below, in abbreviated form, the "spheres of formlessness" as
described by Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, in his book entitled _Gleanings from
Buddha Fields_.

"These," he says, "are four. In the first state all sense of
individuality is lost, and there survives only the idea of
infinite space or emptiness. In the second state this idea of
space vanishes, and its place is filled by the idea of infinite
reason. But this idea of reason is anthropomorphic, it is an
illusion, and it fades out in the third state, which is called the
'state-of-nothing-to-take-hold-of.' Here is only the idea of infinite
nothingness. But even this condition has been reached by the aid of the
action of the personal mind. This action ceases; then the fourth state
is reached, the state of 'neither-namelessness-nor-notnamelessness.'
Something of personal mentality continues to float vaguely here--the
very uttermost expiring vibration of Karma--the last vanishing haze of
being. It melts, and the immeasurable revelation comes."

Professor Oldenberg says: "It is not enough to say that the final goal
to which the Buddhist strives to pass as an escape from the sorrow
of the world is Nirvana. It is also necessary to any delineation of
Buddhism to note, as a fact assured beyond all doubt, that internal
cheerfulness, infinitely surpassing all mere resignation with which the
Buddhist pursues his end....

"Does the path, then, lead into a new existence? Does it lead into the
nothing? The Buddhist creed rests in delicate equipoise between the
two. The longing of the heart that craves the eternal has not nothing,
and yet the thought has not a something, which it might firmly grasp.
Further off the idea of the endless, the eternal could not withdraw
itself from belief than it has done here, where, like a gentle flutter
on the point of merging in the nothing, it threatens to evade the gaze."

Nirvana, according to Mr. James Freeman Clarke, means to the Buddhist
the absolute eternal world beyond time and space; that which is
_nothing_ to us now, but will be _everything_ hereafter.

Students of Buddhism are often confronted with the question why sorrow
and pain should have held such prominent places in the mind of Gotama.
Explanations have been afforded that this was due, in a large measure,
to a pathetic nature, born of climate and environment. The _mind_ of
the inhabitants of Hindustan is still an unfathomable mystery; the
great heart of India beats slowly, and those waves of sprightly emotion
which are distinctive peculiarities of the natives of Europe are but
barely discernible ripples on the still surface of the Indian character.

To the poetic people of the Ganges the immense plains of India, their
broad and voiceless rivers, the magic beauty of an oasis, the distant
silence of the Himalayas, the brooding calm of the atmosphere, all
appear to labour in unison to the same end--to fashion the restless
heart of mortals after their own emotionless image, to expand it into
that fulness of peace which is theirs, and to guide the children of men
into the haven where they would be.

This mode of thought, or no thought; this complete abandonment of self,
culminating in the ascetic, to the desire of union with the Infinite,
can be differentiated from the meditative pose of the Christian by the
absence in it of anything approaching to emotion or affection. These
are weaknesses to be set aside. There can be no calm where sensations
enter--not even a breath of divine love must stir the ocean of their
pictured rest. Gotama fully recognized that true joy was only to
be found when the notion of self-hood was in abeyance, as it most
certainly is found invariably in those cases in which we lose, as it
were, the sense of objective being in an absorbing subject, or in the
presence of a fascinating personality.

There is an indescribable pleasure realizable in engrossing
occupations of mind and body which distract attention from ourselves
as selves. Hence the apotheosis of love as the ultimate possible
bliss, whether it be manifested in the adoration of the human or in
the ecstasy of the saint. Charles Beaudelaire declares the whole aim
of life is to dispel _ennui_--the _ennui_ of sitting still by walking,
of lying down by change to an erect posture, and so on. Virtue,
vice, love, etc., are all efforts to attain a state of oblivion of
our individuality, to _s'enivrer_ with distractions of some sort or
another. Sorrow is the realization of ourselves as separate entities.
The Buddhists declare that, when we rid ourselves of the idea of this
separateness, then, and then only, will true joy be found. The same
truth is expressed in the New Testament: "He that loseth his life shall
gain it."

The drooping head upon the cross, the livid corpse of the Saviour--such
pictures are strikingly emblematic of the sacrifice of self-hood, which
is ever the cause of pain. Self-hood crucified--that is the Great
Deliverance, that is Heaven, that is Nirvana! We must do more than take
up the cross and follow; we must hang upon it, be nailed to it, if we
would be saved.

It has been urged that the foundations of Buddhism rest upon the
assumption that life is not worth living; everything leads to pain and
sorrow; the joys of life are ignored. Hence, if it were proved that the
enjoyments of life out-weighed the sorrows, would it not be clearly
shown that Buddhism is _de trop_? For it is clear that life, in that
case, would be worth living. This view of life is not only supported
by a general consensus of opinion, but seems to be additionally
strengthened by the universal desire to live. That this desire would
not exist if the pessimistic idea of Buddhism regarding existence were
well founded is evident.

In opposition to this view, my conception of Buddhism, as represented
in its literature, is that its foundations rest upon the assumption
that there is a life more worth living, in which all sorrow is
eradicated; that only ignorance leads to pain and sorrow; that
knowledge leads to their extinction. I am not aware that the joys of
life are wholly ignored by Buddhists.

If it is granted that happiness predominates over unhappiness, and
that life must consequently be worth living, this need not exclude the
desire for a life more worth living, in which there is no unhappiness.
If Buddhism is the wretched, pessimistic system it is declared by some
to be, why should it not be allowed to hypothecate a heaven, when even
the joyous, optimistic Christian, who finds life so worth living,
speaks of being "delivered from the misery of this sinful world," and
hopes for a life worth living?

Quite three-quarters of the population of this planet, as represented
by its religious beliefs, which is supposed to find life worth living,
looks through the spectacles of faith towards a life more worth living,
after the dissolution of the body. In short, there are two distinct
lives recognized by Buddhists--the _living_ life and the _non-living_
life; and it goes without saying that the latter is by far the more
desirable of the two.

                "Not the life of men's veins,
                   Not of flesh that conceives;
                 But the grace that remains,
                   The fair beauty that cleaves
  To the life of the rains in the grasses, the life of the dews on the
    leaves."

Dr. Paul Carus says: "The good tidings of Buddha's religion are not so
much the recognition of the existence of pain and care as the conquest
of evil and the escape from suffering. The following verses from the
Dhammapada have no pessimistic ring:--

"'Let us live happily, then, not hating those who hate us!

"'Among men who hate us, let us dwell free from hatred!

"'Let us live happily, then, free from ailments among the ailing!

"'Among men who are ailing, let us dwell free from ailments!

"'Let us live happily, then, free from greed among the greedy!

"'Among men who are greedy, let us dwell free from greed!'"

There are many passages to be found in the New Testament, in our
Christian Liturgy, and especially in the Hymnology of the Churches,
which emphasize "suffering" as the normal and inevitable condition of
humanity, almost leading one to suppose that it is the predominant
factor in human life.

In the Burial Service we thank God that our brother has been
delivered from the miseries of a sinful world, and Job is brought
into requisition to show that "man that is born of woman is _full_ of
sorrows."

In a beautiful hymn we have the following verse:--

  "If I find Him, if I follow,
    What His guerdon _here_?
  Many a sorrow, many a labour,
                  Many a tear."

For an assembly of young men and maidens in the first rapturous dawn of
maturing youth to sing--

  "O Paradise, O Paradise,
    'Tis weary waiting here,"

though delightfully pessimistic, does not seem quite up to the standard
of absolute truth.

These sorrows, these labours, these tears, this weary waiting,
represent the experiences in store for the initiate, and the conditions
under which the Christian must progress who would reach the goal of his
dearest aspirations.

"Death is self-surrender; all loss is a kind of death; the
only-begotten Son is the summing up of what is dearest, most _one's
own_--_i.e._, God can only be _at one_ with his work, can only make it
to be truly his work by eternally dying--sacrificing what is dearest
to him. God does not, therefore, _cease to be_; he does not annihilate
himself; he lives eternally in the very process of sacrificing
his dearest work. Hence God is said to be love; for love is the
consciousness of survival in the act of self-surrender.... Such would
be the _atone_ment of the world-god eternally living in his own death,
eternally losing, and eternally returning to, himself" (Nettleship).

It cannot be denied that "suffering" was the burden of Gotama's song,
the refrain of his passionless, yet beautiful, utterances.

Jesus has been described "as a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief."

Jesus wept.

The whole creation weeps.

"What think ye, my disciples (the Perfect One said), whether is more,
the water which is in the four great oceans, or the tears which have
flown from you, and have been shed by you, while ye strayed and
wandered in this long pilgrimage, and sorrowed and wept because that
was your portion which ye abhorred, and that which ye loved was not
your portion? And while ye experienced this through long ages more
tears have flown from you, and have been shed by you, while ye strayed
and wandered on this long pilgrimage, and sorrowed and wept because
that was your portion which ye abhorred, and that which ye loved was
not your portion, than all the water which is in the four great oceans"
(Oldenberg's _Buddhism_).

St. Paul conjures up a vision of the immense figure of creation,
prostrate, groaning beneath the silent heavens. "The true Buddhist
certainly sees in this world a state of continuous sorrow; but this
sorrow only awakes in him a feeling of compassion for those who are yet
in the world. For himself he feels no sorrow or compassion.... He seeks
Nirvana with the same joyous sense of victory in prospect with which
the Christian looks forward to his goal, everlasting life" (Oldenberg).

The doctrine of an irrevocable doom for the unbeliever and obdurate
sinner is not easy to follow, because it would seem to imply "a failure
of the redemptive work of the Saviour unless all for whom he died
ultimately partake of salvation." If many are called and but few are
chosen; if the gate is narrow, and only a microscopic minority enter
thereby, the supreme sacrifice of the only-begotten Son of God is
liable to lose significance in the eyes of an _exigeant_ public.

Jesus "treated popular religious terms such as Hell and Heaven as
symbols." "He employed the familiar images of Heaven and Hell to
impress on men's consciousness the supreme bliss of righteousness and
the awful misery of sin."

"When our Lord came, he found the doctrines of last things presented
in forms already fixed, and the terms Gehenna, Paradise, etc.,
in familiar, even proverbial, use" (Eschatology, _Encyclopædia
Britannica_).

Every being, according to Buddhistic teaching, attains Nirvana in the
end; so may it not be in "the times of the restitution of _all things_,
which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the
world began"?

If symbolism were only taken for what it represents, every Buddhist
could join with the Christian in many of the exquisite invocations of
the Psalms. There is no rest to be found in the impermanent. To find
the peace which passeth understanding, we must ultimately have recourse
to the unconditioned, the permanent, Nirvana, God. The prayer of the
Christian as well as the aspiration of the pure Buddhist is to be,
whether living or dead, one with the Uncreate.

Professor Oldenberg says that "the devotion of abstraction is
to Buddhism what prayer is to other religions." There is here a
distinction without a difference. Abstraction is nothing more nor less
than true, perfect, sublimated prayer. Real, unadulterated prayer is
only possible when the mind is totally relieved of distractions.

Jesus went apart to pray; so the Buddhist monk seeks the silence of the
forest or the seclusion of the cave to commune with the unconditioned,
with "Our Father which art in Heaven," with the Uncreate of the
Athanasian Creed. He who abstracts himself from the "plurality of the
phenomenal world" anticipates the cessation of the impermanent.

"Come, then! Into solitude will I go, into the forest which Buddha
praises; therein it is good for the solitary monk to dwell who seeks
perfection. In the _sîta_ forest rich in blossoms, in the cool mountain
cave, will I wash my body and walk alone."

The counting of inhalations and exhalations of the breath, and other
practices of a like nature, are used as so many short cuts to this
state of abstraction or prayer. For this purpose they are as valuable
as ceremonial magic professes to be for the ready acquisition of power
over unknown laws and qualities of nature.[AR]

 [AR] "Our prayer is to Him to preserve us in future, to assist us in
 our troubles, to give us our daily food, not to be too severe upon
 us, not to punish us as we deserve; but to be merciful and kind. But
 the Buddhist has far other thoughts than these. He believes that the
 world is ruled by everlasting, unchangeable laws of righteousness. The
 Great God lives far behind His laws, and they are for ever and ever.
 You cannot change the laws of righteousness by praising them, or by
 crying against them, any more than you can change the revolution of
 the earth. Sin begets sorrow, sorrow is the only purifier from sin;
 these are eternal sequences; they cannot be altered; it would not
 be good that they should be altered. The Buddhist believes that the
 sequences are founded on righteousness, are the path to righteousness;
 and he does not believe he could alter them for the better, even if he
 had the power by prayer to do so.... This has been called a pessimism.
 Surely it is the greatest optimism the world has known--this certainty
 that the world is ruled by righteousness; that the world has been,
 that the world will always be, ruled by perfect righteousness....
 The God who lies far beyond our ken has delegated his authority to
 no one. He works through everlasting laws. His will is manifested by
 unchangeable sequences. There is nothing hidden about His law that
 requires exposition by his agents, nor any ceremonies necessary for
 acceptance into his faith. Buddhism is a free religion. No one holds
 the keys of salvation but himself. Buddhism never dreams that anyone
 can save or damn you except yourself, and so a Buddhist monk is so
 far away from our ideas of a priest as can be. Nothing could be more
 abhorrent to Buddhism than any claim of authority of power from above,
 of holiness acquired, except by the earnest effort of a man's own
 soul" (_The Soul of a People_, by H. Fielding).

Christianity and Buddhism cannot be differentiated in this matter of
abstraction. Gibbon writes: "The fakirs of India and the monks of the
Oriental Church were alike persuaded that, in total abstraction of the
faculties of the mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend to the
enjoyment and vision of the Deity." The opinion and practice of the
monasteries of Mount Athos will be best represented in the words of an
Abbot who flourished in the eleventh century. "When thou art alone in
thy cell," says the ascetic teacher, "shut thy door, and seat thyself
in a corner; raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory;
recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thy eyes and thy
thoughts towards the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel, and
search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first all will
be dark and comfortless; but, if you persevere day and night, you will
feel an ineffable joy; and no sooner has the soul discovered the place
of the heart than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light."

Here, in these practices attributed to Christian saints, we have an
exact parallel to those in use by Hindu ascetics even of the present
day. It must be clearly understood, however, that the Buddhist attaches
no merit to such practices, unless they conduce to the banishment of
ignorance. Asceticism, as a thing in itself, is useless.

Heaven and Nirvana are unpainted pictures, undescribed actualizations;
they are realities, not materialities. There is a never-ending,
unsatisfied, restless craving, conscious or unconscious, throughout
the Kosmos to enter upon reality. The suns and their satellites whirl
about aimlessly in search of it. The whole universe is in sore trouble
because, through ignorance, it is not. "The vulture's eye hath not seen
it; the lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed
by it. The depth saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not
with me." And yet it is there!

The use of such exaggerated terms as "immense," "infinite,"
"illimitable," etc., is to be accounted for by referring the habit to
unconscious efforts by the conditioned to express the unconditioned.
The sea, mountains, the heavens, owe their fascination to a suggestion
of the unconditioned possessed by them.

In moments of attempted aspiration we are prone to look upwards into
space--a symbol of the boundless. On the other hand, when the mind is
engaged in working out details and calculations, there is the habit
of looking downwards. Not only men, but beasts of the field, look
upwards for help in their dying moments; upwards into space, where the
conditioned seemingly vanishes into the unconditioned.

I have often witnessed the pleading expression of dying antelopes and
other wild animals, their eyes being almost invariably directed to the
sky above in their last moments of life.

I was on one occasion more than usually struck with this beautiful
expression--appealing, as it were, to the skies for mercy--in the case
of a wounded bear when in its death throes amid the snowy solitudes of
the Himalayas.

Let us draw the curtains apart, and behold for a moment the scene of
the enacted tragedy. Out of the violet mists spread by the viewless
hands of a yet unrisen sun, black crags uplifted their glacier breasts
to receive the first ravishing kiss of dawn; and the forests, obedient
to the silence imposed by the kingly peaks, stood austere and unstirred
by the affectionate airs of heaven. The staining blood, the furry mass,
the clutching claws of the wild monster in his struggle with life and
death, presented to the imagination some weird sacrifice consummated
upon an altar, built of immaculate snow.

It was then that this remarkable pleading expression of the eyes
arrested the attention of my Himalayan huntsman, who, turning round to
me, exclaimed: "He is seeing God." The Psalmist says: "I will lift up
mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help."

Human beings, as well as all animal nature, seem to make their final
appeal for help or pity to something above or beyond this conditioned
world. The enhancement of the beauties of landscape and architecture by
the effects of mist and twilight is due to the obliteration of detail
by these atmospheric conditions. Detail is fatiguing to the eye and
brain. These organs unconsciously demand the repose which the absence
of detail confers. Hence the charm of impressionism in Art.

In the countenances of the blind, who possess one sensation the less
to distract and weary them, there is not infrequently to be noticed a
peculiar scintillation of peace which seems to speak to one of the time
when all sensations will cease to be, and to herald the approach of
that eternal beatitude which is so highly uplifted above the joys of
this transitory world.

There is also a strong Nirvanic suggestion in the appearance of some
of the eminent ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic faith, in those
instances where the flesh shows traces of the consuming fire of
asceticism. Benevolence, compassion, love, genius, joy--all these are
presented, but with a minimum of the earthy adhering to them. In this
aspect they create an impression very different to that communicated
to us by the comfortable placidity of those who have only experienced
happiness of a less exalted description.[AS]

 [AS] The extraordinary veneration in which the Cowley Fathers and
 Roman Catholic priests are held in India has often been attributed,
 and rightly so, I think, to the unassuming asceticism which
 characterizes these lowly followers of the Great Master. Celibacy,
 self-denial, poverty, meekness--these never fail to win the admiration
 and respect of the people of Hindustan who cherish their ideals more
 fondly than is apparently the case in many other countries.

In "stillness," another attribute of the unconditioned, there abides
an enchantment that cannot be surpassed by other conditions. Yet even
the rapture engendered by the sight of a furious and incontinent sea
can be explained by the fact that the pleasure derived therefrom is
solely due and in proportion to the magnitude of the display, and
magnitude suggests the "illimitable."

The ambition to scale the highest summits, in whatever position
or capacity, the idea of resurrection, the fascination of the word
"eternal," the hope of everlasting rest--all these tend in the same
direction, all point to the Empyrean, where detail seems to fade into a
vacuum, into Nirvana, into Heaven, into God.




CHAPTER V.

SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS.


It is only when we come to take a bird's-eye view of these two great
religions, which have exercised so enormous and so abiding an influence
over the human race, and when clearness of vision is unobscured by
numberless petty details and dogmas, that we can perceive the factors
common to both which have given them their present stability and
strength.

No religion, no system of morals, no philosophy, can be secure unless
they rest upon the groundwork of universal truth and necessity; and it
is certain that, if Christianity and Buddhism did not possess these
supports, they would not now be what they actually are--the ruling
forces to millions of human beings.

It has been said with much truth that the daily life of an ordinary
man is a continual round of intoxication. Some form or other of
inebriating excitement seems absolutely necessary to him, if he is
to escape from the Slough of Despond of _ennui_ and all its evil
consequences. The remark is equally true of the human race as a whole.
It cannot survive, apparently, without constant stimuli to urge and
goad it forward. Were such stimuli wanting from time to time, man
would probably degenerate, and cease to show that love of progress and
activity which is so essential to his existence as man. Consequently,
we note, looking back through the vista of history which lies open to
our view, the periodical appearance of some great religious reformer,
whose task it is to infuse new zeal and strength into the flagging
energies of his fellow-creatures. Gotama, Jesus, Savonarola, General
Booth, are all greater or lesser instances in point; have all worked
upon the same basic conception, however different the condition of
their times may have required the superficial doctrines of their
various creeds to be.

Some--Jesus and Gotama, and possibly Mahomed--worked with the full
cognizance of the task before them; others, who have not been gifted
with so large a measure of divine insight, have wrought and lived for
the same purpose, blindly, and unconscious of the complete significance
of their action.

But, it may be asked, if Jesus and Gotama were gnomic, how comes it
that the Buddhism and Christianity of to-day are so radically different
in their outward manifestations? To answer this question we have merely
to take a broad glance at history.

At the time of the advent of Gotama the people of India were in
possession of a civilization remarkable in many respects, but most
remarkable, perhaps, in the freedom and latitude of thought prevalent.
It is difficult for many who have been brought up within the contracted
influences of those who regard all alien religions and non-Christian
countries as so many black spots on the pages of history and on the
maps of the world, and who have been surrounded in their youth by the
innumerable restrictions placed upon all speculative propensities,
to realize that, at the time when they were mere cave-dwellers and
unclothed sojourners with the beasts of the field, a great and lofty
civilization was existent in what they would possibly consider a
barbarous corner of the globe, and that a people there held dominion
whose chief intellectual pastime was to range over the vast domains
of speculative thought and all the interminable mysteries of life.
The Indian has been a philosopher by birth and breeding from time
immemorial; and only among a race of philosophers could such a religion
as Buddhism, with its sudden iconoclasm, have been preached with so
little opposition, and have taken root so rapidly, when we come to
consider the strong hold the Brahmanical ceremonial had upon the people
at that time.

With the inception of Christianity, however, the case was very
different. At the birth of Jesus the inhabitants of Palestine, with
the exception of the Essenes, were sunk low in the mire of bigotry,
prejudice, and priestly domination. The mind of the people was less
philosophically prepared to grasp a broad and exalted creed such as
essential Christianity; it required dogmas more definite, doctrines
more easily comprehended; and Jesus had perforce to mould his
utterances to the temperament and mental capacity of the people among
whom he preached.

To the east of the Holy Land was India, with its refined and more
perfect civilization; to the west, Central Europe, with its savage
and ignorant tribes, worshippers of trees, and in servitude to many
superstitious practices and customs. Christianity, with its immense
potential resources, its innate power for good, required some outlet
for its activities; and, as was only natural, it spread in the
direction where a pure and sublime religion was most needed, and
experienced little difficulty in eventually conquering the savage
intellect of Central Europe. Becoming appropriated by men who, living
in the far North, depended for their very life upon a ceaseless
struggle with adverse circumstances, it gradually lost the softening
and refining influences which are so characteristic of the Oriental
temperament, and became the vehicle for the passions and ambitions of a
race more brutal and more unsympathetic than that among which it took
its rise.

And to what an extent has this religion of Christ, the evangel of
peace and goodwill, been since prostituted! The mistaken--though, no
doubt, well-intended--dogmas formulated by the Holy Catholic Church
proved to be, in their short-sightedness and complete lack of insight
into human nature, a prolific source of degeneration, bigotry,
persecution, ignorance, immorality, and extreme ecclesiastical tyranny
in the Dark Ages. The rigid and narrow doctrines inculcated by the
Puritans have been almost as fruitful a cause of moral perversion and
reckless narrow-mindedness. To-day it must be acknowledged that we have
outgrown the gross and debasing Christianity of those mediæval times;
but many of us are still fast chained in the shackles of prejudice and
intolerance, with all their concomitant delusions and hypocrisies.

Bruno, in his day, said: "Christianity has been tried for eighteen
centuries; the religion of Christ remains to be tried." This remark,
however, overstates the case considerably, for it must be confessed
that there have been many instances of individual lives which have
approached as closely to the ideal as far as it has been practicable
within human limits.

True Christianity many of us have yet to learn; it is but the husk
which exists with the many as yet. Nevertheless, we flatter ourselves
sometimes as the elect of the earth, and despatch emissaries of
civilization to the darkest corners of heathendom to carry with them
only a very imperfect presentment of our great religion in practice and
doctrine.

It is but lately that stern necessity caused the deserts of the Soudan
to be strewn with the corpses of many thousands of dervishes, and the
pietist section of the British press rejoiced at the great victory
of Christianity over Islam, and the fulfilment of a long-cherished
_revenge_ for the most truly Christian of English soldiers! To such
an extent can inconsistency flourish among the most morally advanced
of the earth's inhabitants. And if Europeans have been zealous in
waging war to the death against the heathen in the name of their common
religion, they have been no less ready to turn the gospel of peace into
an apologia for such an internecine slaughter as few other causes have
given rise to, until, at the present day, it is hardly possible to
write seriously--in order that they may be taken seriously--the words,
"How these Christians love one another!"

When we turn to India, to Ceylon, and more especially to Burmah, we are
brought face to face with a very different state of things. It is true
that in some parts--Thibet, for instance--Buddhism has been debased to
an even worse state than Christianity in Europe; but, after all, that
is merely asserting that human nature is human nature. The broader
aspect of Buddhism in Asia must, to any unprejudiced observer, appear
in striking contrast to the prostitution to which other religions in
other corners of the earth have been subjected. It seems to be one of
the unalterable laws which govern human conduct that the teaching of
any great religious reformer should, in the centuries which follow his
disappearance from the arena in which he had striven, be brought low
and narrowed down, partly by the short-sightedness of its adherents,
but mostly owing to the unhealthy influences of ecclesiastical
domination such as was typical of mediæval Europe and Brahmanical
India. That Buddhism should in great degree have escaped such a fate
must be attributed, not only to the intrinsic value of the system
itself, but also to the character of the people among whom it has
survived.

There have been many calumniators, from interested motives, of
Buddhism; but no false representations, however frequently reiterated,
can serve to mask the purity and nobility of this remarkable religion.
It has never, like Christianity, been made the pretext of warfare
and the conquest of alien races; no blood has ever been shed in its
propagation; no despairing cries of martyred wives and orphan children
rise up from the centuries that are past to stamp its forehead with the
brand of Cain. By reason alone has it spread and become endeared to the
many millions who now owe it allegiance; reason and truth are the only
swords which have been unsheathed in the cause of its promulgation.[AT]
It has, in fact, conquered by its sweet reasonableness alone, unaided
by artificial and compulsory means.

 [AT] "No ravished country has ever borne witness to the prowess of the
 followers of the Buddha; no murdered men have poured out their blood
 on their hearthstones, killed in his name; no ruined women have cursed
 his name to high heaven. He and his faith are clean of the stain of
 blood. He was the preacher of the Great Peace, of love, of charity,
 of compassion; and so clear is his teaching that it can never be
 misunderstood" (_The Soul of a People_, by H. Fielding, p. 88).

The gradually diminishing popularity of the religious war sentiment
which actuates people to perpetrate such iniquities as Crusades and
Jehads will, it is presumed, afford relief in the future, at least
to some sections of the Christian world, by removing an opportunity
out of the way for the reproach of those who take their stand by the
non-resistance principle as enunciated by the founder of the Christian
faith. The carrying out of the non-resistance principle in its totality
seems to increase in impracticability in proportion to the advancing
complexity of social and national life. A very near approach to the
achievement of the object embodied in the principle can only be
imagined possible under the most primitive conditions of existence,
notably in such cases where the country inhabited provides the
necessities of life without involving any violent struggle for their
acquisition. Christian nations, by the force of circumstances and the
nature of their environment, are unfortunately impelled, it would seem,
to disregard and set aside the very distinct teaching of Jesus on this
point; and some of us, facing both ways, endeavour to escape from the
dilemma, and pour balm upon our consciences, by assuming that war is
amply justified by Scripture and expressly sanctioned by the Almighty.
In this connection it would perhaps be the most straightforward course
for us to frankly admit with Tolstoi that war is as fundamentally
un-Christian as it is un-Buddhistic, and to be prepared to face the
consequences of its unlawfulness in the sight of God rather than to
dislocate the teaching of Jesus with a view to the selfish satisfaction
of our consciences, and for the ultimate purpose of settling down
into a comfortable frame of mind when brought into contact with this
unpleasant subject.

In spite of the many detractors Buddhism has had, it has been
appreciated in cultivated centres of Europe and America to an extent
which is the surest token of its intrinsic worth. In Asia it is
difficult to realize how profound and enduring has been its influence
for good.

Perhaps, on account of the presence of dogmas, such as the negation of
soul as a permanent individual entity and of immortality as it is known
among us, which are to the average European intellect absurd and most
repugnant, it has been more readily assimilated as a belief by races
which, unlike ourselves, are philosophic by nature and by birth. But by
far the most important part of Buddhism in its practical significance
is the doctrine of Karma, which has proved so great a stumbling-block
to many, and a medium of contempt for those professing other faiths. It
would hardly be exaggeration to describe this as one of the grandest
ethical theories ever devised by the brain of man, ranging as it does
over the whole sphere of human activity and existence, and policing, as
it were, the actions of human creatures.

Lest it should appear to any of my readers that I have laid undue
stress upon the value and beauty of Buddhism in the foregoing pages,
I would take this opportunity of disclaiming any intention on my part
to draw invidious distinctions between the manifestations of the
two faiths of which I have treated, and which, in my opinion, are
_fundamentally_ one and the same.

In this connection my sole aim has been to give prominence to the many
excellent properties possessed by Buddhism, with a view to clearing the
way for an impartial appreciation of this religion by those who have
never yet bestowed their attention or extended their sympathies to the
subject with unbiased minds.

The dissolution, not the destruction, of symbolism which I have
endeavoured to accomplish in dealing with the metaphysic of
Christianity and Buddhism--of that symbolism which is so apt, when
taken as a thing in itself, to contract our sympathies and darken
our vision in respect of religions--will have achieved an object if
it succeeds in carrying with it the conviction, at present[AU] so
indisturbably possessed by the writer, that _essential_ Christianity
and _true_ Buddhism cannot be differentiated; that the ultimate source
of their power and loveliness is one; that they rest upon the same
imperishable foundations, which are lost to sight in billowy clouds of
mystery, in a splendour beyond imagining.

 [AU] "In knowledge that man only is to be condemned who is not in a
 state of transition ... nor is there anything more adverse to accuracy
 than fixity of opinion" (_Faraday_).

The priest in Zola's _Rome_ looked forward to the day when symbols
and rites, so necessary in the infancy of the world, would disappear
altogether--"to the time when enlarged, purified, and instructed
humanity would be able to support the brightness of naked truth"
without their assistance.

It may be, however, that any premature abandonment of symbols, rites,
and ceremonies might, under present conditions, prove disastrous, as
such a course would go far to arrest artistic tendencies and stifle
within us those cravings for the beautiful which are such undeniably
potent and useful factors in conducting us onward to a realization of
the invisible. All that appears requisite in this direction at the
present moment is that the symbolic element in symbolism should be
clearly recognized, and symbolism appraised at its true value.

Concurrently with the development of a deeper insight into the
realities which subsist in symbols, there should arise in these
Northern latitudes a class of people who would demonstrate by their
character and actions that, under existing social conditions, and in
all the turmoil of modern civilization, a nearer approach to the ideal
life than has yet been made by a community is within the range of
practicalities. This is the most clamant need of the day.

In our Western world we are confronted with innumerable obstacles
in the way of leading the ideal, or Christ-like, life. The ideal
_life-germ_ is in all of us, but too often hidden away under the veneer
of respectability, and much obscured by conventionalities. This germ,
if not very apparent in our public capacity, is distinctly discernible
in the family life as typical of these islands. We see it in the eyes
of the wife, in the restraint of the son, and we listen to it in the
voices of our daughters. It struggles hard to develop itself in the
face of stupendous difficulties. Its growth among our spiritual leaders
is frequently handicapped by the isolating effects of aggrandizement.
A cardinal, for instance--good and gracious as he invariably is--must
always be more or less inaccessible and appalling. Our charities, too,
are vitiated by ostentation. Prospectuses demand that a royalty should
take the lead, and the titled figure as patrons, if the appeal made is
designed to be irresistible. So that, to whichever side we turn, we
find ourselves hampered in our aspirations towards the ideal by the
exigencies of society, by our customs and absurdities.

Turning to the far East, we are face to face with other conditions,
which undoubtedly lend themselves more readily to the impress
of the ideal. Burmah is a country where strikingly successful
endeavours continue to be made to hold constantly before the eyes
of the people exemplars of the ideal life, and the results are
astonishing--approximating a perfection which it is hardly possible to
over-rate. Notwithstanding the enormous capacity and appreciation its
inhabitants possess for the frivolities of existence, they are wont
to support out of their slender resources a numerous staff of monks,
who are to be found in all parts of the land, and in every place where
their fellow-creatures congregate in small or large numbers.

However far laymen may deviate from the _Path_, the ideal life as
exemplified by the monks must not be tampered with. It is the expressed
will of the laity that this example should be unremittingly preserved
in all its integrity and purity, whatever may be the sum of their own
failings. It is this intense admiration and fervour on the part of the
lay community for the ideal life, as known to them through the teaching
of the Enlightened One, that has secured this incalculable blessing to
the people, and made Burmah a model for all nations in this respect.

There is a sadness unspeakable in the thought that perhaps, ere long,
this ancient and ennobling bond between the people and their religious
teachers, between the material and the ideal, will be swept away in
the wake of commerce and utilitarianism, and all their attendant
debasements.

Mr. Fielding, in his book, _The Soul of a People_, brings all his
unique experiences and intimate knowledge of the Burmese and the
monkhood to impress upon us this marvellous object-lesson in the effect
of a religion whose abiding principles are an ever-present, living
force, and of which it may be truly said it is the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever.

Everywhere, intermingled with this light-hearted people, delighting
in colour, dress, and decoration of all kinds, there is ever to be
seen the serene and passionless personality of the monk; no reviler of
alien creeds; no possessor of priestly power; poorer than the poorest,
yet rich in the inheritance of the Dharma; no figure-head of some
illustrious superstition, mitred, and heralded through the streets;
nought--save a lowly follower of the Perfect One, whose law it is that
guides to the Great Peace, which,

                                  "like a star,
  Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are."




AT
THE MALAGAWA TEMPLE,
CEYLON.


  I.

  Hail! Gentle Master, Grave and Sweet!
    Here at Thy shrine we bend the knee;
  With island flowers we deck Thy feet,
    And golden corn we bring to Thee.
  Star of our Night, Orb of our Day,
  Thou art our Refuge, Thou our Stay!

  II.

  Thy pitying eyes we see downcast,
    Yet are they fain to tell us this--
  Sometime, somewhere, life's ocean[AV] past,
    We all shall taste immortal bliss!
  Star of our Night, Orb of our Day,
  Thou art our Refuge, Thou our Stay!

   [AV] Samsāra--The ocean of Birth and Death.

  III.

  No adoration, praise, or prayer
    Hast Thou enjoined whilst here we live;
  But our great love can scarce forbear
    To pay Thee all our hearts can give.
  Star of our Night, Orb of our Day,[AW]
  Thou art our Refuge, Thou our Stay!

   [AW]

       "Atha sabbamahorattim
       Buddho tapati tejasāti."

   --_Samyutta-Nikāya_, edited by M. Léon Feer, p. 284.




APPENDIX.

_METRICAL ADAPTATIONS OF BUDDHIST LEGEND
AND SCRIPTURE._


THE LAST WORDS OF GOTAMA BUDDHA TO
HIS FAVOURITE DISCIPLE ANANDA.

  Weep not, Ananda, sorrow not!
    Have I not said ere this to thee
  That from all things which man most loves,
    From these, Ananda, man must flee?

  How can it be, Ananda, then,
    That Birth and Growth should not decay,
  That all things made, begotten here,
    Should not, Ananda, pass away?

  That cannot be. But thou for long
    In thought and words and holy deed
  The Perfect One hast glorified.
    Strive on, and thou shalt soon be freed.

  It may be so, that thou shalt say
    "The Word has lost its Master here,"
  "We have no Master more." Not thus,
    Ananda, be thou fraught with fear.

  The Law and Ordinance I taught,
    These are your Master when I'm gone:
  Each man his own salvation is,
    Thus only is Deliverance won.


SAMSÂRA AND NIRVANA.[AX]

 [AX] From _The Gospel of Buddha, according to Old Records_, told by
 Paul Carus.

  I.

  Look on this life and meditate!
    Herein are birth and growth's decay.
  Atoms combine and separate;
    Nought lasts: all things must pass away.

  II.

  As flowers are the glories of this world,
    Full blossoms scent the morning shade;
  The painted petals soon are furled,
    And in the heat of noon-day fade.

  III.

  Lo! everywhere the panting breath
    Of Pleasure and Pursuit of fame,
  Of panic flight from pain and death
    And fierce Desire's consuming flame.

  IV.

  The world is nought but endless change,
    A restless, driven, surging sea.
  Is it through lives we thus must range,
    Ever becoming, never be?

  V.

  Is there no permanency, then?
    No realm of rest where troubles cease,
  Where birth is not, nor death of men,
    No City of Eternal Peace?

  VI.

  Must anxious hearts for ever beat?
    What power from all this ill redeems?
  Will not our hot, earth-weary feet
    At last be dipped in cooling streams?

  VII.

  Buddha, our Lord, with pitying eyes
    Came and beheld this world of woe.
  He found the path whereby we rise
    Above all evil here below.

  VIII.

  Ye who for life unending crave
    Know that there lurks immortal bliss
  In transient form. There is no grave,
    No death for those who know of this.

  IX.

  Ye who for riches vainly yearn
    Take of the treasure He will give.
  Ye who the mighty Truth discern
    The birthless, deathless life will live.

  X.

  Truth is the immortal part of mind;
    Possessing truth is rich to be.
  In truth the changeless you will find,
    The image of Eternity!


REJOICE.[AY]

 [AY] From _The Gospel of Buddha, according to Old Records_, told by
 Paul Carus.

  I.

  Let the whole earth with joy resound,
    Buddha, our Lord, the Blessed One,
  The hidden cause of Ill hath found,
    And for the world salvation won.

  II.

  He who the ravelled knot unwinds,
    Buddha, our Lord, has rent the veil!
  Illusion now no longer blinds,
    Nor fear of death our hearts assail.

  III.

  Ye who of tribulation tire,
    Ye who must struggle and endure,
  Rejoice; ye, too, who truth desire,
    For now is your deliverance sure.

  IV.

  Here is a balm for every woe,
    Here for the hungry princely fare;
  For those athirst the fountains flow,
    And Hope triumphant kills Despair.

  V.

  On mountain heights, in valleys low,
    O, darkened soul, where'er thou art,
  This light ineffable will glow
    With blessings for the pure in heart.

  VI.

  Bind up your wounds, ye bruiséd feet!
    O broken, beating hearts, be still!
  Drink, thirsty lips, the waters sweet;
    Ye that are hungered, eat your fill!

  VII.

  O children of the night, arise!
    The star of morning is on high.
  O bleeding breasts, O suppliant eyes,
    Be of good cheer, your bliss is nigh.

  VIII.

  Buddha, our Lord, the truth revealed,
    Which gives us strength in life and death;
  The sorrowing and the sick are healed,
    And every evil languisheth.


THE GOAL.[AZ]

 [AZ] From _The Gospel of Buddha, according to Old Records_, told by
 Paul Carus.

  I.

  Why thus so long by Karma tied?
    O Bhikshus, listen! You and I
  The four great truths have set aside,
    Not understanding--that is why!


  II.

  Through rock and plant and breathing things
    Migrate[BA] the wandering souls of each,
  Till they, beyond imaginings,
    The perfect light of Buddha reach.

   [BA] Although the expression "migrate" does not accurately represent
   the process of transition in a Buddhistic sense, it is retained here
   for want of a better.

  III.

  Karma inexorable reigns!
    E'en though you fly from star to star,
  The Past on you imprest remains,
    And what you were is what you are!

  IV.

  To new births onwards you must press
    Before the hill of light you see
  Where shines the beacon Righteousness
    From transmigration's bondage free.

  V.

  The higher birth I've reached, O friends;
    I've found the truth, rebirth's surcease;
  I've taught the noble path that wends
    To kingdoms of eternal peace.

  VI.

  I've showed to you Ambrosia's lake,
    Which all your sins will wash away;
  The sight of truth your thirst will slake,
    And Lust's destroying strife allay.

  VII.

  He who has crossed through Passion's fire,
    And climbed Nirvana's radiant shore,
  _His_ bliss the envious gods desire,
    _His_ heart defiled by sin no more.

  VIII.

  As lotus leaves upon the lake
    The pearly drops do not retain,
  So they the noble path who take,
    Though in the world, the world disdain.

  IX.

  A mother will her life bestow
    To safely guard an only son,
  But they unmeasured mercy show,
    And give their lives for anyone.

  X.

  Steadfast in mind let man remain,
    Whether he stand or walk or rest;
  Living or dying, sick or sane,
    Of all, this state of heart is best.

  XI.

  If truth's bedimmed by lust of sense,
    Reborn, man must again o'erpass
  The desert tracks of Ignorance,
    Illusion's mirage, Sin's morass.

  XII.

  But, when Truth holds entire sway,
    With it migration's cause departs;
  All selfish cravings melt away,
    And Truth its saving cure imparts.

  XIII.

  O Bhikshus, true deliverance this--
    The only heaven to which we soar.
  This is salvation's endless bliss!
    Here, within sight, Nirvana's shore!


BUDDHA AND THE HERDSMAN.

(_Rhymed version of stanzas translated by Professor Rhys Davids._)

  I.

  Hot steams my food: all milked the cows--
    The Herdsman Dhaniya said--
  Hard by there stands where Māhi flows
    New thatched my lowly shed:
  My friends are near, my hearth burns bright,
  Then let the rain pour down to-night!

  II.

  Cool is my mind: no "fallow"[BB] there--
    The Holy Buddha said--
  One night for Māhi's banks I spare,
    And all unthatched my shed.
  Lo! now extinguished is the fire;
    The lamps of Lust have lost their light.
  "Dulness"[BC] and Evil both expire--
    So let the rain pour down to-night!

   [BB] Referring to the five fallow lands of the mind.

   [BC] Dulness is used here in the sense of inactivity of mind.

  III.

  There are no gad flies here, my kine--
    The Herdsman Dhaniya said--
  Are roaming where the meadows shine,
    The rich grass is their bed.
  In vain the fickle rain god's might!
  So let the rain pour down to-night!

  IV.

  My basket raft was woven well--
    The Holy Buddha said--
  I've reached the shore, I've spoiled the spell,
    From me four floods have fled;
  These four--Delusion, Ignorance,
  The lust of life, the lust of sense--
  No longer powerful to blight.
  So let the rain pour down to-night!

  V.

  Obedient is my wife: no wanton she--
    The Herdsman Dhaniya said--
  No evil word she spake of me
    While she and I were wed.
  Long dwelt with me my soul's delight.
  So let the rain pour down to-night!

  VI.

  Obedient is my heart: set wholly free--
    The Holy Buddha said--
  Restrained, subdued; o'erwatched by me
    Through passion's tempest led.
  No evil dims my heart's pure light.
  Then let the rain pour down to-night!

  VII.

  Earning my bread, I live at ease--
    The Herdsman Dhaniya said--
  My sons around by strength's increase
    To ripening manhood bred.
  No ill do they my joy to blight.
  So let the rain pour down to-night!

  VIII.

  No man can call me slave; I roam--
    The Holy Buddha said--
  At will I roam, each spot a home,
    And when I want am fed.
  No need for wage or gain to fight.
  So let the rain pour down to-night!

  IX.

  I've barren cows and calves yet young--
    The Herdsman Dhaniya said--
  And cows in calf and steers among,
    A bull lifts up his head--
  Lord of the cows, a kingly sight.
  Then let the rain pour down to-night.

  X.

  No cows have I nor calves yet young--
    The Holy Buddha said--
  For cows in calf and steers among
    No bull lifts up his head;
  No lord of cows, no king of might!
  So let the rain pour down to-night!

  XI.

  Then lo! a cloud o'er hill and plain
  That moment thundering poured forth rain.
  When herdsman Dhaniya heard with dread
  The God's rain rush, he yielding said:

  XII.

  "O, great the gain accrued thereby!
    Since Holy Buddha came to-day,
  We trust in thine all-seeing eye.
    Be thou, O mighty Sage, our stay.
  My wife and I obedient ever
  To follow thee will make endeavour.

  XIII.

  "Under the Happy One we'll lead
    A holy life, and, as he saith,
  We'll put an end to pain and need,
    And pass beyond old age and death!"


BUDDHA AND THE KING.[BD]

 [BD] This is a rhymed version of the Pabbajjā Sutta, which is contained
 in the Sutta Nipāta. _Vide_ Professor Rhys Davids's _American Lectures
 on Buddhism_, p. 99.

  I.

  Their peace I praise who seek not here a home.
    It is the peace the Blessed One hath found,
  He who resolved in solitude to roam,
    The sky his roof, his holy bed the ground.

  II.

  "Fulfilled with hindrance is the household life,
    It is the haunt of passion and of wrath.
  Free is the homeless state from every strife."
    He, meditating thus, went boldly forth.

  III.

  And, going forth, wrong deeds he set aside,
    Wrong thoughts and words he scattered to the wind,
  And in a life pure, calm, and sanctified,
    He found that peace whoever seeks shall find.

  IV.

  To Bimbasāra's royal town he went,
    Where lived the ruler of Magādha-land.
  Stately he moved, dispassionate, intent,
    From door to door, an alms-bowl in his hand.

  V.

  King Bimbasāra saw him as he crossed
    Beyond the terraced <DW72>s of his domain.
  So sweet he looked in meditation lost.
    The king spake thus to his attendant train:

  VI.

  "Be full of care for this most noble man;
    In outward aspect great, all pure within.
  His eyes stray not beyond a fathom's span,
    So guarded moves he in this world of sin.

  VII.

  "See how serenely he performs his task;
    Of Royal birth must be this anchorite.
  Let the king's messengers run forth and ask,
    Where wilt thou rest, O mendicant, to-night?"

  VIII.

  The messengers, despatched at royal behest,
    The king's instructions hasten to obey;
  Then, bowing low, the Bhikshu thus addressed:
    "Whither, O Bhikshu, dost thou wend thy way?"

  IX.

  From house to house he wandered guardedly,
    And at each door with eyes downcast he stood.
  Mindful, restrained, dispassionate was he,
    Filling his alms-bowl with the proffered food.

  X.

  His task performed, in meditation deep
    He left the haunts of men, and silently
  Set forth to gain Pandāra's caverned steep;
    Then, turning, said: "My dwelling there shall be."

  XI.

  Seeing him stop, the messengers stayed still;
    One only to the king this message gave:
  "O king, he sits upon Pandāra's hill,
    Like to a lion in a mountain cave."

  XII.

  The prince forthwith upon his chariot rode,
    And hastened towards Pandāra's lofty crest;
  Then, stepping out, along the path he strode
    To where the mendicant had stopped to rest;

  XIII.

  And, bending low, thus spake he to the youth:
    "Young art thou yet, too delicate to face
  The life of those who battle for the truth,
    Thou seeming scion of an ancient race!

  XIV.

  "O glory of the vanguard of a band
    Of heroes onwards pressing to the fray,
  What is thy lineage, where thy royal land?
    O let me in these robes thy form array."

  XV.

  "Hard by Himaālaya's <DW72>s there dwells, O king,
    A Sākya race, Kosālas known by name,
  Descendants of the sun; from these I spring;
    From these gone forth, I seek not earthly fame.

  XVI.

  "Seeing the danger of a carnal life,
    I have set forth to battle to the end,
  And in this struggle and protracted strife
    Raptures ineffable my path attend!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

Variations in spelling, punctuation and accents are as in the original.

The repetition of the Title on the first page has been removed.

Italics are represented thus, _italic_.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Metaphysic of Christianity and
Buddhism, by Dawsonne M. Strong

*** 