of the ten points of space," the "Jinas of the ten horizons," the "Jinas and Rishis," take active part in mundane affairs, exactly as in the Lalita Vistara. "And the beatified Buddhas who in those lands of Buddha had obtained Pari Nirvâna became completely visible."

It is true that ingenious writers have explained these Buddhas away. Schmidt, for instance, has put forth a theory that a Buddha at the moment of extinction creates a counterpart of himself, a phantasmal Buddha, who in the lapis lazuli fields of the Buddhas carries on his work. But this is virtually stating that the extinction of the Buddha is no extinction at all; and some such theory was no doubt necessary in the presence of the Lotus. The worship of all the Buddhas is enjoined, and Sâkya Muni himself promises to appear to them after he has entered complete Nirvâņa. He says in another passage that "he will execute what those sages the Buddhas have ordered." In another he "calls to witness the beatified Buddhas who exist," &c., &c.

Also it is not pretended that Sâkya Muni is the supreme celestial potentate. The omnipotence of Amitâbha is dwelt on in some fine gâthâs. In the centre of heaven he sits on the lotus throne and guides the destinies of mortals.1 Sâkya Muni, also-for the work has been much edited, and many schools of Buddhist thought are reflected in it-through "many million kalpas" is believed by the unspiritual to have obtained complete Nirvâņa; and his relics are worshipped; but to those who are earnest and spiritually minded he exhibits, when required, his apparitional form.2

It is to be mentioned, too, that rival saints, such as Manjusri of Nepâl and Avalokitêshwara, whom Burnouf calls the patron of Tibet, filch from Sâkya Muni many of his honours. Thus the patron saint of Tibet, if properly invoked, can save mortals from wild beasts, from the executioner, from the effects of the most subtle charms 1 Lotus, p. 268. 2 Ibid., p. 197.

and magic formulæ, and even from hell and the powers of darkness. Avalokitêshwara, by the way, is also a son of Amitâbha; in fact, a new Avâtara of the transcendental Buddha. In the Lotus1 Buddha is plainly only one of the Buddhas, a saint and not a god. That was the earliest Buddhism. In Ceylon, amongst the sacred books said to have been delivered by Buddha to the First Council, when he had attained the Bodhi, are Apadāna (or Stories about Buddhist Saints) and Patisambhida (On the Powers of Intuitive Insight possessed by Buddhist Saints). If the work mentioned on the Asoka columns, having for title the Supernatural Powers of the Masters, is lost, at any rate shreds of it and echoes still remain both in the North and the South.2

The importance of the White Lotus of Dharma I take to be this, that it gives us a hint how the agnostic theory arose. Early Buddhism was an apparatus to foil the power of evil by the instrumentality of the human remains of some assisting dead saint. But the inordinate prominence given to Sâkya Muni seems to have disturbed this apparatus. To gain his aid it was, of course, a sine qua non that some of his relics should be under the high altar of each temple; but as time wore on, such relics would become scarcer, and their want more felt. A rich Buddhist, instead of repairing an old temple, usually builds a brand new one, the Karma of the second action being considered of a far higher type than that of the first. Then, too, writers on the Buddhist ancestor-worship assure us that the spirits that have recently departed are accredited with greater power than those who may, perhaps, have reached remote Arupalocas, where body becomes so etherealised that individuality seems to depart. Thus there was every incentive, as time wore on, to consign Buddha to regions and conditions of celestial vagueness, and to bring forward newer Buddhas. This Avatâra of Avalokitêshwara has its counterpart in Japan.

1 Lotus, p. 266.

2 Introduction, p. 120.

I

“O THOU that hast set up the overturned chalice once more upon its base!" "Tis thus that Buddha is more than once addressed in Buddhist writings. But the early history of Buddha's great undertaking is wrapped in dense mist. Having traced the career of a mortal from man to god, the Lalita Vistara stops with a noble abruptness, and we have nothing elsewhere but historical data of the vaguest description. Considerable importance has recently been attached to the Cingalese historical books, but they are marred by one fatal blot. They evidently belong to a time and place when accuracy of detail in the view of the editors might safely be made to give way to edification. Thus in their present form it was evidently thought advisable to show that the distinctive features of advanced Buddhism, the rich vihâras, the stately monuments, the lavish offerings to the priests of jewels, and gold, and land, were not only abundant in India in Sâkya Muni's day, but for many many centuries before. The Lalita Vistara leaves Buddha a Brahmachârin in a forest near Benares. Buddhaghosa's Buddhawanso, taking up narrative at the same spot, describes him as passing the first rainy season in an Isi patanan, or edifice near which no living creature could be deprived of life," and then repairing to Kapilavastu with twenty thousand disciples.1 Another of the sacred canonical books (the Aṭṭhakatha) makes the saviour of the world hold a convocation of twelve 1 Journal Bengal As. Soc., vol. vii. pp. 790, 791.

the

hundred and fifty monks in the Veluvano monastery at Râjagriha "in the first year of his Buddhahood." It is evident that such historical materials can only be used with caution.

The problem before the Prince was a sufficiently difficult one. Around him ranged the huge priestly tyrannies of Asia and Europe. Society, according to Mr. Herbert Spencer, had in its earliest stages to protect itself against two great foes, dead men and living men. Hence arose, as he affirms, the craft of the priest and the craft of the statesman. The action of these two was, in the first instance, beneficial; but at the date of Buddha the huge military tyrannies of the world were arresting all progress, oppressing the many in the interest of the few, and producing everywhere the corruption of stagnation.

Great changes have usually come to the world through oceans of blood. With what conceivable instrument could these stately organisations be assailed? Prescription had forged to their hands many weapons of defence both against material and intellectual opposition. It is quite certain that if, as the Ceylon books tell us, Buddha had begun by making thousands of converts in a Vihâra at the holy city of Benares, the priests would have reminded him that the recognised punishment of such heresy in their holy books was the perforation of the tongue, the offending member of the culprit, with a red-hot stylus.

The weapon of Buddha was, I believe, a much more formidable one, secrecy. We learn from the Asoka columns and from the Buddhist narratives that rites of initiation had to be gone through amongst his disciples. The tomb and its o'ershadowing tree, the cave, the mountain, the desert, this was the apparatus that the reformer found ready at hand. Such a fact leaks out even in the Cingalese books. "Twenty years of a houseless life" is said to be part of the career of a Buddha; and we read that that great teacher passed such a year in the bamboo grove at Râja1 Op. cit., p. 816.

griha (Râjgir)" amongst the squirrels," and that year “in the wilderness of Wesali." Now he was on a "mountain " and now in a “desert." The tree plays a conspicuous part in the early legends. It was at once the hotel and the chapel of the teacher in his travels. The Pansil, the leafy hut, was perhaps the first actual Buddhist edifice, but considerably after the date of the great reformer. In the "Twelve Observances" we have plainly Buddha's real ideas. A king has left his earthly dominions. What is his new army to be called? The Mob of Beggars (Bhiksusangha). Where are they to get their clothes? Rags from the dustheap, the dungheap, the graveyard. What is to be their "one seat"? Mother Earth! What is to be their dwelling-place? Each must sit under a tree, and never have any other roof to cover him. This tree must be, if possible, in a cemetery. The true beggar is called Durkhrodpa (he who lives in graveyards).1

Buddha was born under a tree. His soul became awakened under a tree. Under a tree he chiefly lived; under a tree he died. If, as is asserted in the Ceylon histories, all the Brahmin kings around had become Buddhist converts, and had erected numerous monasteries and chaityas, they would scarcely have allowed the fine old preacher to die miserably under a tree.

Signs of considerable opposition to the new religion leak out in the old books. In the Lotus 2 it is said that holy men must "endure patiently injuries, violence, blows with a stick, being spat upon by the ignorant." In another passage it is said that "they give up their flesh, eyes, head, body;" that they "live in uninhabited deserts and caverns.' But there is no trace of any organised martyrdom of the Buddhists. On the other hand there are frequent allusions to "mysteries," "initiation," &c., which seem to show that Brahminism, like a Russian palace of ice, was undermined slowly and silently by the sun-god's thaw.

1

Burnouf, Introduction, pp. 269-274; also p. 252.
2 Lotus, p. 165.
3 Ibid., p. 7..

4 Ibid., p. 234.