I doers." I am aware that Wilson pronounced that these avatâras were not in the Rig-Veda. One more passage may cite to more completely refute this. One of the seven Rishis was called Vasisth'a, and at his miraculous birth it is announced: "All the gods received thee, the drop fallen through divine energy in the vessel." This "drop," this golden germ, was the special symbol of the solar God-man; and in a previous verse, the "tree" and the "lightning," the symbols of the father and mother, are mentioned as producing this germ. Capila, the philosopher, was held to be an incarnation of Vishnu by his followers, and also one of the seven Rishis. In Buddhism Sâkya is one of the seven mortal Buddhas; and the "Lotus-bearer" (Padmapâņi), the active God revealed in Buddhas, in a statue at the South Kensington Museum has seven heads. In the Apocalypse the mystic Alpha and Omega announces that he is one of the prophets.* He seems to be one of the Seven Angels; and in the "Pastor of Hermas " is expressly stated to be so. The " seven stars," the seven Rishis in Indian astronomy, are the seven largest stars of Ursa Major.5 The Aditya, the son of Earth and son of God, is constantly called the "speech" or "voice" of God (Vâch). From vách comes our English word "voice." I need not say that Plato's logos is identical with this Vedic idea. It must be insisted on also that the old Hindoo triad is a trinity in unity; hence the sacred writers are not afraid of giving to one person, or rather limb, at times the attributes of the others, because they take it for granted that the initiated will understand that the son cannot be present without the father and mother; and so on. 1 Bhagavad Gîtâ, translated by Thomson, p. 30. 3 Colebrooke, Essays, pp. 229, 230. CHAPTER II. THE BUDDHIST TRINITY. M. BARTHÉLEMY ST. HILAIRE, as we have seen,1 asserts that there is "no trace of the idea of God in the whole of Buddhism, either at the beginning or at the end." to-morrow he were to visit one of the Chodtens or humble Buddhist temples of Tibet, he would hear the Llamas chant thus: "I adore Tathagata Amitâbha, who dwells in the Buddha region Devachan!" 2 Upon inquiry, he would find that Amibatha was a Tathagata or Buddha quite distinct from Sâkya Muni; that he was the "Buddha of buddhas," the God of gods. But here the apostles in Europe of agnostic Buddhism will answer, "Has not the great Sanskrit scholar Csoma di Korös settled that Amitâbha or Âdi Buddha was foisted on to the original atheistic Buddhism of Tibet in the tenth century A.D. ?" 3 Then let us cross the mountains and visit a Chinese joss-house (God-house) and examine their liturgy. "One in spirit, respectfully we invoke thee! Hail, Amitâbha Lokajit of the world, Sukhavatî (paradise) ! ” 4 Listen again to this— 1 See Introductory Chapter. 2 Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, p. 129. 4 Beal, Catena of Buddhist Scriptures, p. 403. PRAYER. "Oh, would that our own teacher Sâkya Muni, and our merciful father Amitâbha (and the rest), would descend to this sacred precinct, and be present with us who now discharge these religious duties. Would that the great, perfect, illimitable, compassionate heart, influenced by these invocations, would now attend and receive our offerings. May the omnipotent and omniscient Kwan-yin (Holy Spirit), bearing the sword of her own strong vow, now come amongst us, reciting these divine sentences ! " 1 But here Professor Beal chimes in, and suggests that this is a Christian liturgy imported into China by the Nestorian Christians at an early date. "The form of this office is a very curious one. It bears a singular likeness in its outline to the common type of the Eastern Christian liturgies. That is to say, there is a 'Proanaphoral' and an 'Anaphoral' portion; there is a prayer of entrance (Ts eiσódov), a prayer of incense (Tоû Ovμiáμaтos), an ascription of praise to the threefold object of worship (Tρiαyíοv), a prayer of oblation (Ts πроσleσews), the Lections, the recitation of the Dharani (uvorηptov), the Embolismus or prayer against temptation, followed by a 'Confession' and a 'Dismissal.'" 2 Driven from China, let us seek the Buddhist community buried within the mountains of Nepal. There an intelligent Buddhist, Amirta Nanda Bandhya, was consulted by Mr. Hodgson about the atheism of the Buddhists. He immediately refuted the charge with innumerable quotations. I will cite a few of these texts relating to Amitâbha or Âdi Buddha. They are from old Sanskrit works. When Mr. Hodgson first published them, it was objected that they were from the modern Buddhist literature of Nepâl, but this he has denied. "Know that when in the beginning all was void and the five elements were not, then Adi Buddha, the stainless, was revealed in the form of flame or light" (Kâranda Vyûha). “Adi Buddha is without beginning. He is perfect and pure within, the essence of wisdom and absolute truth. He knows all the past. His words are ever the same. He is without second. He is omnipresent" (Nâma Sangîti). "Adi Buddha delights in making happy all sentient creatures. He tenderly loves those who serve him. His majesty fills all with reverence and awe. He is the healer of pain and grief" (Nâma Sangîti). "He is the creator of all the Buddhas.... He is the creator of Prâjna and of the world, himself unmade (or he made the world by the assistance of Prajna, &c.)” (Nâma Sangîti). "He is the essence of all essences, . . . the creator of Akash. He assumes the form of fire to consume the straw of ignorance" (Nâma Sangîti). "From his tapas (meditation) the universe was produced by him. He is the Îswara, the infinite, the form of all things yet formless " (Kâranda Vyûha). 2 Here Mr. Rhys Davids, the warmest advocate of the postulate that "agnostic atheism "1 was Buddha's teaching, confronts us. This Nepaulese idea of Âdi Buddha is certainly not earlier than the tenth century A.D., and Nepaulese Buddhism is due probably to the influence of the Gnosticism of some Persian Christians. He refers us for the unchanged archaic Buddhism to Ceylon, Burmah, Siam, to the Buddhism of the South. Turning to the ritual of the modern temple of Ceylon, a ritual of very old date according to Mr. Dickson, we find the following: I bow my head to the ground and worship If in aught I have sinned against Buddha, CREDO. "We believe in the blessed one, the holy one, the author of all truth, who has fully accomplished the eight kinds of supernatural knowledge and the fifteen holy practices; who came the good journey which led to the Buddhahood, who knows the universe; the unrivalled, who has made subject to him all mortal beings, whether in heaven or in earth, the teacher of gods and men, the blessed Buddha. Through life, till I reach Nirvâņa, I will put my trust in Buddha."1 Some of this seems, on the surface, to refer not to the transcendental Buddha, but to Sâkya Muni; but why is this "agnostic atheism," any more than the prayer in the rubric, "O God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy upon us miserable sinners"? If any professor of agnostic Buddhism thinks that some vague wandering Christian in the tenth or fifth century could persuade a chapter of Buddhist monks to alter their ritual, let him go down to Gloucester to-morrow and test the feasibility of such a scheme by proposing that the words, "May Buddha forgive my sins," should for the future be used in that diocese in the Litany every Sunday. Mr. Upham tells us that one of the Dutch governors of the island of Ceylon called upon the chief priests to answer certain questions regarding the principal doctrines of their creed. Three of these were asked if they believed in a supreme God. Their answers were in the affirmative. Nothing can be more explicit than the reply of Mahagodda Oenanse : "There is a Supreme Being amongst all others, and |