But the case of Mr. Rhys Davids is quite broken by six words repeated almost daily in Ceylon:

"May Buddha forgive me my sin!"

A writer believing himself to be inspired can accommodate a literary work to the orthodoxy of the hour, but he cannot alter the daily ritual of the people.

I will now briefly show the marked similarity between Gnostic and Buddhist symbols and emblems. Pl. iii. fig. 2 is the most popular form of the Gnostic triune divinity. He forms a trident or Maņi outline by the unnatural curving up of his legs, the two great serpents of the sky. Pl. iii. fig. 1 is a Buddhist counterpart from Amrâvati. It is only a hasty sketch that I made in the British Museum. He too has the two serpent-legs, and is Stambha, the prop, like the Gnostic figure. Fig. 2 is called always 1. A. w., or ABRAXAS, the latter name making up the mystic 360 of the sun-god. The whip shows him the solar charioteer. The cock is closely connected with the paternal idea. In Burmah the cock is a prominent ornament of the umbrella spike of the temples. The Buddhist figure, which is much defaced, has in his hands the bowl, I think, of the Muni.

Fig. 3, pl. iii. is the Gnostic Serapis. The shell makes up the serpent symbol. The cup on his head is adorned with the Tree. He is the solar God-man.

Mr. King, from whose excellent work I select these designs, suggests that it was this Serapis outline that grew at last into the conventional ideal of Christ.

The next two illustrations are of immense value, as proving the actual contact of Alexandrian Gnosticism and Buddhism. The great symbol of Buddha as the solar God-man is, as I have shown, the elephant. In fig. 5, pl. iii. we have plainly the elephant issuing from the Serapis shell, or first person of the trinity. In fig. 4, 1 Patimokkha, pp. 3-5.

pl. iii. we have again the elephant as one limb of the triad; and then a female face for the mother, and a male face for the father. As Aries issuing from the leviathan was the Capricorn of the West, this elephant symbol, repeated constantly, shows the direct influence of India on Gnosticism.

I have attempted to draw up a table, more or less accurate, of this triad idea in the old creeds.

Before I finish this chapter I cannot help accentuating the fact that the triad of the old mystics was not three individualities, but three aspects of the divine idea:— "O'm sarva vidye hom" (The mystic triform deity is in Buddha). "O'm Prajnâ ye hom" (The mystic triform deity is in Prajnâ or Dharma). "Om maņi padme hom" (The mystic triform deity is in the lotus). These are the three most holy mantras of Nepâl.1 In the "Lalita Vistara" Sâkya Muni is called indiscriminately the "King of the Serpents," the "Tree of Knowledge," and the "Sun." Each triad symbol implies all the others. He is also called the "Umbrella."

1 Hodgson, p. 88.

CHAPTER III.

RITUAL.

IT has been said that it is by its ritual, retained long after this has become incongruous to subsequent development, that the earlier form of a creed is to be ascertained. In probing the question whether a supreme God is in Buddhism, we have already in part applied this test. When, however, we come to consider the second question, Is the immortality of the soul recognised in early Buddhism? the evidence afforded by the Buddhist ritual is, if possible, still more overwhelming. In the days of the Dutch occupation of Ceylon, when the Cingalese heads of monasteries were catechised as to the nature of their religion, they answered that its main rites were saint-worship.1 Let us test the truth of this answer.

In the modern Thibetan ritual are these words:

"I adore the Tathagatas of the three periods, who dwell in the ten quarters of the world, the Jinas (victorious ones), the perfect Buddhas. . . . I offer to them and confess my sins." 2

In the Chinese ritual these words occur:"All hail! Buddhas of the ten quarters!" 3

These ten points of space are nadir and zenith, and the eight intervening points of the compass.

In the Ceylon service of confession we find this:

1 Upham's Sacred and Historical Books of Ceylon, p. 161.

2 Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, p. 126. 3 Beal, Catena, p. 409.