mounds. This has been effected by moral means alone, for Buddhism is the one religion virgin of coercion. It is reckoned that one-third of humanity is still in its fold. That such results should have been achieved is one of the greatest marvels of history; and when an inquirer consults some of the best-known writers to try and get an explanation of this unusual missionary success, the marvel increases. "The religion of Buddha," says Professor Max Müller, was made for a madhouse." "There is no trace of the idea of God in the whole of Buddhism, either at the beginning or at the end," says M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire.2 Buddhism denies the existence of the soul," says Mr. Rhys Davids. Mr. Turnour calls Buddha a "wonderful impostor; "4 and Eugène Burnouf, and indeed all the prominent Sanskrit and Pâli scholars, hold that the highest reward in Buddhism after death, is the cessation of individual consciousness. I know of only two exceptions to this rule. Colebrooke denies that the Buddhist word Nirvâna implies cessation of individuality.5 M. Foucaux also maintains that in the presence of certain passages of the Buddhist work, the "White Lotus of Dharma,” it is quite impossible to maintain that the Buddhist saints, after attaining Nirvâna, are non-existent. I will consider the important evidence of this work by and by. But the perplexities of the inquirer will be still further increased if, like the author, he happens to come across Mr. Hodgson's "Essays on the Languages, Literature, and Religion of Nepal and Tibet." In Nepâl this gentleman made the acquaintance of a learned old Buddhist, Amirta 1 Chips from a German Workshop, p. 254. 2 Le Bouddha et sa Religion, p. iv. 3 Buddhism, Table of Contents. 4 Journ. Beng. As. Soc., vol. vii. p. 991. 5 Essays, vol. i. p. 402. 6 L'Enfant Égaré, preface, p. 19. Nanda Bandhya. This individual, reticent at first, was at last persuaded to disclose to Mr. Hodgson the inner teaching of his religion. He revealed a creed so like the lofty gnosticism of Philo and Clemens Alexandrinus, that writers like Mr. Rhys Davids contend that Nepaulese Buddhism is Christianity imported from the West. This brings me to the great issue that will be discussed. in these pages. An agnostic school of Buddhism without doubt exists. It professes plain atheism, and holds that every mortal, when he escapes from rebirths, and the causation of Karma by the awakenment of the Bodhi or gnosis, will be annihilated. This Buddhism, by Eugène Burnouf, St. Hilaire, Max Müller, Csoma de Korös, and I believe almost every writer of note, is pronounced the original Buddhism, the Buddhism of the South. The gnostic school is called, on the other hand, the Buddhism of the North. A nine years' study of Buddhism, however, has convinced me that the agnostic school of Buddhism is the later development. I may mention that I entered upon. the study without bias, and that my conclusions have been gradual. But that this inquiry shall not be a mere battle of the books, I propose to adopt the following method: I. I shall briefly examine the Vedic Brahminism that existed before the date of Buddha, because when one creed breaks away from another, any points of similarity that are found between them may be credited to the time when the two creeds were tangential, and not to periods when they had become widely separated. 2. I shall examine the cosmology, the monuments, the symbols of Buddhism; and the ribs and backbone of its great allegorical account of the life of its founder. These are all points where an innovator's work would be the more easily detected. 3. I shall appeal to the most valuable testimony of Asoka and probe his opinions on the subject of God and the immortality of the soul. Rock inscriptions constitute a literature that cannot be tampered with. 4. Finally, I shall examine the ritual of Buddhism, for ritual is always of the highest importance in judging the earlier form of a creed. If it can be shown that even in Southern Buddhism the saints or Buddhas of the past are fed and worshipped daily, and Buddha invoked to forgive sin, it may safely be inferred not only that the agnosticism is an innovation, but that the broad line sought to be drawn between Northern and Southern Buddhism is mostly illusory. As it is everywhere asserted that gnostic Buddhism was derived from Christianity, it will be necessary to test this theory likewise. There was a higher Christianity and a higher Judaism both very like Buddhism, for transcendental wisdom must always be one. There was a lower Judaism, founded chiefly on the lower Parsism, and also a lower Christianity. And in spite of the fact that the chief rites of Christianity are those of the higher Judaism, and that the speeches of Christ in all the Gospels always allude to the lower Judaism in terms of unvarying condemnation, it is popularly supposed that the Founder of the Christian religion favoured the lower form of creed. This seems to me quite impossible; but I must premise that the origin of Christianity is a subject too vast for the present inquiry. What innovations Christ introduced into the higher Judaism will probably be the great problem of Christology when Buddhism has been more thoroughly studied. It must be remembered that the Buddhism of the date of the Christian era was already a corrupt form of Buddhism. And when Buddhist influences are admitted, another prominent inquiry of Christology will lie in the direction of the dates and nature of these successive waves of Buddhist influence. As this work is going through the press my attention has been drawn to the Jamalgiri remains and other sculptures brought to light by General Cunningham near Peshawur. It is stated that a complete set of illustrations of the New Testament might be made from these sculptures, such as Mary laying her child in a manger, near which stands a mare with its foal; the young Christ disputing with the doctors in the Temple; the Saviour healing the man with a withered limb; the woman taken in adultery kneeling before Christ, whilst in the background men hold up stones menacingly. Mr. Fergusson fixes the date of the Jamalgiri monastery as somewhere between the fifth and seventh centuries A.D.1 I think this proves that the old Buddhists believed the higher Buddhism and the higher Christianity to be the same religion, an idea which seems also to have been held by St. Paul, for he talks of a gospel as having already "2 at a been "preached to every creature under heaven' time when, outside Jerusalem, a small Romish congregation comprised almost all the Gentile converts of the historical apostles. It must be noted that the builders of the Jamalgiri Vihâra were pure Buddhists, and that in the whole range of Buddhism is no trace of the later Christian cross, the use of wine in the bloodless oblation, no indication of any belief in the efficacy of a blood-sacrifice. I may mention that for the attitude of the Buddha of the frontispiece I am indebted to a Buddha of the Jamalgiri sculptures. It is an attitude well known to Freemasons and mystics; and all the Therapeuts, male and female, stood in this attitude during divine worship. The Jamalgiri Buddha, however, has not got his right hand covered up. 1 Cave Temples of India, p. 139. 2 Col. i. 3. CONTENTS. Two religions in the Rig-Veda. The religion of the prophet and the religion of the priest. Importance of the word "umbrella." Symbol of the cosmos. Same idea typified in the tumulus and holy tree. Gnosticism of the Vedas. The Vedic triad. The serpent. Draco of the sky. Aditi the mother. Avatâras of the Vedic Logos or The Buddhist Trinity. Amitâbha. "The Merciful Father" of China, |