THE SACRED BOOKS.

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turies disputed with Brahmanism for the supremacy of India. Pushing out to the northeast, it made its way into Thibet, China, and Japan; and at the present day has more followers than any other religious system, their number being estimated at 300,000,000.

The sacred books of the Buddhists are called the Tripitaka (three baskets); one is metaphysical, another disciplinary, and the third contains the discourses of Buddha. They are written in a dialect of Sanscrit, and are made up of nearly 600,000 stanzas, containing five times as much matter as our Bible.

EXTRACTS FROM THE BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES.

"The succoring of mother and father, the cherishing of child and wife, and the following of a lawful calling,—this is the greatest blessing.

The giving of alms, the abstaining from sins, the eschewing of intoxicating drink, diligence in good deeds, reverence and humility, contentment and gratitude,-this is the greatest blessing.

He who lives for pleasure only, his senses uncontrolled, idle and weak, the tempter will certainly overcome him as the wind throws down a weak tree.

Like a beautiful flower, full of color but without scent, are the fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly.

As the bee collects nectar, and departs without injuring the flower, or its color and scent, so let the sage dwell on earth.

Let no man think lightly of evil, saying in his heart, 'It will not come near unto me.' Even by the falling of water-drops a water-pot is filled; the fool becomes full of evil, even if he gathers it little by little.

Let us live happily then, though we call nothing our own; not hating those who hate us, free from greed among the greedy. We shall then be like the bright gods, feeding on happiness."

NOTES ON HINDOO LITERATURE, ETC.

The literature of India incalculably vast, and its individual works voluminous. The Mahabharata six times as long as the Iliad, Odyssey, and Æneid united; the Râmâyana half this size. The eighteen Purânas contain 1,600,000 lines. The library of one of the kings said to have numbered so many books that a hundred Brahmans were employed in taking care of it, and a thousand dromedaries were required to convey it from place to place; twenty years were con

sumed in condensing its contents, by the royal command, into an encyclopædia of 12,000 volumes. Sir William Jones computed that the longest life would not suffice for the perusal of all the Sanscrit writings.-First century B.C. believed to have been an Augustan age of Indian literature.

Writing apparently unknown to the ancient Hindoos before the time of Pânini. No mention anywhere made, in the early works, of writing materials, pen or brush, paper, bark, or skin. The Vedic hymns sung or repeated probably for a thousand years before they were committed to writing. The use of the alphabet long regarded as impious. First letters appear in Buddhist inscriptions of the 3d century B.C. Later Indian manuscripts, beautifully inscribed on palm leaves. The letters of the Sanscrit alphabet thought to be the oldest forms of our Arabic figures, which came originally from India, as did also our decimal system.

Chess one of the earliest inventions of the Hindoos-called chess (king) from the principal piece. The Brahman inventor, so the story goes, asked of the reigning emperor as his reward, a single grain of wheat for the first square of the chess-board, two for the second, four for the third, and so on to the sixty-fourth; apparently a modest price, but one that it would have taken years to pay with the wheat crop of the whole world. Elephants, horses, foot-soldiers, and chariots, the original chess-men. From India, the game found its way into China, Japan, and Persia, and finally into Europe.—Throwing dice, also, a favorite pastime; the "Game of Four Crowns," with playing-cards, early known to the Hindoos.

Square copper money coined in the 3d century B.C., and stamped with inscriptions in a Sanscrit dialect.

CHAPTER II.

PERSIAN LITERATURE.

Zend. Sprung from the same ancient Aryan tongue as the Sanscrit of India, and distinguished by the same richness of inflection, is Zend (living), the earliest language of Persia, still preserved to us in the Persian Scriptures known as the Avesta. The Veda and the Avesta have been described as two rivers flowing from one fountain-head;" and beyond a doubt the Vedic Aryans and the Zend-speaking Persians were originally one community, conversing in a common tongue.

The Avesta was first made known to Europeans by a French

orientalist, Anquetil Duperron (onsk-teel' deu-pa-rong'), who went to India for the express purpose of discovering the sacred books of the Parsees. With great difficulty he at length possessed himself of the much-desired Zend manuscripts, and in 1771, after long and patient effort, he gave his countrymen the first translation of the Avesta into a European tongue. The language has since been carefully studied, but cannot be said even yet to have been mastered. Time wrought many changes in it; the Persian of Xerxes' reign differed much more from the Zend of antiquity than our present language does from the English of Chaucer. Further modifications and the introduction of Arabic elements have made modern Persian still more unlike the ancient vernacular.

The sacred writings of Persia just referred to are among the oldest and most important in the whole range of Indo-European literature. They contain the doctrines of Zoroaster (golden splendor), the Bactrian sage who reformed the religious system of his country.

Zoroaster is believed to have flourished about 1500 B.C. Nothing is known of his life or history. Yet, through more than thirty centuries his influence has been felt; and to-day, though they have dwindled to perhaps 150.000 souls, his followers constitute a thrifty and intelligent population in India and Persia. These Parsees, or Fire-worshippers (called by the Mohammedans Guebres, or infidels), still burn the eternal fire, kindled as they believe from heaven, not for idolatrous worship, but as an emblem of Ormazd, the Almighty source of light. They are descendants of those Zoroastrians whom Darius and Xerxes, having stretched their empire to the deserts of India, launched against Europe in the mightiest armies ever raised by man, threatening to plant their purer faith amid the ruined shrines of Greece.

At a later date, when the Caliph Omar converted Persia to Mohammedanism with the sword (641 A.D.), their forefathers

clung to the ancient faith, and found an asylum across the Indus or in the deserts of their native land.

The Avesta (sacred text) contains the only existing monuments of a once extensive literature. It is divided into distinct parts, made up of separate pieces and fragments, which, repeated orally from generation to generation, were probably collected and reduced to writing in their present form ten centuries after the period of Zoroaster (500 B.C.). The compositions in question are chiefly professed revelations and instructions to mankind, confessions, prayers to the Supreme Being and various inferior deities, and metrical hymns (Gâthâs), simple and some of them so grand as to be deemed the productions of Zoroaster himself.

Zoroaster is represented in the Avesta as conversing with Ormazd, who, in answer to the inquiries of the sage, reveals his will, and prescribes the moral and ceremonial law. in the following passage, Zoroaster questions Ormazd :—

--

Thus,

"O Ormazd, most holy spirit, creator of existent worlds, truthloving! What, O Ormazd, was the Word which existed before the heaven, before the water, before the cow, before the tree, before the fire, before the truthful man, before the spirits and animals, before all the existent universe ?"

Then Ormazd replies: "I will tell thee, most holy Zoroaster, what was the whole of the Creative Word. It existed before the heaven, before the water, before the cow, before the tree, before the fire, before the truthful man, before the spirits and animals, before all the existent universe. Such is the whole of the Creative Word, which, even when unpronounced and unrecited, outweighs a thousand breathed prayers, which are not pronounced, nor recited, nor sung. And he who in this world, O most holy Zoroaster, remembers the whole of the Creative Word, or utters it, or sings it, I will lead his soul thrice across the bridge of the better world, to the better existence, to the better truth, to the better days. I pronounced this Speech which contains the Word and its working to accomplish the creation of this heaven, before the creation of the earth, of the tree, of the four-footed cow, before the birth of the truthful man.”

"He is a holy man," says Ormazd elsewhere, "who constructs upon the earth a habitation in which he maintains fire, cattle, his wife, his children, and flocks and herds. He who makes the earth produce grain, who cultivates the fruits of the fields, he maintains purity; he

promotes the law of Ormazd as much as if he offered a hundred sacrifices."

Avestan Philosophy.-The Avesta seems to recognize one eternal Supreme Being, infinite and omnipotent. This was Ormazd (Spiritual Wise One), whom Zoroaster invokes as the source of light and purity, "true, lucid, shining," all-perfect, allpowerful, all-beautiful, all-wise." Opposed to Ormazd was a principle of darkness and evil, called Ah'riman (Sinful-minded). The theory of evolution finds no support in the Avesta, which contains an account of the creation of the universe strikingly like that of Moses. Traditions of the fall of man through the falsehood of Ahriman, and of a universal deluge, are also handed down.

Zoroaster's mission was to exhort men to follow the right and forsake the wrong. "Choose one of these two spirits, the Good or the Base," he said; "you cannot serve both." Again:

"Of these two spirits, the evil one chose the worst deeds; the Kind Spirit, he whose garment is the immovable sky, chose what is right; as they also do who faithfully please Ormazd by good works.

Hear with your ears what is best, perceive with your mind what is pure, so that every man may choose for himself his tenets before the great doom.

Let our mind, then, O bliss-conferring Truth! be there where wisdom abides. Let us be of those who further the well-being of mankind.

Then indeed will be the fall of pernicious Falsehood; but in the beautiful abode of the Good Spirit will be gathered forever those who dwell in good report.

O men! if you cling to these commandments which the Wise One has given, which are a torment to the wicked and a blessing to the righteous, then through them will you have the victory."

Like Buddha, the Persian reformer raised his voice against the priesthood, and the corruptions which had crept into the national religion. Devil-worship, which had come into vogue as a means of averting the evil supposed to be wrought by wicked spirits, he specially denounced, recognizing in sin the