treat more fully of the 'paths': it is sufficient to state here that Gautama's whole teaching resolved itself into a system of intellectual and moral selfculture, and that the fruitless cares and empty hopes of ordinary life were considered incompatible with the highest degree of this self-culture, while they would become distasteful to those who had reached in it even a lower stage.

Five months after the crisis under the Bo-tree, and three months after Gautama's arrival at the Migadāya wood, he called together all his disciples, who are represented to have numbered already sixty persons, and sent them in different directions to preach and teach, Yasa only remaining at Benāres, near his parents.1

The Burmese account puts on this occasion the following curious speech into Gautama's mouth :— 'Beloved Rahans, I am free from the five great passions which, like an immense net, encompass men and nats2; you too, owing to the instructions you have received from me, enjoy the same glorious privilege. There is now incumbent on us a great duty, that of labouring effectually on behalf of men and nats, and procuring to them the invaluable blessing of the deliverance. To the end of securing more effectually the success of such an undertaking, let us part with each other and proceed in various and opposite directions, so that not two of us should follow up the same way. Go ye now, and preach the most excellent Law, expounding every point thereof,

1 Jātaka, 82; Hardy, 'Manual,' 188; Bigandet, 122; Beal, 'Rom. Leg.,' 268. i.e. Gods (devas).

and unfolding it with care and attention in all its bearings and particulars. Explain the beginning, the middle, and the end of the law, to all men without exception: let everything respecting it be made publicly known and brought to the broad daylight. Show, now, to men and nats the way leading to the practice of pure and meritorious works. You will meet, doubtless, with a great number of mortals not as yet hopelessly given up to their passions, and who will avail themselves of your preaching for re-conquering their hitherto forfeited liberty, and freeing themselves from the thraldom of passions. For my part, I will direct my course to the village of Sena, situate in the vicinity of the solitude of Uruwela.'

I have retained the quaint phraseology of Bishop Bigandet's translation, which will well represent the quaintness of the original. Rahans are mendicants, the five passions I presume to be those arising from the five senses; nats are deities; the most excellent Law is, doubtless, the Dharma, the Buddhist religion. Of course, these cannot have been the actual words spoken by Gautama. He cannot have thought his followers already perfect, and, whatever his opinions about supernatural beings (an interesting question we cannot here discuss), it is at least certain that they were inconsistent with the expressions put into his mouth. To the Burmese author they would seem quite natural, but whence did he derive the idea of the duty of proclaiming to all men alike the whole of 'the most excellent law,' living as he did in a country where the missionary spirit had long died out ? Not,

1 Bigandet, p. 225, note.

certainly, from Hinduism; nor is any other source conceivable except a genuine survival of the spirit of early Buddhism.

Throughout his career, Gautama was in the habit of travelling about during most of the fine part of the year, teaching and preaching to the people; but during the four rainy months, from June to October, he remained in one place, devoting himself more particularly to the instruction of his declared followers. This custom has survived down to the present day in Southern countries; but in a form which is a curious instance of the way in which the letter of such religious ordinances can be observed, and turned to real use, long after the reason of their original institution has ceased to operate. The wandering mendicants have become settled celibate parochial clergy; but every year, during those months which were the rainy season in Magadha in the time of Gautama, they leave their permanent homes; and, living in temporary huts, put up by the peasantry of some district who specially invite them, hold a series of public services, in which they read and explain the Pāli Pitakas to all of any age or sex or caste who choose to listen. This period, called was (from the Sanskrit varsha, rain), is in Ceylon the finest part of the year; and as there are no regular religious services at any other time, the peasantry celebrate the reading of bana (or the Word) at was time as their great religious festival. They put up under the palm-trees a platform, roofed, but quite open at the sides, and ornamented with bright cloths and flowers; and round it they sit in the moonlight on the ground, and listen through the night with great satisfaction, if not with

great intelligence, to the sacred words repeated by relays of shaven monks. The greatest favourite at these readings of bana is the 'Jātaka' book, which contains so many of the old fables and stories common to the Aryan peoples, sanctified now, and preserved by the leading hero in each, whether man, or fairy, or animal, being looked upon as an incarnation of the Buddha in one of his previous births. To these wonderful stories the simple peasantry, dressed in their best and brightest, listen all the night long with unaffected delight; chatting pleasantly now and again with their neighbours; and indulging all the while in the mild narcotic of the betal leaf, their stores of which (and of its never failing adjuncts, chunam, that is, white lime, and the areka nut), afford a constant occasion for acts of polite good fellowship. The first spirit of Buddhism may have passed away as completely as the old reason for was; neither hearers nor preachers may have that deep sense of evil in the world and in themselves, nor that high resolve to battle with and overcome it, which animated some of the early Buddhists; and they all think themselves to be earning 'merit' by their easy service. But there is at least at these festivals a genuine feeling of human kindness, in harmony alike with the teachings of Gautama, and with the gentle beauty of those moonlight scenes.1

The importance afterwards attached to the accession of Gautama's next convert is shown by the number of miraculous events which are said to have preceded it. Of these, the only possible historical

1 Bigandet, p. 127; Hardy' Manual,' 101; 'Eastern Monachism,' 232-237.

basis is that in the solitudes of Uruwela there were then three brothers named Kāṣyapa, fire worshippers and hermit philosophers, whose high reputation as teachers had attracted a considerable number of scholars; and that after Gautama had remained some time among them, the elder brother adopted his system, and at once took a principal place in the small body of believers. His brothers and their scholars followed his example, and the first set discourse preached by Gautama to his new disciples is preserved in the Pitakas under the title Āditta-pariyāya Sutta (Sermon on the Lessons to be drawn from Burning).

This Sutta affords an excellent example of the method so often adopted by Gautama of inculcating his new doctrines by putting a new meaning into the religious ceremonies of the time, or into. the common occurrences of life. The new disciples, who had been worshippers of Agni, the sacred fire, were seated with Gautama on the Elephant Rock, near Gāyā, with the beautiful valley of Rājagriha stretched out before them, when a fire broke out in the jungle on the opposite hill.1 Taking the fire as his text, the Teacher declared that so long as men remained in ignorance they were, as it were, consumed by a fire-by the excitement produced within them. by the action of external things. These things acted upon them through the five senses and the heart (which Gautama regarded as a sixth organ of sense). The eye, for instance, perceives objects: from this

For the site of the Elephant Rock, see Gandhahasti, at the foot of Map, Pl. iii., Cunningham's 'Archæological Reports,' vol. I. On the sentiment comp. below, p. 155.