interruption for the propagation of his doctrines. The j name of the disciple who principally assisted him was Mahakadja. Buddha died in the eighty-fifth year of his age. The time of his life falls, according to the I chronology of the Tibetans and Mongols, in the years j B.C. 2214 to 2184 ; according to the Japanese, lie was born B.C. 1027 ; according to other statements, lie died B.C. 543. The last statement is the one now gener- ally adopted.
The main facts which the recent investigations, after comparing the discrepant traditions, have established as highly probable, are the following : Sakyamuni was the son of an Indian king, in the 6th century B.C., educated in the luxury of an Oriental court. Yet ho ignored the pleasures of life, and preferred to wander about as a beggar, in order to get the instruction of the Brahmins. He assumed the preaching of a new religion as the great task of his life, and carried it through with great perseverance, notwithstanding the incessant persecution of the Brahmins. He com- bated principally against the hierarchy and the dog- matic formulas of Brahniaism, in the place of which he made a simple ethical principle the central doctrine of his system, while at the same time be recognised the equal rights of all men, without distinction of birth, rank, and sex. He addressed the people in the lan- guage of the people, and taught that the suppression of passion was the only road to a union with the world- soul. The aim of life, according to him, is to remove from one's own life, as well as from the lives of others, the obstacles to a suppression of passions, and by love and meekness to assist others in the work of self-de- liverance. When he died his bones were scattered all over India, and a religious worship rendered to them. His teachings and rules of wisdom were col- lected in writing at first in India (Nepaul), in Sanscrit, and afterward in Ceylon, in the Bali language. Ilis disciples and successors have given to his teachings more and more of a dogmatic shape, in which the orig- inal simplicity is lost. Gotama, or the Buddha, is generally represented in statues as seated, with his legs crossed, as if in contemplation, as contemplative thought is one of the highest virtues in the system, and is one of the best means of obtaining nirvana (see below), the Buddhist heaven.
jaal Gotama near Amarapura, Burmah
II. System of Buddhism, (a) Theology.— Buddhism rejected Brahma as the ruling spirit of the world, and admits no Almighty creator. "It admits no beings
with greater supernatural D0W6T than man can reach by virtue and knowledge ; in fact, several of the Buddhist nations have no word in their languages to express the idea of God." Buddha takes the place of God, for all practical purposes, in the worship and life of the people. " In India, Buddhism is so mixed with Brahniaism that it is hard to discern the truth, but wherever it is pure it recognizes no God, no Supreme
BUDDHISM
90S
BUDDHISM
Intelligence — the primary idea of Gotama being that to predicate any Self, any Ego, is an absurdity— no soul, no future life, except as one among a myriad stages of terminable existence. It is not revealed, but discovered by man, any human being who can so far conquer his 'natural self— his affections, desires, fears, and wants — as to attain to perfect calm, being capable of 'intuitions' which are absolute truth wherefore Gotama, though he argued against other creeds, never proved his own by argument, simply as- serting ' I know.' Its sole motors are npudan, the 'at tachment to stfnsuous objects,' as Mr. Hardy calls it; or, as we should describe it, nature, and karmma, lit- erally, work, the aggregate action which everything in existence must by virtue of its existence produce, and which ex rerum naturd cannot die. For example : fruit comes because there is a tree; not because the tree wills it, but because its karmma, its inherent ag- gregate of qualities, necessitates fruit, and its fruit another tree in infinite continuity. There is a final cause, but it is not sentient. All existences are the result of some cause, but in no instance is this forma- tive cause the working of a power inherent in any be- ing that can be exercised at will. All beings are pro- duced from the updddna, attachment to existence, of some previous being ; the manner of its exercise, the character'of its consequences, being controlled, direct- ed, or apportioned by karmma; and all sentient exist- ences are produced from the same causes, or from some cause dependent on the results of these causes; sc that updddna and karmma, mediately or immediate- ly, are the cause of all causes, and the source whence all beings have originated in their present form." Buddhism recognizes most of the lower gods of the Indian religions, especially the incarnation of Vish- nu, without, however, rendering them a particular worship. (b) Cosmology, Pnmmatology, and Anthro- pology.— The world-mass, Loga, has arisen from the empty space according to unchangeable natural laws. The precipitate of it forms matter, an evil, from which springs a constant change of birth, accord- ing to unalterable laws grounded in that evil. Thus the germs of good and evil were developed. Each found its reward or punishment in a circular course of innumerable births, which, according to the present state of development, are divided into six realms or degrees of birth, viz., those of the pure spirits (whose head is Khormoorda), of impure (the greatest of which is Beematchee Dahree), of men, animals, limbo-mon- sters, and hellish creatures. Each of these six divis- ions has again subdivisions, through which all beings have to wander until their reunion with the divine essence (migration of souls). The seventh highest degree is the dignity of a Buddha, who is above all change of birth. The aim of the appearance of Bud- dha is to restore the unity of the empty space which has been disturbed by this development, and gradu- ally to raise the beings of all classes to the Buddha de- gree. Then all that is now separate will be united, ami even Buddha lie dissolved in the great unity, which, however, will only take place after many mil- lions of years. Those who are elevated above the earth are called Nat, in three divisions: 1. Jama, who have coarse bodies, with sexual distinction and propagation ; 2. Rupa, with liner bodies, without sexual distinction Mel propagation ; and. B.A rupa, bodiless beings. Above tin- earth are twenty-six heavens, corresponding to the orb of the earth ami of equal size. ,six <,f these heav- ens belong to .lama. The lowest of them is inhabited by the Nat Zatamaharit, the duration of whose lives i< nine millions of years. Their heaven is divided into four realms, each of which has a king. These four kings are the tutelary gods of the world. The life of the inhabitants of each of ih- succeeding heavens is as long again and as happy again as that of the prece- ding. The Rupa have sixteen, the Arupa four hcav-, ens. Men who observe the moral law are received!