BUDDHISM IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY. RICHARD COLLI NS, M.A. LATE PRINCIPAL OF COTTAYAM COLLEGE, TRAVANCORE. WITH SPEECHES BY HE. HOEMVZD BASS AM, PBOFESSO 8 LEITNEB, PEOFESSOB EHYS DAVIDS, BEV. S. COLES, LATE OF CEYLON, S[C. LONDON : E. STANFORD, 55, CHARING CROSS, S.W. ; EDINBURGH: R. GRANT & SON. DUBLIN: G. HERBERT. PARIS : GALIGNANI & CO. AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND: GEORGE ROBERTSON & CO , Limited. k BUDDHISM IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY. BY THE IlEY. R. COLLINS, M.A. LATE OF CEYLON. WITH SPEECHES BT MR. HORMUZD R ASS AM, PROFESSOR LEITNER, PROFESSOR RHYS DAVIDS, REV. S. COLES, LATE OF CEYLON, Ifc. LONDON : E. STANFORD, 55, CHARING CROSS, S.W. ; EDINBURGH : R. GRANT & SON. DUBLIN : G. HERBERT. PARIS : GALIGNANI & CO. AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND: GEORGE ROBERTSON & CO , Limited. BUDDHISM IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY. n PEAKING some time since at a meeting, I ventured to use ^ as illustrations one or two of the more striking stories in the Jatakas, or tales of the 550 births of Buddha. A lay- man, who succeeded me, observed that, had I had time, I might have told the audience that Buddhism was a religion long antecedent to Christianity ; and that many of the moral teachings, of which we had previously believed that they belonged to Christianity alone, had been already enunciated by Buddha. 2. This one fact, that Buddha preceded Christ, has been popularly allowed to override every other consideration in comparing Buddhism and Christianity. And the question has readily followed. If Buddha six centuries* before the *** This Essay was written, by special request. The Author’s careful study of the history of Buddhism, more particularly in Ceylon, where he was Principal of a College during a long series of years, having marked him out as fitted to deal thoroughly with the subject. — The Editor. * According to the Ceylon books, the date of Gautama Buddha’s birth was 623 B.C. This date, however, is not absolutely verified, and it may ultimately prove to be somewhat too oarly. B 2 Christian era taught so much of what we have called Christian ethics, is Christianity original ? And may not Christ and his followers have been indebted to Buddhistic teaching ? 3 . One recent writer has been so far under the influence of this suggestion, that he endeavours to trace the Pauline doc- trine, and especially the doctrine of the Epistle to the Hebrews, through the Essenic channel up to Gautama Buddha, though there is really no valid proof that the Essenes were in any degree indebted to Buddhism. It is, in fact, easier to show the probability of the influence of the Christian religion in India in the early centuries of the Christian era, since which time the Buddhist literature has been penned, than the probability of the influence of Buddhism westwards before that era. There is no really historical evidence of the name, for instance, of Buddha himself having travelled westwards before the time of Clemens Alexandrinus in the third century : he is the first to mention the name of Buddha in these words : — “ Some, too, of the Indians obey the precepts of Boutta, whom, on account of his extraordinary sanctity, they have raised to divine honours.”* His information was, no doubt, in a great mea- sure derived from Pantsenus, whose pupil and successor he was ; but he is also indebted to as early a writer as Megasthenes, who was in India, and wrote his Indica, about 300 B.C. Bardesanes, of Edessa, in the second century A.D., as quoted by Porphyry, f refers probably to the Buddhists, but in a very cursory manner, as of something vei-y distant, and not giving any information as to Buddhist doctrines. The distinctive charac- teristics of Buddhism are wanting in all other early descrip- tions of Indian philosophies that are usually quoted. Between the time of Clemens and Megasthenes there is no reliable evidence of any influence exerted by Buddhism in the West, and only the most meagre hints of even the knowledge of the fact that such a religion existed. With regard to Mega- sthenes himself, from whom most subsequent writers seem to have borrowed, like Clemens, when writing on the philosophies of the Indians, it is extremely doubtful whether he even alludes to Buddhism at all. His Sarmance, which have been connected with the Buddhist monks, or by some with the Jains, because they were called Sramaiia, were not necessarily Buddhist-s, or even Jains. The Hylobii (YXofitoi) among them (so called by Megasthenes) who dwelt in the forests. * Clemens, Stromal a, i. 15. + Porphyry, De Abstinentid, iv. 17. are described as living on leaves and fruit, which the Buddhists never did, but on alms. The Hylobii were, doubtless, as the name implies, the Vdna-prastbas, who were Brahman ascetics. The word Sratnana was not invented by the Buddhists, but was applied to ascetics long before the time of Buddha. Indeed, the very term Gymnvsophists, under which Clemens classes “ the Sarmance and other Brahmans/’ excludes the Buddhists, who not only did not go about in puris naturalibus, as some of the Vdna-prasfhas, or Sanydsis, did, and still do, but clothed themselves from head to foot, as a very essential part of their religion. 4 . The asceticism and love of righteousness of the Essenes were not necessarily derived from Buddha. The love of righteousness was equally prominent in the time of Job, who lived probably 1,500 years before Buddha; and asceticism seems to be due to the idiosyncrasies of individual men in all races rather than to mere sectarianism, and would appear always to have arisen as the human protest of purity against the greed and licentiousness of the world. The doctrines of the Essenes and of the Gnostics also connect them rather with Greece and Persia than with India. The really peculiar marks of Buddhism, such as the doctrine of the non-ego, and the transmission through successive births of the Kamma or Karma, if they were parts of early Buddhism, are certainly not reproduced among either Essenes or Gnostics. And, even could it be proved that the Essenes were indebted to Buddhism, we should claim much better evidence than Mr. Bunsen produces, before we could allow, notwithstanding the suspicion of Eusebius, that they themselves influenced the Christian story as found in the New Testament. 5 . According to this writer, even John the Baptist also was a half-Buddhist, because, among other reasons, Bethabara, where he is said to have been born, may perhaps, Mr. Bunsen says, be a misprint for “ Betharaba,” which may have been a place on the west coast of the Dead Sea, where the elder Pliny says the Essenic body had their chief settlements. Moreover, “ John the Baptist is only another name for John the Ashai or bather, from which the name of the Essai may now be safely assumed to be derived.”* Add to this that “ John was a Gnostic, which word has the same meaning as Buddhist,” and the evidence is assumed to be complete that * The common derivation of ’’Eooijvoi or ’EuiraToi, is Heb. asd, Chald. asayd , “to heal,” because the Essenes were physicians. 4 John the Baptist inherited Buddhistic lore.* These seem to me to be gratuitous assumptions of the most ghost-like consistency. 6. Another assumption of the same author is that the peculiar name which Gautama Buddha so often applies to himself, Tathdgata,\ means “ he that should come.” It is difficult to see how the word, mysterious though it may be, can be twisted to such a meaning. Dr. Oldenberg translates the same word by “ the perfect one.” There is, at all events, not much in common between the two ideas ; but, whatever be the real import of Tathdgata (literally, such a one , or, having arrived at such a state or condition), our author para- phrases it, to assimilate it to the phraseology of the New Testament, by certain words of John the Baptist, or, as he calls him, the Essene •, and, in accordance with this transla- tion of the name, he speaks of the owner of it as the Christ of the Buddhists. He asserts that the Hindus, 600 years before the Christian era, were in possession of prophecies of a coming Messiah, and that they recognised the fulfilment in Gautama Buddha. Thus he says : — “ Gautama Buddha, the preacher of a ‘ tradition from beyond/ from a supermundane world, was regarded as one of the incarnations of the first of seven Archangels, of Serosh, the Vicar of God, and the first among the co-creators of the universe.” All this would be extremely curious could a single passage be found in the Pali texts to show that the early Buddhists regarded the founder of their sect as the incarnation of any one. An incarnation in this sense is foreign to the character of early Buddhism alto- gether, and certainly is not consonant to the Buddhistic doctrines as to the Kamma, or Karma, in relation to succes- sive births. Nor can it be shown that the Buddhists knew anything of “ Serosh, the Vicar of God, and the first among the co-creators of the universe.” Nor is there any real proof of so intimate a connexion between Buddhism and Parsism in doctrine, as Mr. Bunsen postulates. Indeed, the very transla- tion of pdramita by “tradition from beyond ” is an illustra- tion of how Mr. Bunsen likes to bring distant analogies too near, if they only suit his purpose. The Sanscrit pdramita is, no doubt, analogous in its derivation to the Latin word traditio ; but the meaning of a word is determined by its usage, and not merely by its derivation, and pdramita was * Bunsen’s Angel-Messiah, pp. 148 et seq., and 313. t Ibid., pp. 18 and 341. 5 used to indicate the transcendent , not the traditional. The pdramitas were the virtues practised by the Bodhisat, so called because they were held to be transcendent, or perfections. 7 . By false and superficial reasoning 1 of the kind I have mentioned, — and further instances might be very greatly multiplied, as that Buddha was born of a virgin, of which no thought is breathed in the early notices of his birth : that there is some mysterious connexion between the name of his mother Maya, and the name of Mary, the mother of Jesus: that, as Burnouf states, the elements of the legend of Christ are to be found even in the Vedas, and that the Vedic Agni is to be identified with the Christian Agnus : that Christ him- self travelled to the far East, a pure assumption : that the doctrine of a Messiah can be shown to have been introduced into Judaism from the East, which it cannot : that the birth of Buddha was attended by miracles, which is an addition to the story in after ages : that Buddha taught the great doc- trine of “ vicarious suffering,” of which there is nothing in the first accounts of his teaching : that Buddha was born, like Christ, on the “ Sun’s annual birthday,” December 2oth, which cannot be proved either in the case of Buddha or Christ ; that ancient prophecies were afloat marking that par- ticular time as the birth-date of an expected Messiah, which statement is entirely without foundation ; and by many other equally groundless statements, — a glamour has been thrown over the history of Buddhism which intrinsically it does not possess; and it is to be feared that not a few minds have thereby been greatly perplexed between the relative claims of Buddhism and Christianity. That Christianity has only been shining by borrowed light from India and Irania is a theory which will not bear accurate investigation. 8 . But I do not propose to approach this subject further to-night in the way of destructive criticism, though I have ventured to give one or two instances of the kind of argument one meets with. But -within the compass of this short paper I prefer now to draw attention to some of the facts of history and tendencies of the human mind, which may, I think, prove to be safe guides in our investigations as to what Buddhism really is in its relation — if it have any relation properly so-called — to Christianity. 9 . And now let us look more carefully at some of the analogies that exist, or are said to exist, between Christianity and Buddhism. They are of two distinct kinds : first, there is the morality of Buddhism, often of extreme beauty ; and G secondly, there are the accounts of the person and character of Buddha himself. In regard to each of these we can find, or imagine, certain parallels in either the Old or the New Testament. What do these parallels mean ? io. Let us take the second class of parallels first, those which relate to the persons and characters of Buddha and Jesus Christ. Take, as a prominent instance, the birth stories. I need not here give details, which are to be found in any modern work on Buddhism. The supposed miraculous conception ; the bringing down of Buddha from the Tusita heaven ; the Devas acknowledging his supremacy ; the pre- sentation in the Temple, when the images of Indra and other gods threw themselves at his feet ; the temptation by Mara, — which legends are embellished by the modern writer I have already quoted, under such phrases as, “ Conceived by the Holy Ghost/ - ’ “ Born of the Virgin Maya,” “ Song of the heavenly host,” “ Presentation in the Temple and temptation in the wilderness,” — none of these are found in the early Pali texts. The simple story of ancient Buddhism is that an ascetic, whose family name was Gautama, preached a new doctrine of human suffering, and a new way of deliverance from it. The surrounding of Buddha with the attributes of divinity is an exaltation of his person by the later Buddhist writers, which is entirely foreign to the earliest elements of his history as gleaned from the Pali texts. To write a consecutive history of his life at all was an after-thought. The earliest Buddhist writings relate his teachings, with only cursory intimations as to his personal history. Prom them we glean that he was the son of Suddhodana, who was a king residing at Kapilavattliu ; whether a ruler over extended territory, or only what would now be called in India a “petty r aja h,” may be left doubt- ful. Surrounded from his infancy with some amount of wealth and luxury, as he afterwards told his disciples, this intel- lectual youth, — for such he must have been in an eminent degree, — was led to reflect on sickness, decay, and death ; and while he thus reflected in his mind, “ all that buoyancy of youth which dwells in the young, all that spirit of life which dwells in life, sank within him.” Though he was married, yet at twenty-nine years of age he left his home to become an ascetic. This was no unusual course; and he sought two other Brahman ascetics to bo his teachers. Dissatisfied, however, with then- teaching, he travelled to Uruvehi, or Buddha Gay&, near Patna, where he spent, it is said, seven years in discipline, meditation, and study. How far that study embraced what might be the tradition of the past we have no means of certainly knowing ; 7 but he is said to have been determined to be a u follower of the Buddhas of bygone ages ” ; and that may mean, that during his years of seclusion he had the means of canvassing the teaching of some of the leaders of mankind, who had gone before him. There is nothing divine in all this ; nor is any- thing claimed for him beyond the actions of an earnest ascetic. What there was of the divine in his mission was, according to the Mahavagga, external to himself. It is remarkable that, though Buddhism, now at least, is athei stic , yet thejmpreme Brahma, called by the Buddhists Brahma Sahampatf, is con- stantly mentioned, even in the oldest texts, as influencing Buddha ; and when he first felt enlightenment, Brahma Sahampati is said in the Mahavagga to have encouraged him in preaching his doctrine. May not this mean, that Buddha in the first instance claimed divine authority for his mission ? And what was his mission ? It was, in the main, to preach, according to his lights, much as Savonarola did in Florence, against the vices of the day. In all this there is nothing but the earnest monk preaching purity of life as the way to happiness now and hereafter. There is no thought in the early Buddhism, of which we read in the Pali texts, of deliverance at the hands of a god; but the man Gautama Buddha stands alone in his striving after the true emanci- pation from sorrow and ignorance. The accounts of his descending from heaven, and being conceived in the world of men, when a preternatural light shone over the worlds, the blind received sight, the dumb sang, the lame danced, the sick were cured, together with all such embel- lishments, are certainly added by later hands ; and, if here we recognise some rather remarkable likenesses in thought or expression to things familiar to us in our Bibles, we need not be astonished, when we reflect how great must have been the influence, as I have before hinted, of the Christian story in India in the e gLdy, centur ies o f the Christijj^era, and perhaps long subsequently. This is a point - which has been much overlooked ; but it is abundantly evident from, among other proofs, the story of the god Krishna, which is a manifest parody of the history of Christ. The Bhagavat-Gita, a theo- sophical poem put into the mouth of Krishna, is something unique among the productions of the East, containing many gems of what we should call Christian truth, wrested from their proper setting, to adorn this creation of the Brahman noet, |and indicating as plainly their origin as do the stories of his lie in the Alahd Bharat a ; so that it has not unreasonably 8 been concluded that the story of Krishna was inserted in the Maha-BTidrata to furnish a divine sanction to the Bhagavat. Gita. If, then, as there is the strongest reason to believe, the Christian story, somewhere between the first and tenth cen- turies of the Christian era, forced itself into the great Hindu epic, and was at the foundation of the most remarkable poem that ever saw the light in India, can we be surprised if we find similarly borrowed and imitated wonders in the later Buddhist stories also ? 1 1 . The early influence of Christianity in India may have been very much greater than is generally supposed. We must not judge only by the India of our own era. Buddhism itself once held supreme sway in India, but there is not a Buddhist now to be found between the Himalayas and Cape Comorin. Cosmas Indicopleustes, in thejuxth century, found Christians in Ceylon ; but, though I made diligent search when in the island some years ago, I could not discover any trace or tradition of them remaining. India has been the scene in the past of great and sweeping changes. But it is to be observed that there is still on the Malabar coast a body of probably 250,000 Christians, the representatives of a Church that was undoubtedly founded by an Apostle or Apostles. This may be only a remnant of what once was a much more widely- extended influence ; for, at the Mount, near Madras, there is an ancient Christian cross with a Pahlavi inscription, first deciphered by the late Dr. Burnell, that seems to belong to not later than the seventh or eighth century. There is a similar Pahlavi inscription on a cross at Kottayam, on the Malabar coast ; and other crosses, with writings in the same character, were recorded by early Roman Catholic missionaries. There are also Pahlavi writings in the caves near Bombay. These Pahlavi inscriptions are to be accounted for, I believe, by the eai’ly and continued connexion between the Indian Christians and Edessa, and may indicate a very wide-spread Christian influence in the past.* When we know also * See Indian Antiquary, vol. iii., p. 308 ; vol. iv., pp. 153, 183, 311, &c., for fuller discussion of this subject between Dr. Burnell and myself. Pahlavi ■was the Court language of the Sassanian dynasty in Persia (22G-(>51 A.D.) The authorised version of the Avesta, in use at that period, as well as con- temporary inscriptions, were in Pahlavi. It is an Aramaic dialect, supposed to be a dialect of ancient Assyria. It is, therefore, the language that early Edessan and Babylonian Christians would probably bring with them to India. The traditions of the Jacobite Church on the Malabar Coast connect them in their early history with Edessa and Babylon. They even now own 9 that Pantccnus of Alexandria found a Ilebrew Gospel of St. Matthew during his mission in India in the second century; that a bishop, signing himself “Metropolitan of Persia and the Great India,” was present at the Council of Nictea in 325 A.D. ; and that Cosmas found Christians in India and Ceylon in the sixth century, we cannot wonder if we seem to find evidences in the later Buddhist writings, as well as in the Mahd-Bhdrata and the Bhaijacat-Glta, that the Christian story was well known, at least to the learned. 12. There need be no great mystery, then, in the similari- ties between the personal histories of Buddha and Christ. And I would only here add that, in tracing such historical parallels, it is desirable to observe, if possible, when a story first appears, — a rule that has not always been followed by recent writers on Buddhism and Christianity. The story of the temptation of Buddha by Mara* (the Buddhist Satan) may be taken as an example. It is not contained in what is manifestly the earliest account of the entrance of Buddha upon his ministry in the Mahavagga, the compara- tive antiquity of which is undoubted. M. Senart, when he as their ecclesiastical head the Patriarch of the Jacobite Church at Mardin, a little to the east of Orfah (the ancient Edessa). The late Bishop of the Malabar Christians, Mar Athenasius, went himself to Mardin for consecra- tion. These Malabar Christians still retain six copper plates, on which are inscribed, in the old Tamil vernacular of the country, certain rights and privileges accorded to the Christian community ; on one plate are the signa- tures of the witnesses, ten of which are written in Pahlavi characters, eleven in Kufic character, and four in Hebrew. This Sasanam, or grant, has been believed by, amongst others, Dr. Haug, Dr. E. W. West, and Dr. Burnell, on antiquarian grounds, to belong to not later than the ninth century. This is confirmed by the fact that on one of the plates is the date 36, which, if it belongs to the era at present in use in Malabar, must point to that century, the Malabar year now being 1059. Such a grant must indicate that the Christians had by that time acquired a very important status in the country. The chief Babbi of the Jews at Cochin, on the same coast, has a similar grant on copper plates, and of no doubt the same date. The tradi- tion, indeed, of the Jewish Colony is that their Sasanam was made in the fifth century. The existence of Pahlavi inscriptions on the ancient crosses and Sasanams of the Christians led Dr. Burnell, who was a careful student, to believe that the early Persian settlers, or missionaries, were Manichteans. There is, however, no valid evidence for the Manichaean as against the Christian theory ; and if Dr. Hang’s translation of the characters that surround the St. Thomas’s Mount and Kottayam crosses be correct, the inscription is eminently Christian : “ Who believes in the Messiah, and God above, and in the Hoiy Ghost, is redeemed through the grace of him who bore the cross.’’ * Mara, the destroyer ; in the language of the Vedas, death; the Sanscut root being mri, to slay. C 10 /> would convert Buddha into the mythical Sun-hero, must have chosen his colours from more modern palettes, from the com- mentary of the “ Jataka,” or even the “ Pujawaliya,’’ which last was probably written not before the thirteenth century of the Christian era. It is from the last source that the greater part of Spence Hardy's descriptions are drawn. Bigandet, Beal, Burnouf, and other writers on Buddhism, also draw greatly on later accounts. How far even the Pitakas themselves repre- sent the whole truth of original Buddhism is undoubtedly prob- lematical ; for, according to the Ceylon accounts they were not committed to writing, but were only orally preserved, for nearly 500 years. And the commentaries by Buddhaghosa, so highly esteemed as exponents of Buddhist doctrine, are said on the authority of the Singhalese books themselves not to date farther back than 420 A.D. I have, however, only just grazed the surface of this question of historical parallels. More I could not do in this paper, though it demands and would repay ample investi- gation. 13 . I must now refer to the other class of parallels between Buddhism and Christianity, — the moral precepts of Buddha, and the moral precepts of the Christian faith. And here I feel that there is so much to be discussed, so much that is of the deepest interest, not only to the Christian, but to the historical inquirer, that I feel fairly at sea, when I have to compress what I have to say into a few sentences. I will take, therefore, only one leading thought for our consideration at present ; and I take it, because it seems to me to be the only true guide to the study of what is called the science of Religion, — I mean the acknowledgment of a primitive revela- tion, both of morality and ritual worship, before the early families of mankind were dispersed. 14 . It appears to be the fashion with writers on the science of Religion to regard man as having in his early history a mind, which was as to Religion a tabula rasa, on which any theory may be written that appears good to the writer. This is a question of surpassing interest at this moment, and has been brought into great prominence by Mr. Herbert Spencer’s article in last month’s number of the Nineteenth Century. It is quite relevant to the point of my argument to say a few words on this subject. The “ Ghost Theory ” endorsed by Mr. Spencer; the supposed indications of duality of existence, first suggested by dreams, leading up to a suspicion of external spiritual powers ; the theory that such suspicions inspired our remote ancestors through their sub- 11 jective reasonings with some true intuitions as to the great objective reality of the “ Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed ” ; the supposition that under these growing intuitions of the unseen, men invented bloody and unbloody sacrifices and offerings, and a highly-complicated ritual, always connected in the earliest ages of which we know anything with duties to God and men ; the theory that by a survival of the fittest of these iutuitional religious rites and opinions men worked out the rites and the moral precepts of the Old Testament and the Christianity of the New, which last is, after all, according to Mr. Herbert Spencer, but a stepping- stone to something better ; — all these theories are so difficult of verification, that one feels, even when essaying to follow the footsteps of Mr. Spencer in his most cleverly conceived arguments, how every step needs testing, and how uncertain many seem when tested. It is almost like walking over an Irish bog, where you carefully pick your steps from one verdant tuft to another with some amount of solicitude for your personal safety. The very first step of Mr. Spencer, in his Religion, a Retrospect and a Prospect, is questioned at once by a deaf-mute in Yorkshire, who refuses to be pi iced in the same category with “ brutes, ” “ children,” and “lowest savages.” Even the alleged intuitions of what are called savages are very difficult of verification. Mr. Spencer's very first sentence does not embrace the whole truth, — “The religious consciousness ” is not “ concerned only with the un- seen,” but is also concerned with historical facts, such, for instance, as the miracles of Christ and the Mosaic Dis- pensation. But I am not here to discuss this celebrated Nineteenth Century article, and only wish at present to observe how much simpler is the theory, if you like so to call it (though we hold it to be no theory), and how much more capable of verification at every step, and on that ground alone more scientific, — the theory of revelation from an infinite and personal energy, whom we call God. Given a personal God of infinite power, justice, and benevolence, we not only may, but must, argue a priori to the possibility, at least, if not the probability, of some revelation of His will to man. Given the historical truth of the Mosaic Dispensation, we have such a revelation. Given certain other historical facts, upon some of which I shall presently touch, we have reason to believe that man received a revelation prior to that of the Mosaic Dispensation. If I may quote words of my own, written elsewhere, with regard especially to Hinduism viewed in con- 12 nexion with growth in religion, “ A development there is ; but is it a development upward, or a development downward (downward, I mean, as in the case of saint-worship and other deformities that have clustered round the design of the founder of Christianity) ? It is not easy to see with Mr. Ilei’bert Spencer by what law or necessity of man’s nature he should, after having evolved his gods from the “ stuff that dreams are made of,” proceed to evolve the necessity for pro- pitiating them with bloody sacrifices. Men do not propitiate each other, and I suppose, in no age ever even dreamed of doing so, with bloody offerings. Nor is it by any means easy to see with Mr. Moncure Conway how the struggle between the principles of “ retaliation and forgiveness ” in the human bosom could, according to his theory, beget the germ of the sacrificial system, and especially how it should have pointed out food animals and food plants as the only suitable offerings. “ The only natural law which the science of religion has forced upon my own conviction is, that man has exhibited a constant tendency to drop the spiritual out of religion, while he may retain the material. Deterioration from the original truth seems to have been the natural order of growth in religions. It was certainly so in the religion of Israel. It has been certainly so in the history of Christianity. The truth of the Founder has often been kept up only by an effort, and how often by a painful effort. I believe the same may be shown to be true of every known religion. But this does not mean utter destruction. Vestiges of the original will most probably remain, mere or less extensive, more or less perfect. It is the spiritual that suffers; we more easily preserve the skeleton than the life that once animated it. And as regards concretions, just as, when we ascend the stream towards the fountain in Christianity, we drop sect after sect, heresy after heresy, so in Hinduism, when we march back to the Vedic era, we leave one by one the gods many and the lords many, till we reach a clearer atmosphere. When there, with a less incumbered realisation of deity, what do we find ? We find what I take to be the most remarkable and noteworthy of all the results of our research, I mean, what is evidently the backbone of the religion, that has, moreover, existed to this day through all changes, — the Priest, the Altar, the Sacrifice, the Oblation, the Propitiation, the Sacred Feast, all connected with the acknowledgment of deity. Here, then, we must have reached the ideal, or a portion of the ideal, of original Hinduism. However imperfect and skeleton- like these 13 characteristics may seem, standing 1 as they do now without a distinct and organised embodiment, without any defined reasons for their existence, yet they must point to tho intrinsic nature of early Hinduism. Here we have certain marks of Hinduism, which are ‘ ulnipie, semper, ab omnibus.’ What is tho true meaning of this ? Are these well - defined characteristics only indications of a process of upward growth ? which is the theory of Mr. Herbert Spencer ; or are they vestiges of a former perfect organism already in a state of decay ? If we see a building in an incomplete state, walls without a roof, portions of walls only indicative of what the walls ought to be ; hero a perfect window, there only a wiudow-sill ; here a door, there only a door-step ; here a pillar, there only the base of a pillar, we must come to one of two inevitable conclusions, — either that -the building is a ruin of a once perfect building, or that it is only in the state of construction. And so, if we were to see in different places portions of what appears to us to be evidently the same ideal, some more, some less complete, some conveying only sugges- tions of the ideal, some more nearly approaching it, we should conclude that all were either fragments of, or approximations towards, that one ideal. Now, comparative religion presents several so-called religions to us, having certain points of mutual contact, between some a few points, between others many, all pointing to one ideal. Does this mean that these several religions are each in a state of growth towards the ideal, or that the ideal now exists in many of them only in a state of ruin ? This is, no doubt, the one vital question that, of all others, comparative religion has to solve. All the ancient religions had, to a greater or less degree, characteristics similar to those of the Hinduism of the Vedas, — priests, altars, sacrifices, propitiations. Can we refer all these to one ideal ? We can. The ideal is seen in its completeness in the Mosaic Dispensation, which is doubtless a Divine re- construction of a primeval revelation as to man’s religious beliefs and duties. There these same parts have their proper places, functions, and appointments in a perfect system of divine worship. That dispensation is the restoration of an ideal upon which we could reconstruct the edifice of which these chief characteristics of Vedic Brahmanism, and other ancient religions, would be fitting parts. And certainly, when we find the disjecta membra of early religions, exactly such as we should expect to find in the ruins of such an ideal, we come very near to the proof that such an ideal did exist.” 1 5 . But to return to Buddhism. Even Dr. Oldenberg, whose 14 recent work on Buddha is the most scholarly and reliable that I have seen, when tracing the progress in Indian thought which prepared the way for Buddhism, depicts the Vedic religion as having been wholly philosophised, so to speak, out of the inner consciousness of the Hindu. Thus he finds disclosed in the “ Brahmana of the hundred paths/'* what the Vedic texts themselves, he says, fail to yield, “ the genesis of the conception of the unity in all that is, from the first dim indications of this thought, until it attains a steady brilliancy.” “ What the Indian thinker has conceived in the particular' ‘ ego/ — the Atman [that is, himself], — extends in his idea, by inevitable necessity, to the universe at large beyond him : the Atman, the central substance of the ‘ ego/ steps forth on the domain of the bare human individual, and is taken as the creating power that moves the great body of the universe.”! The man has thought out this idea so perfectly, that at last the “ Atman is called the Brahma.” “Atman and Brahma converge in the one, in which the yearning spirit, wearied of wandering in a world of gloomy, formless phantasms, finds its rest.” So “ the Brahmana of the hundred paths ” says, “ That which was, that which will be, I praise, the great Brahma, the One, the Imperishable. To the Atman let man bring his adoration, . . . . with this Atman shall I, when I separate from this state, unite myself. Whosoever thinketh thus truly, there is no doubt.” Then Dr. Oldenberg adds, “A new centre of thought is found, a new God, greater than all old gods, for he is the all ; nearer to the quest of man's heart, for he is the particular ‘ ego.’ The name of the thinker,” Dr. Olden- berg goes on to say, “ who was the first to propound this new philosophy, we know not.” 1 6 . In the margin of my copy of Dr. Oldenberg's book I wrote on reading this passage, “ Or is this ‘new God' the oldest of all ? ” I should venture to reverse the reasoning of Dr. Oldenberg here, and to find in the “ Br&hmana of the hundred paths,” and in the hymns of the Rig Veda, evidences of a religious thought, not constructive but destructive, not nearing the light, but receding from it, though still catching its last rays. Do we not rather see in the supreme Atman, * Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 23, et seq. t Though the original meaning of Atman is obscure, yet the more probable derivation is that which connects it with an, “to breathe,” or at, “to go,” than that which connects it with aham, the first personal pronoun. Spiritus, not ego, seems to be the underlying idea of Atman, even when used for “the self ” ; the original meaning seems to be still shadowed forth in the Greek dr/joc. 15 the supreme Brahma, the supreme Prajapati, the one Spirit or Individuality, the one Almighty, the one Lord, of Vedic Brahmanism, vestiges of a once purer faith and a truer worship ? Certainly in reference to the theory of the evolu- tionists, there seems to be a higher differentiation in these teachings of the Vedic era, the one Infinite, Self-existent, Spirit, Creator, the Source and End of being, than in the one mere “ Energy ” of the present race of agnostics ; just as the tree with stem, branches, leaves, fruit, is more highly differ- entiated than a mere pole. And none of these ideas of the deity can be charged with anthropomorphism. The theory of differentiation in the science of religion has, therefore, a somewhat difficult matter to explain, when investigating the religious beliefs of the Brahmans of ages long past. More- over, Dr. Oldenberg has told us that, long before this discovery of the one Atman, the sacrificial fire was every- where present, as the great symbol of Aryan prosperity. They had sacrificed even to those “ old gods/’ whom they had forgotten. So sovereign was the sacrificial system, that “ the king,* whom the Brahmans anoint to rule over their people, is not their king ; the priest, at the coronation, when he presents the ruler to his subjects, says, ‘ This is your king, 0 people; the king over us Brahmans is Soma/ ” Whence, then, originated this idea of sacrifice ? And what is that Soma libation again, but a vestige of the far past, the Hindu remembrance of the sacrificial cup, which their forefathers in the North had filled with the juice of the grape ? Did man invent the priest, the altar, the sacrifice, the libation ? It is impossible. We can only read the truth of this in the light of the Mosaic dispensation. f 17. Allow me to dwell, in a few hurried words, on the evidences of a primeval revelation from God. First, as to ritual worship. I will take ouly one example. The Hindu temple is on the same plan as the tabernacle in the Wilderness and Solomon’s Temple at Jerusalem, the fane consisting of two rooms, the inner one for the idol, the outer one for the priests’ offices, and usually standing in a court of greater or less dimensions. Whence can the Hindus have derived this plan ? It is scarcely possible that they can have borrowed this particular design from the Jews. I had long ago sus- pected that this also is a vestige of a ritual worship antecedent * Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 14. + See this subject further discussed by me in Pulpit Commentary on Leviticus, Introduction on Sacrifice. 16 to the ritual of Moses; and this is confirmed by the discovery of the Sippara Temple by Mr. Rassam, which is also according to the same pattern. Why, then, was this pattern given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai? We can only conclude, I think, that Jehovah was then re-instituting a ritual that had become corrupted among the nations. And, if we carefully examine the Mosaic Dispensation, we shall find many circum- stances to corroborate this. Many features of that dispensa- tion already existed in the world; the priest was nothing new; the altar, the sacrifice, the sacrificial feast were nothing new ; and, after Mr. Rassam* s discovery of the Temple at Sippara, we can say with confidence the form of the tabernacle was nothing new. I have been led, therefore, to infer that the Mosaic Dispensation was a “ Reformation,” and, if so, there must have been a ritual and a worship that existed in earlier ages, appointed by the same Jehovah ; and we can thus understand the priestly and sacrificial vestiges of a once divinely-appointed worship that are to be found, or were once to be found, not only in India, but, to a greater or less extent, all over the world. 1 8. We come, then, if I am right, to regard the Brahmanism of the Vedic era, with its priests, altars, temples, and sacrifices, as retaining divinely-appointed rites, appointed long before Moses, which in their origin can only now be correctly read in the after-light of the “ Reformation,” called the Mosaic Dis- pensation ; but which had already become for the most part dead fossils of a past history, the only life that remained being the remembrance of the fact of the existence of the one Infinite (Aditi),* the oueSupreme (Brahma) ,ihe oneCreator (Prajapati) , the one Spirit ( Atma ), after whom some yearning spirits of men still sought, though they had lost his truth. Symbolism had crushed the life out of their religion. The sun, the moon, the heavens, the storms, the powers of nature, the sacrificial fire, the soma cup, first worshipped as manifestations of the divin6 presence, clouded tho image of the personal Jehovah, and became at last only the veils of the Great Unknown. 19. Parallel with these recollections of a once divine worship must have been the recollections of a divinely-taught morality. If there were a divinely-appointed worship among the fathers of the nations, there must have been a divine code of duty also in reference both to God and man. There are vestiges here also. There are expressions in the Rig Veda in * See Rig Veda, Mux Muller, vol. i., p. 230, el seq. 17 reference to duty to God, which seem to belong to a different atmosphere from the self-seeking which is prevalent. As, for example, in one of the hymns to the Maruts, or storm-gods, translated by Professor Max Muller, there is an expression which is rendered, “ Thou searchest out sin,” rina-yavd, the word rina, meaning ideally a deht, something owing to the deity : so also there is in other hymns ugas, guilt , — “ 0 Agni, whatever sin [guilt, abomination] we have committed, do thou pardon it,” — ideas that could hardly belong to a constructive religion that had only reached the stage of nature-worship. And so in other instances in the Veda, where sin is conceived, in the words of Max Muller, “as a bond or chain, from which the repentant sinner wishes to be freed.” * 20 . But we are most concerned with the morality of Buddha. There is one especially remarkable parallel between what I believe to be early Buddhist teaching and what we find in Holy Scripture as a divine command. I refer to the ten precepts, or obligations, which have, no doubt, always formed, and still form, a very prominent feature in Buddhistic teaching. The order, as well as the character of the first four obligations, is particularly observable as compared with the second table of the commandments in the Mosaic law. The latter, begin- ning with the sixth, are against (1) murder, (2) adultery, (3) stealing, (4) false witness. The Buddhist precepts are against (1) killing (animal life included), (2) stealing, (3) adultery and impurity, (4) Bing. These are nearly identical, the second aud third only changing places. The fact of the Buddhist precepts being ten in number is also in itself suggestive, though the remaining six are very different from the rest of the Mosaic precepts, and are protests against the licentiousness of Buddha’s day.f This striking parallelism * Sec Rig Veda , Max Muller, vol. i., p. 214, et seg. t The ten precepts referred to are against, — 1. The taking of life. 2. Stealing. 3. Adultery and sexual intercourse. 4. Lying. 5. The use of intoxicating drinks. C. The eating of food after mid-day. 7. The attendance upon dancing, singing, music, and masks. 8. The adorning of the body with dowers, and the use of perfumes and unguents. 9. The us * of high or honourable seats or couches. 10. The receiving of gold or silver. Every religious or moral movement is, in the first instance, either a protest against some error or abuse that hits become intolerable, or an v. V . 18 between the four precepts quoted can hardly be accidental. It is, of course, not without the bounds of possibility that tliei’e may here be an echo of Moses, who lived 1,000 years before Buddha ; but I should rather regard these first four precepts of the Buddhist code as being vestiges of a moral law divinely given in the still farther past, that had never been wholly lost to the human family, and had been re- enunciated to the “ chosen people ” on Mount Sinai. In this view of the case, Buddha inherited traditions of a morality that had once the stamp of the divine imprimatur. I am far from saying that there was only this inheritance at the root of Buddhistic teaching; but that inheritance, I think, I mav claim ; and, if the claim be allowed, it will go far to remove any difficulty as to the origin of parallelisms between the moral teaching of Buddha and that of the Old Testament. 21. Dr. Oldenberg labours eloquently to show that the seeds of Buddhism already existed in Brahmanism. No doubt, to some extent they did; and, by the side of the preserved relics of a divine ritual, why should there not have existed preserved relics of a divine morality ? There was always the natural yearning of man after something better. The desire after deliverance, as Dr. Oldenberg has observed, already expresses itself in Hinduism. Buddhism takes up the theme, and dis- courses of self-conquest, merit, and demerit. Is it not hero grasping as weapons the vestiges of an erewhile divine morality to hurl at the effete ritualism that was deadening the world, and as a protest against the shams and immorality of the day ? The very fact of the doctrine, that deliverance from suffering by righteousness (this is Buddhism) ends in peace in another state of existence, must imply, in the first birth of the idea, some power to acknowledge the righteous- ness and award the peace. The very idea of merit and demerit, as earning or deserving, as binding or freeing, must originally arise from the conviction of an arbitrator. Causality, as Dr. Oldenberg has noticed, is everywhere implied, though not defined, iu Buddhism, as we read it to-day. But an abstract idea like this could never have given the convictions which must be at the root originally of merit and demerit affirmation of some truth that has been denied or lost. The last six of these Buddhist precepts disclose the character of the age in which they were first promulgated, and against which they were a protest. It must have been an age calling loudly for reform ; such an age as produced Juvenal’s satires ; an age of drunkenness, of gluttony, of frivolity, of effeminacy, of worldly pride, wealth, and avarice, \ 10 rewarded or punished. Indeed, the fact itself of a blind inoral causality pervading Buddhism would seem to point to a some- thing more real, which has dropped out of sight. Merit rewarded and demerit punished in a future state must be vestiges of a higher faith. When we add God and man’s responsibility to God, the ruins are restored. Merit rewarded, demerit punished, — “ thou shalt” and “ thou shalt not,” — are natural parts of a divine law ; as they stand in Buddhism, they are only fragments of the truth. 22. With regard, again, to the doctrine of Nirvana, which Dr. Oldenberg’s learned researches have further helped to remove out of the gloomy region of a blank annihilation, here also is something, if it did originally speak only of “ deliverance ” and “ peace,” that looks very like a vestige of such teaching as inspired other wise men to write, “ Wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace ” ; “ The wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in his death” ; “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.” * * When we go back to the very earliest texts that speak of Nirvana, we find the subject already involved in metaphysics, 'this is a certain proof that either the original dogmatic teaching on the subject had been lost, or was being perverted. _ Every original teacher is dogmatic j if on any portion of his teaching he himself runs into metaphysical questions, that means that he has inherited some tradition which he does not understand. In Buddha’s own mouth was Nirvana a circumscribed dogma ? or was it a metaphysical uncertainty ? One would suppose that it must have been with him a well* defined dogma, or it is difficult to see how it could become the one goal of all his teaching. The doctrine that the original dogma of Nirvana was annihi- lation of being was unorthodox, though already broached, when the Samyntti Nlkaya was written. There the following passage occurs (more fully quoted by Dr. Oldenberg, p. 282): “Thus then, friend Yamaka, even here in this world the Perfect One is not to be apprehended by thee in truth. Hast thou, therefore, a right to speak, saying, ‘ I understand the doctrine taught by the Exalted One to be this, that a monk, who is free from sin, when his body dissolves, is subject to annihilation, that he passes away, that he does not exist beyond death’?” Yamaka answers. “Such, indeed, was hitherto, friend Sariputta, the heretical view which I ignorantly entertained. But now, when I hear the venerable Sariputta expound the doctrine, the heretical view has lost its hold if me, and I have learned the doctrine.” Echoes of the original teaching exist in the Pali texts, of which the fol- lowing are quoted by Dr. Oldenberg, as examples, from the Dhammapada (p. 285) : — “ Plunged into meditation, the immovable ones who valiantly struggle evermore, the wise, grasp the Nirvana, the gain which no other gain sur- passes.” “Hunger is the most grievous illness ; the Sankhara arc the most grievous sorrow ; recognising this of a truth man attains the Nirvana, the supreme happiness.” 20 23. My attempt, then, has been to show, that the moral precepts of Buddha may have grown from relics, or vestiges, of a primitive, divinely-given, law, that still existed by the side of vestiges of divinely appointed religious rites and cere- monies. Whether Gautama Buddha himself held more than these fragments of the past it would be premature yet to say; but that many of the Buddhistic teachings are stray mosaics that would accurately fit a divine morality, however they came to be so, I think no one will be inclined to deny. 24. That there may have been, however, much more in the teaching of the actual founder of Buddhism than appears to-day in the Buddhist Scriptures, is quite possible. This thought appears to have struck Dr. Oldenberg -with peculiar force. He says, “ When we try to resuscitate in our own way and in our own language the thoughts that are embedded in the Buddhist teaching, we can scarcely help forming the impression that it was not a mere idle statement which the sacred texts preserve to us, that the Perfect Ono knew much more which he thought inadvisable to say, than what he esteemed it profitable to his disciples to unfold. For that which is declared points for its explanation and comple- tion to something else, which is passed over in silence — for it “ The wise, who cause no suffering to any being, who keep their body in check, they walk to the everlasting state ; he who has reached that knows no sorrow.” “ He who is permeated by goodness, the monk w’ho adheres to Buddha’s teaching, let him turn to the land of peace, where transientness finds an end, to happiness.” (“ Dhammapada,” 23, 203, 223, 368). Why meditation, endurance, wisdom, goodness, purity, love, if the goal of all were annihilation of being? Could such a prospect as the summum bonum have begotten the moral system of Buddha ? There is no hint in the above extracts (and so in innumerable others) of annihilation of being. Deliverance from the transient is the ground thought. The theory of Mr. Childers, though supported by so much learning, “ that the word Nirvana was used from the first to designate two different things, the state of blissful sanctification called Arhatship, and the annihilation of existence in which Arhatship ends” (Childers’s Pali Dictionary, p. 266), and that, therefore, it has always had the latter for its final meaning, will not stand, I think, the test of future criticism. Nay, Dr. Oldenberg seems already successfully to have set it aside. If Gautama Buddha himself taught nothing more definite on the subject of Nirvana than did his disciples, whose words we now read, then it is evident that he must have inherited his method of life without the fulness of its original sanction and source ; and if so, he was not the founder, properly speaking, of a religion, but only the instrument for using an already existing morality against the imperfect state of society in which his lot Was cast. 21 seemed not to serve for quietude, illumination, the Nirvana — but of which we can scarcely help believing that it was really present in the minds of Buddha and those disciples to whom we owe the compilation of the dogmatic texts/' Whether tho reason for this “ silence," or omission, is correctly surmised by Dr. Oldenberg, may be doubted; but tho fact of some- thing existing, though out of sight in tho present records, is prominent in his mind.* This fact has also been elsewhere re- marked on by myself. Had Gautama himself the more perfect knowledge ? He lived in a remarkable age. What was the real force that roused at that time a keener sense of human sin and suffering, and a louder protest against moral evil all over the world ? What was the real secret of the teaching of Pythagoras in Italy, of Zoroaster in Persia, of Lao-tse and Confucius in China, of Ileraklitos in Ephesus, of the Orphic brotherhoods ? What were those mysterious books that were brought by the Sibyl to Tarquinius Superbus ? These questions remain unanswered. But that there was in that age, in which Gautama Buddha most probably lived, a powerful influence through the known world towards morality is evident. It is a curious question how far the influence, great and enduring as it was, of Daniel and his God-feai’ing companions at the court of the then kings of the earth, was an influence that may have been world-wide. Daniel was born, according to common chronologies, some time, perhaps twenty years, before 600 B.C., and therefore probably slightly pre- ceded, or was, in advanced age, still living in the remarkable epoch to which Gautama seems to belong. One fact is certain, and that is, that whatever the lost Sibylline books were, one of the later ones contains passages so similar to some of Daniel’s writings that most critics allow that the Sibyl had access to Daniel’s prophecies. On the destruction of the earlier Sibylline Books by fire in the Temple of Jupiter B.C. 83, they were restored from public and private copies that existed in various towns of Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. They were again similarly restored when burnt in the days of Nero, Julian, and Honorius. And the inference is, that the restorations most likely represented the true character, as well as in all probability some of the ipsissima verba of the originals. This question, however, of the Jews at Babylon having exerted a wider influence than is generally suspected. * Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 208. 22 is a matter not now to be dogmatized upon, tlioogh it may well be kept in mind as something worth investigation. 25. But, whatever the motive power that first roused Gautama Buddha to preach against immorality and Brahman ritualism, whether it came from without or was the inherit- ance only of tradition, it must be allowed that Buddhism was, in its subsequent development, essentially Indian, moulded chiefly by the natural disposition and philosophical specula- tions of the race, and subject, to a very great degree, to the isolation beneath the great barrier of the Himalayas, which has made India what it is ; except when sometimes the invader, perhaps religious as well as military and mer- cantile, has found his way, like Alexander, through the Hindu Kush, or by the sea-board, like Solomon’s sailors, and subsequent Persian, Arabian, Egyptian, and Jewish adventurers. The Chairman (J. A. Fraser, M.D., Insp. Gen. of Hospitals). — I think there are very few persons present who can be without a deep sense of obligation to the author of this paper. The subject is one which has excited a great deal of attention and discussion both at home and abroad ; we all know that by reason of certain works which have been written without, as I conceive, that thorough investigation of the subject which was demanded. We are, therefore, particularly glad to have a paper taking up this question so strongly and so learnedly. There is, I might almost say, a great tendency in the present day to advance and extol any religion except the Christian religion. Captain Frank Petrie (Hon. Sec.). — Before the discussion commences, I have to mention the receipt of letters from several taking a special interest in the knowledge of Buddhism, expressing regret at not being able to be present; also a letter from Mr. Morlcy, the domestic chaplain to the Bishop of Madras, expressing his high appreciation of the value of the paper, which he hopes will reach the whole of India. Mr. Hormuzd Rassam. — This has been a topic in which I have always been very much interested, and I cannot but say that I agree with every- thing the learned author of the paper has said with regard to the most ancient belief in the God of Revelation— Jehovah. Every time I try to trace the Religions of the world and its languages, I cannot go further than the history of the Jews. We can now look back to certain antiquities upon which we can depend,— not MSS. which are only ridiculously men- tioned as having existed for thousands of years, which no one can trust, but antiquities in stone and terra cotta which have been discovered in Mesopotamia. For instance, in reference to my discovery at Balawat, namely, the bronze gates of Shalmaneser the Second. Assyrian scholars and I fix its date when Jonah visited Nineveh under the Divine 23 dictate. This monument shows that the Assyrians had the same sacrifices as the Jews. I have a photograph here of two sacrifices pictured on the gate, and you will find in it that the same animals are pre- sented for sacrifice as are mentioned in Leviticus, chapter xvi., verse 3, wherein it is said, “Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place : with a young bullock for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering.” Well, here it is, you will see it quite plainly on the bronze gates. We find that in those days the Kings of Assyria acted as high priests, and the same King Shalmaneser we find took tribute from Jehu, king of Israel, as an act of homage. It appears that there was a difference between the Assyrian and the Babylonian religions ; it is now proved, after the recent dis- coveries, that the Babylonians who migrated from the Persian Gulf, had revolting and abominable sacrifices the same as there were in the land of Canaan, — that is to say, they sacrificed their children to idols. When we come to the Assyrians, we find that there was nothing of the kind in their worship, but they imitated the sacrifices of the Jewish riles. If we follow the history of the Jews, or even that of the Christian Church, we fiud that corruptions spread so much in them since the foundation ot our faith, that we do not wonder that the same occurred, in a great measure, in countries like China and India, which used to be very uncivilised at one time. Without having the printing-press, they used merely to hear of certain good theological laws and imitate them ; or, at any rate, they conformed to them as well as they could. I have often heard it said by the enemies of Christianity that Moses borrowed all his precepts and laws from the old gentiles or heathens. We may just as well believe the same of the Koran. We all know that the Koran is a corruption of the Old and New Testaments, and I do not think there is a man or even a child who does not know that the Koran was written by Mohammed in the seventh century (a.d. 610). In my opinion the worship of Jehovah was originally pure and simple, and that it so remained until the Church of God, the ancient Jewish Church, began to worship the creature rather than the Creator. We also knowthat Christianity was preached in India and China hundreds of years ago, and that the Assyrian Christians— the so-called Nestorians — preached in those countries about the sixth century : but they themselves go still further, and say that according to their traditions their missionaries preached there in the fourth century, when, as it is stated, they had no less than eighty bishops in China, India, and Tartary. We can well fancy, therefore, by looking back to the sixth century, and con- sidering that the Christians who went out to those countries were able to Christianise thousands of those people, it is to be presumed that they must have left a good impression behind them of, at any rate, a part of the religion they professed. Let us, for example, take the Taepings as an illus- tration : we all know the man who headed the Taepings at that time was a nominal Christian, and held extraordinary views, and if lie had succeeded 24 we should have had a very curious Christianity in China. So it is with the Buddhists and other Gentile nations who might have been like some Christians and Jews who have corrupted the worship of the true God, and followed their own devices. Rev. S. Coles, M. A. — I have to thank Mr. Collins for his very able paper on a subject in which I feel the greatest interest. I may say that I have been a missionary in Ceylon for about four-and-twenty years, and during that time I made the Buddhist system of religion a special stud)’, and am of opinion that, in order to understand Buddhism aright, we must endeavour to find out what was the state of society at the time and in the country in which Buddha lived, and what were the influences brought to bear on Buddhism from without. We understand, from the Buddhist books, that in the time of Buddha, society in India was pantheistic, and that caste during that period had so developed, especially in relation to the pretensions of the Brahmins, as to become absolutely unbearable to the soldiers and the kings. Buddhism, then, was evidently formulated or founded in order to correct these things ; and Buddha, like most human reformers, when he set to work with the object of reforming pantheism, did this so effectually that he left no room for a deity in the religion he set up ; and, instead of a deity, we find action in the abstract. Buddha was what may be called the king of pessimists. He looked upon all existence, all pleasure, and all human happiness as evil and undesirable, himself giving up, as we are told, the pleasures of the court and retiring into the jungle, whence, after seven years of meditation, he came forth as a teacher. He then said he would give only his own experience ; that what he had learned he had learned by himself, that he had not derived it from any one else. This is repeatedly expressed in the Buddhist writings, which affirm that he had never received any of his teachings from any other source. If, how- ever, we look at those teachings as they are given in his moral code, I do not think we need go very far to find their origin ; for the first five of his com- mands are those which, we may say, are the common heritage of humanity. All races of people look on murder, theft, impurity, and falsehood as sins and actions that should be avoided. The other commands given in Buddha’s code are such as we should expect a pessimist to put forward. They relate to abstinence from all pleasure ; and this last portion of his commands was to be observed principally by the monks and nuns. Laymen might observe them if they chose, but they were not bound to do so. Then, as I have said, we must look to the connexion India had with other countries. Mr. Eassam has spoken of what has been discovered in Assyria ; and here we should bear in mind that the Ten Tribes were carried into Assyria long before — quite a century before — Buddha was born. I think the Eehestun inscriptions prove that the teachings of the Bible, or of the Old Testament, were carried to that part of the world ; and in the Buddhist scriptures we find so many interesting facts and remarks similar to those given in the Old Testament, that we cannot but think that the people of India derived a certain portion of them from the West, — we may say, from the Children of Israel. We are also told in this paper — and I think it is a fact that we ought to bear in mind— that about the time Buddha lived Daniel lived also, and that Judah had then been carried into captivity in Babylon. Therefore it will be seen that there were many means and oppor- tunities by which India, at that remote period, could have obtained a certain amount of knowledge with regard to the things contained in the Bible But, in order to understand Buddhism, we must try to learn what wax Buddha’s teaching about man ; about his constitution and his nature ; and then we may urrive at some idea as to that which has been the cause of very much discussion, and which, probably, will continue to be so for a long time to come, namely, the great doctrine of Buddhism, called “Nirvana.” We cannot understand what is meant by this without knowing what Buddha taught about the nature of man. It is often asserted that Nirvana only means deliverance from all evil — from all change. But those who have studied the matter are not in agreement on this point; at any rate, they who have studied it most do not generally agree in this assertion. Professor Childers has written a very able article on Nirvana, and he shows, in a manner which I think is unanswerable, that there are two stages which have been looked on as Nirvana; namely, one in which there is existence, and another in -which there is no existence. Be shows this most learnedly by using the two words which are found in the Buddhist scriptures, saupddisesa Nibbana and nirupadiscsa Is ibbana. The one is the Nirvana, which h;is something in it, wherein the elements of being still exist, and then after death, there comes the nirupadisesa Nibbana, in which there can be no existence after the powers of the body and mind are dissolved ; which I think is plain from Buddha’s own words. It is very difficult to understand all Buddha’s teachings about the nature of man, because many of them are self- contradictory ; but we may say that, when he speaks of man’s higher nature, it is as of a procession, or, as I have been accustomed to call it, a sequence. There is nothing which you can point to and say, “ This is really the higher part of man.” He says, man and every creature in the universe consist of two parts — the nama and the rupa. Rupa is the figure ; nama is the name that is given. This is explained, according to Buddhist ideas, as being similar to a chariot. You have all the different portions of the chariot, and then you have the name. Buddha then says, “So is man. Man has a body, man has thoughts ; and these constitute what is the name, which you call, and think of as, man. But there is nothing which you can point to definitely as ego and say that that is permanent.” This is illustrated, in another part of the Buddhist scriptures by a lamp. The lamp is lighted, and it goes on burning through the night. In the first watch there is a flame, and in the second there is a flame also. Is the flame in the second watch the same as in the first ? The answer given is that it is not the same, neither is it another. And Buddha says, “ So it is with man : he is not the same, £ 26 neither is he another: there is a procession, or a sequence, following from this body and the action of the thoughts.” It is very difficult to understand this matter ; but it has, to a great extent, been elucidated by Dr. Oldenburg, and I can heartily recommend his book to those who have not read it. It is the most able book that has been written on Buddhism ; and although we may not agree with all he asserts, yet the impression every impartial reader will derive is this — that Christianity is immensely superior to Buddhism ; the teachings of our holy religion are far above what Buddha gives. I think we ought to bear this in mind. It has often been asked, “ Why is it that Buddhism has had, and still has, such a hold on the human mind, when this mystic Nirvana is its fiual goal — its summum bonuml” I think the only reply we can give to this question is, that all Buddhists now in the world, and all Buddhists who have been in the world since Buddha’s time, have no hope of reaching Nirvana. They tell us it is impossible to arrive at that state, and all the Buddhists now are as virtuous as they can be, in order, as Buddha teaches, that they may have greater happiness in the next birth — it may be in this world, it may be in the upper world, or it may be in the lower world ; but they believe that no one has any hope of reach- ing Nirvana. This, I think, is the reason why Buddhism is still the religion of so many millions of the human race. Principal G. W. Leitner, M. A., Ph.D., LL.D. (Government College, Lahore). — The concluding words in Mr. Collins’s lecture point to an inference to which, perhaps, full weight has not been given, and that is the inference to be derived from the invasion of India by Alexander, which is rightly described as having been “ perhaps religious as well as military and mer- cantile.” In my opinion it was even more than this ; for, if we consult those authors who deal with Alexander’s invasion, we shall find that his object, at any rate as it was believed to be by his contemporaries, was to spread Greek influence through Asia. It was with this object that he set out ; and, although Arrian wrote a considerable time afterwards, he wrote, as we know, as accurately, perhaps, as any historian ever did ; while even in Plutarch we find the same belief as that of Arrian crystallised in what he records, both as to the object and the success of Alexander, to which he not only refers in- cidentally, but makes special allusion to, in a speech which is entitled, “ Regarding the Virtue and Good Fortune of Alexander,” in having intro- duced, as it were, Europe into Asia, with particular reference to India. One of the passages is : K.ara have been written as late as the tenth century A.D. In the Bhagavat-Glta, of which the opinion of Mr. Monier Williams is, that it is “really a comparatively modern philosophical poem interpolated in the Blush ma-parva,” the t mition by Parasu-Rama, is related in a copy of the Bmhinanda-Puraua which I obtained in South India many years ago : and probably volcanic action was known in past times on the Western coast. But why should everything connected with the earthly history of Krishna end thus abruptly? It is noticeable that Krishna is the last recorded Avatara of Vishnu ; one more Avatara, the tenth, is to come under the name of Kalki, who will destroy the wicked, and liberate the world from its enemies, putting an end to the present Kali-yuga, or iron age of vice. WTMAN END SOXS, IMllXTKBS, GBBAT QCEE.X STBBET, LOXDOX. or tffria Institute, inii j5orietn ot ©real Britain 7, ADELPHI TERRACE, STRAND, LONDON, W.C. 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