CHAPTER I.

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CURIOSITIES OF SUPERSTITION,

And Sketches of some Unrevealed Religions.

by

W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS,

Author of “Heroes of the Cross,” etc.

“To my mind there is no study more absorbing than that of

the Religions of the World,--the study, if I may so call

it, of the various languages in which man has spoken to

his Maker, and of that language in which his Maker ‘at

sundry times and in divers manners’ spake to man.”--MAX MÜLLER.

“Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor.”--STATIUS, _Thebaid_, 661.

LONDON:

J. MASTERS AND CO., 78, NEW BOND STREET.

MDCCCLXXXII.

London:

J. Masters and Co., 78, New Bond Street.

MDCCCLXXXII.

London:

Printed by J. Masters and Co.,

Albion Buildings, Bartholomew Close.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. BUDDHISM, ITS ORIGIN AND CEREMONIES 1

II. MAGIANISM: THE PARSEES 43

III. JEWISH SUPERSTITIONS 68

IV. BRAHMANISM 84

V. HINDU MYTHOLOGY, AND THE VISHNU PURANA 99

VI. IN CHINA: CONFUCIANISM, TAOUISM, AND BUDDHISM 119

VII. AMONG THE MALAYS, THE SLAMATAN BROMOK, THE DYAKS, THE

PAPUAN TRIBES, THE AHETAS 142

VIII. THE SAVAGE RACES OF ASIA: THE SAMOJEDES; THE MONGOLS;

THE OSTIAKS; IN TIBET 155

IX. SOME AFRICAN SUPERSTITIONS 171

X. THE ZULU WITCH-FINDERS 180

XI. ZABIANISM AND SERPENT-WORSHIP 186

XII. POLYNESIAN SUPERSTITIONS 214

XIII. THE FIJI ISLANDERS 230

XIV. THE RELIGION OF THE MAORIES 241

XV. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 254

XVI. AMONG THE ESKIMOS 274

XVII. A MEDIÆVAL SUPERSTITION: THE FLAGELLANTS 279

XVIII. SCOTTISH SUPERSTITIONS: HALLOWEEN 288

XIX. SECOND SIGHT: DIVINATION: UNIVERSALITY OF CERTAIN

SUPERSTITIONS: FAIRIES IN SCOTLAND 300

CURIOSITIES OF SUPERSTITION.

CHAPTER I.

_BUDDHISM: ITS ORIGIN AND CEREMONIES._

PRAYER-WHEELS OF THE BUDDHISTS.

Travelling on the borders of Chinese Tartary, in the country of the Lamas

or Buddhists, Miss Gordon Cumming remarks that it was strange, every now

and again, to meet some respectable-looking workman, twirling little brass

cylinders, only about six inches in length, which were incessantly

spinning round and round as they walked along the road. What could they

be? Not pedometers, not any of the trigonometrical instruments with which

the officers of the Ordnance Survey go about armed? No; she was informed

that they were prayer-wheels, and that turning them was just about

equivalent to the telling of beads, which in Continental lands workmen may

often be seen counting as homeward along the road they plod their weary

way.

The telling of beads seems to the Protestant a superfluous piece of

formalism: what then are we to think of prayer by machinery? The prayers,

or rather invocations, to Buddha--the Buddhists never pray, in the

Christian sense--are all closely written upon strips of cloth or paper;

the same sentence being repeated some thousands of times. These strips are

placed inside a cylinder, revolving on a long spindle, the end of which is

the handle. From the wind-cylinder depends a small lump of metal, which,

whirling round, communicates the necessary impetus to the little machine,

so that it rotates with the slightest possible effort, and continues to

grind any required number of acts of worship, while the owner, with the

plaything in his hand, carries on his daily work. His religion requires

that he should be all his time immersed in holy contemplation of the

perfections of Buddha, but to a busy man no such self-absorption is

possible. He is content, therefore, to say the sentences aloud at the

beginning and end of his devotions, and in the interval twirls slowly,

while a tiny bell marks each rotation, and reminds him if he should

unconsciously quicken his pace.

Tennyson finely speaks of Prayer as that by which

“The whole round world is every way

Bound by gold chains around the feet of GOD;”

but no such efficacy can be ascribed to the cylinders of brass, copper, or

gold, which are fashionable among the Buddhists. Yet we must not condemn

too unreservedly: Prayer, even among Christians, is apt to degenerate into

a dull, mechanical uniformity, and to become scarcely less perfunctory

than that which the Tibetans grind out of their prayer-machine.

In a Lama temple, Miss Gordon Cumming once saw a colossal prayer-wheel,

which might almost have sufficed for the necessities of a nation. It was

turned by a great iron crank, which acted as a handle. The cylinder

measured about twelve feet in height, and six to eight feet in diameter.

Circular bands of gold and vermilion adorned it, each band bearing the

well-known Buddhist ascription, or invocation, “To the jewel on the

Lotus.” Of this inscription, multiplied on strips of paper and cloth, the

cylinder was full, and each time that it revolved on its axis, the devotee

was accredited with having uttered the pious invocation just as often as

it was repeated within the cylinder. The whole history of Superstition

offers scarcely any fact more curious or suggestive than this method of

prayer by machinery; and that such a grotesque extravagance should have

emanated from so subtle and metaphysical a faith as Buddhism is an anomaly

not easily to be explained.

Each votary who is too poor to possess a prayer-wheel of his own, attends

the temple, does homage to the head Lama, receives his benediction, and

then, squatting in front of the great wheel, he turns the crank on behalf

of himself and his family. But if there be a considerable number of

worshippers, the priest himself works the handle, that all may participate

simultaneously in the act of prayer.

The use of these machines is traced back for fully fourteen centuries, and

is supposed to have originated in the belief that it was a meritorious

act, and a patent cure for sin, to be continually reading or reciting

portions of the sacred books of Buddha. But as many of the people could

not read, a substitute had to be found, and it came to be considered

sufficient if they turned over the rolled manuscripts which embodied the

invaluable precepts. And as a vast amount of time and trouble was saved by

this process, a further simplification became possible and popular,--the

invention of wheels termed _Tehu-Chor_,--great cylindrical bands full of

prayers; a cord being attached to the base of the band, which, when the

cord was pulled, twirled like a children’s toy. Prayer-wheels of this kind

are set up in all public places in Tibet, so that the poor who do not

possess little pocket Wheels of Devotion may not lose their chance of

accumulating merit. In some of the monasteries the rows of small cylinders

are so arranged, that the priest, or any passer-by can set them all in

simultaneous motion, by just drawing his hand along them.

According to Miss Cumming, who is confirmed by other travellers, the

cylinders vary in size, from tiny hand-mills, about as big as a

policeman’s rattle, to huge machines, eight or ten feet in diameter,

worked by a heavy iron crank, or sometimes by wind or water power. The

wind prayer-mills are turned by wings, which, like the cylinder, are

plentifully covered with prayers. The water-mills are placed over streams,

so as to dispense with human aid, and allow the running water to turn them

for the general welfare of the village. Through the cylinder passes a

wooden axle, which is fastened to a horizontal wheel, whose cogs are

turned diagonally to the water.

“One such group of little mills we noticed,” says Miss Cumming,[1] “set in

a clear stream half-way between Rarung and Pangi, a lively, rapid river,

rushing headlong down the mountain side to join the Sutlej. Having never

then heard of prayer-mills, we assumed them to be for corn, as perhaps

they were. At all events, we passed them without inspection, to our

subsequent infinite regret. These wheels rotate with the action of the

water, and so turn the cylinder, which must invariably stand upright.

Sometimes several of these are placed almost across the stream, and the

rudest form of temple is built over them.

“They are so placed that the wheel must invariably turn from right to

left, following the course of the sun; to invert that course would not

only involve ill-luck, but would amount to being a sin. Hence the

exceeding unwillingness of the people we met to let us tend their little

wheels, knowing from sad experience that the English sahibs rather enjoy

the fun of turning them the wrong way, and so undoing the efficacy of all

their morning’s work.

“Some of the little pocket cylinders are very beautifully wrought; some

are even inlaid with precious stones. I saw one great beauty which I

coveted exceedingly. The owner would on no account sell it. I returned to

the temple next morning, wishing at least to make a drawing of it, but I

think he mistrusted me, for he and his plaything had both vanished, and I

had to be content with a much simpler one of bronze, inlaid with copper.

The people have the greatest reluctance to sell even the ugliest old

mills. They cling to them as lovingly as you might do to your dear old

Bible; but, as I said before, not merely from the charm of association,

but from a dread lest a careless hand should turn them against the sun,

and so change their past acts of merit into positive sin. So there was a

great deal of talk, and many irons in the fire, before I was allowed to

purchase two of these, at a price which would have supplied half the

village with new ones.”

The prayer-mill sometimes contains the Tibetan prayer, or litany, for the

six classes of living creatures, namely, the souls in heaven, the evil

spirits in the air, men, animals, souls in purgatory, and souls in hell;

but, as a rule, the Lama worship begins and ends in the famous inscription

to which we have already alluded--_Aum Mani Padmi Hoong_ (to the jewel in

the lotus.) These mystic words are raised in embossed letters on the

exterior of the cylinder, and are closely written on strips of paper

inside. All the sacred places are covered with them; the face of the rock,

the walls of the temple; just as the Alhambra glitters with its

_azulejos_, its blazoned inscriptions from the Kúran.

This mystic sentence is composed as follows: _Aum_ or _Om_, equivalent to

the Hebrew JAH or JEHOVAH, the most glorious title of the Almighty;

_Mani_, the jewel, one of Buddha’s appellations; _Padmi_, the lotus, in

allusion to his lotus-throne; and _Hoong_, synonymous with _Amen_. The

Buddhists regard this “six-syllabled” charm as a talisman of never-failing

efficacy; but by some of the sects it is more or less varied. For

instance: the Chinese Fo-ists read it as _Aum-mi-to-fuh_, which is also

one of Buddha’s titles; and every devout Fo-ist aims at repeating it at

least three hundred thousand times in the course of his life. Some of

their priests will shut themselves up in the temples for months at a time,

and devote themselves to the dreary task of repetition, hour after hour,

day and night. Sometimes, ten or twelve devotees will voluntarily

sequester themselves, and continue all day to cry aloud in chorus; and at

night they undertake the task successively, one person droning through the

monotonous chant while the others sleep. Thus do they think to be heard

for their much speaking! Similar excesses of formalism, however, are

recorded in the history of mediæval Christianity,--in the biographies of

saints and ascetics who have substituted for a practical Christianity and

the active performance of social duties the dreary vanity of an

unprofitable solitude, spent in the discharge of useless penances.

The Buddhist prayer which is consecrated to Buddha as the Chakravarta

Rajah, or King of the Wheel, proves, on examination, to be closely related

to that Sun-worship which prevailed in the early ages of the world. The

wheel is, in many creeds, the symbol of the sun’s chariot, that is, of the

revolution of the heavenly bodies. In a sculpture, nearly two thousand

years old, on the Bilsah Tepe, Buddha is represented simply by a wheel,

overshadowed by the mystic _chattah_, or golden umbrella, which is a

common emblem of his power. His worshippers are represented as making

their offerings to the King of the Wheel. “This sacred Wheel of the Law,

or Wheel of Faith, is found again and again among the fain and Buddhist

sculptures in the caves of Ellora and Ajunta, in most cases projecting in

front of Buddha’s Lotus-Throne. In one instance an astronomical table is

carved above the wheel. In another it is supported on either side by a

stag, supposed to represent the fleetness wherewith the sun runs his daily

circuit, ‘going forth from the uttermost part of the heaven, and running

about unto the end of it again.’”

THE HINDU TEMPLES.

Visiting the Temples at Hardwar, one of the sacred cities of India, Miss

Gordon Cumming remarks upon the number of their hideous idols, painted and

carved, their multitudinous brass bells, their brazen horns, their sacred

courts all covered with elaborate carving, and their mythological

sculptures.

She says:--“I frankly confess that there is something startling in the

rapidity with which one gets quite at home amongst all this paraphernalia

of heathenism, and how very soon idolatry ceases to shock the mind, and

becomes merely a curious study with picturesque adjuncts. Six months

previously the sight of a veritable temple with its hideous idols and

devout worshippers was a thing from which one shrank in shuddering pity.”

But she soon became a connoisseur, and “lounged from one temple to

another, inspecting jewels and exquisite stone carving, and anything

wonderful the priests had to show, and quite forgot to be shocked, it was

all so perfectly natural, and seemed so entirely in keeping with the

tastes of the people.” In this remark there is a wonderful _naïveté_; for

it may reasonably be supposed that the tastes of the people would be in

accord with a religion which, during its career of two thousand years,

must have exercised so great an influence in forming them!

In some of the temples, according to the same writer, there are sacred

bulls, carved in white marble and adorned with costly necklaces. In others

the attendant priests spend the whole day in pouring single drops of

precious oil on holy pebbles brought from the Nerbudda and other sacred

streams, and here arranged in little trays. Amongst the privileged

inhabitants are the monkeys, who frolic about incessantly with their

babies in their arms, or sitting on their backs, and twining their little

arms round the parental necks.

The ceremonies in the different temples are, on the whole, very similar;

and the following description, taken from the Rão Mãlã, applies, except in

minor details, to all.

The day is marked by five services: the first at sunrise, when bells are

rung in the temple, and drums or conch-shells sounded, to rouse the Du, or

god, from his slumbers. After performing copious ablutions, the

officiating priest enters the holy place, and swings before the idol a

lamp with five or seven branches. An hour or two later, the Du is attired

in raiment appropriate to the season. He wears a quilted coat in cold

weather, and has a lighted brazier placed beside him; whereas, in hot

weather, he is anointed with sandal-wood dust and water, clothed in fine

linen, and decked out with gems and flowers. Placed close to a cool

fountain, he is assiduously fanned by his attendants. In rainy weather, he

is wrapped about in scarlet cloth and shawls. When he is dressed, a light

breakfast of rice and milk is served up, and his votaries perform “the

sixteen acts of worship.” At noon a third service takes place. The Du is

again rubbed with oil of sandal-wood, or sandal-dust and water, and

adorned with fresh flowers. The lamps are trimmed; incense is burned; and

his dinner is set before him: after which he is supposed to indulge in his

noonday sleep, and profound silence is maintained throughout the temple.

At three in the afternoon a drum beats, and the god awakes! His attendants

hasten to serve fruits and sweetmeats, and perform various games for his

amusement. At sunset he is enshrined: his feet are basted, he is sprinkled

with water, his mouth is washed, and another offering is made of

sandal-wood dust, and flowers, and incense. He is once more clothed; an

elaborate dinner is spread before him; betel leaves are presented; and

again the many-branched candlestick is waved, while all the votaries

present for the second time perform “the sixteen acts of worship.”

The last service takes place at night, when the image is supposed to sup

on bread and water. After receiving the usual oblations of incense and

flowers, he is undressed, and if he be movable, put to bed, or if not, is

warmly covered with shawls and quilts.

Not the least remarkable objects in the Hindu temples are their great

statues of bulls in marble or in metal. It is worthy of note that “in the

great Brazen Laver, which Solomon was commanded to make for the use of the

Temple at Jerusalem, the symbols selected for the adornment of that

consecrated Molten Sea should have been those which in later ages were to

hold so prominent a place in the symbolism of faiths so widely spread as

those of Brahma and Buddha. That huge laver was supported by twelve oxen

of cast metal, three looking to each point of the compass, while the brim

of the great sea itself was all wrought with flowers of lilies, much the

same as the pattern of lotus or water-lily with which the shrine of Buddha

is invariably edged.” The bull is another symbol which seems to connect

the creed of the Hindu with the old nature-worship; for the vernal equinox

takes place when the sun enters the sign of Taurus, and this event was

always and everywhere a signal for feasting and rejoicing.

But, as Max Müller observes, the ancient religion of the Aryan inhabitants

of India started, like the religion of Greece and Rome, of the Germans,

Slavs, and Celts, with a simple and intelligible mythological

phraseology.[2] In the Veda, the names of all the so-called gods or Devas

undisguisedly betray their original physical character and meaning. Under

the name of Agni (ignis) was praised and invoked the fire; the earth by

that of Prithvî (the brave); the sky by the name of Dyu (Zeus, Jupiter),

and afterwards of Indra; the firmament and the waters by the name of

Οὐρανός. Under many appellations was the sun invoked, such as Sûrya,

Savitri, Vishnu, or Mitra; and the dawn by the titles of Ushas, Urvasî,

Ahanâ, and Sûrya. Nor was the moon forgotten: for though not often

mentioned under its usual name of Kandra, reference is made to it under

its more sacred appellation of Soma; and a particular denomination was

reserved for each of its phases. There is hardly any fact of nature, if it

could impress the human mind in any way with the ideas of a higher power,

of order, eternity, or beneficence,--whether the woods, or the rivers, or

the trees, or the mountains,--without a name and representative in the

early Hindu Pantheon. No doubt there existed in the human mind, from the

very beginning, something, whether we call it a suspicion, an innate idea,

an intuition, or a sense of the Divine. What distinguishes man from the

rest of the animal creation is chiefly his ineradicable feeling of

dependence and reliance upon some higher power; that consciousness of

bondage, from which the very name of “religion” was derived. “It is He

that hath made us, and not we ourselves.” The presence of that power was

felt everywhere, and nowhere more clearly and strongly than in the rising

and setting of the sun, in the change of day and night, of spring and

winter, of birth and death. But although the Divine Presence was felt

everywhere, it was impossible, in that early period of thought, and with a

language incapable as yet of defining anything but material objects, to

conceive the idea of God in its purity and fulness, or to assign to it an

adequate and worthy expression.

It must also be remembered that the influence of the genius and forces of

Nature would necessarily be greater in an age when the human mind was

occupied by few objects of thought, than now when it ranges over the whole

world of art and science. Moreover, to the eye of ignorance everything

seems large and portentous, or dim and inscrutable. The fire from heaven,

the reverberating thunder, the gale that crashed down the mountain ravines

and felled great trees before it, the planetary bodies steadily revolving

in their courses, the stream with its glow and its ripple, the dense

shadows of the haunted forest, the recurring rush and roll of the

sea,--all these were things which for early man had a constant novelty and

strangeness, and seemed incessantly to claim his reverent consideration.

He could not account for them: whether a bane or a delight they were

equally unintelligible. They represented, therefore, some Power which he

could regard only with awe and reverence. And of that Power the sun would

necessarily be the chief type and symbol. All life and love seemed

dependent upon it. The trees throve, and the flowers bloomed, and the

banks rippled, and the birds sang, and the harvests ripened, through the

sun. It was the source of light and heat, of the vigour and activity of

nature. While it shone men’s hearts leaped with joy, and the wheels of

labour revolved with pleasant toil; but when it disappeared, and the

darkness usurped the heavens, the spirits sank, and humanity felt in the

change of scene a presentiment and presage of the darkness of death. All

vitality, all motion centred in the sun. “It was like a deep furrow,” says

Max Müller, “which that heavenly luminary drew, in its silent procession

from east to west, over the fallow mind of the gazing multitude; and in

the impression left there by the first rising and setting of the sun,

there lay the dark seed of a faith in a more than human being, the first

intimation of a life without beginning, of a world without end.” Who can

wonder that the Chaldean, and the Celt, alike ascended to the high places,

and paid their worship of symbolic fires to the great fountain of life and

light, the central force of the universe? Who can wonder that all the

Aryan tribes made it, so to speak, the nucleus of their religious systems?

The Hindu peasant, centuries ago, addressed it in his heart in much the

same language which Gawain Douglas afterwards employed. As its glorious

orb rose above the gleaming horizon, he sent forth to it a message of

welcome:

“Welcome, the lord of light and lamp of day;

Welcome, fosterer of tender herbis green;

Welcome, quickener of flourished flowers’ sheen;

Welcome, support of every root and vein;

Welcome, comfort of all kind fruits and grain;

Welcome, the bird’s green beild upon the brier;

Welcome, master and ruler of the year;

Welcome, welfare of husbands at the ploughs;

Welcome, repairer of woods, trees, and boughs;

Welcome, depainter of the bloomit meads;

Welcome, the life of everything that spreads.”

And because it was all this, and more, the Hindu saw in it something

greater than a mere luminary,--a planetary body; he endowed it with Divine

attributes, he made it a god, he gave it his worship, and by an elaborate

symbolism kept it ever before him.

A necessary consequence of this deification of the sun was the

deification of the other bodies that shared with him the firmament; but as

they were inferior in splendour and utility, they naturally became

recognized as inferior gods. And when once the religious feeling of

humanity had gone thus far, its further development became only a question

of time. The homage given to the stars was soon extended to the winds and

streams and groves. A legion of gods sprang into existence, and for a

while they seemed to satisfy the needs and aspirations of humanity. But as

the thoughts of men expanded, as their intellect ripened with the ages,

and grew strong enough to doubt, and bold enough to question the

conclusions of the common faith, a revolt took place against “the

contradictions of a mythological phraseology, though it had been hallowed

by sacred customs and traditions.” Men grew tired of so complex and

cumbrous a religious system, and having observed a definite fundamental

unity of nature in spite of the diversity of its operations, they came to

believe in a similar unity of the Divine Power. The idea of a supreme

authority once entertained, men soon understood that supremacy meant

oneness; that if there were a God over all, He must be one and

indivisible. One of the earliest proclamations of this sublime truth is

found in the Rig-Veda, which says:[3]--

“That which is one the sages speak of in many ways--they call it Agni,

Yama, Malarisvan.”

And again:[4]--

“In the beginning there came the Source of golden light--He was the only

true Lord of all that is--He stablished the earth and this sky:--Who is

God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

“He who gives life, He who gives strength; whose blessing all the bright

gods desire; whose shadow is immortality; whose shadow is death:--Who is

the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

“He who through His power is the only King of the breathing and awakening

world; He who governs all, man and beast:--Who is the God to whom we shall

offer our sacrifice?

“He whose power these snowy mountains, whose power the sea proclaims,

with the distant river--He whose these regions are, as it were, His two

arms:--Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

“He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm--He through whom

heaven was stablished--nay, the highest heaven--He who measured out the

light in the air:--Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

“He to whom heaven and earth, standing firm by His will, look up,

trembling inwardly--He over whom the rising sun shines forth:--Who is the

GOD to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

“Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed the reed and lit

the fire, thence even He, who is the only life of the bright gods:--Who is

the GOD to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

“He, who of His might looked even over the water-clouds, the clouds which

gave strength and lit the sacrifice, He _who is God above all gods_:--Who

is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?

“May He not destroy us--He the creator of the earth; or He, the righteous,

who created Heaven; He who also created the bright and mighty waters:--Who

is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?”

* * * * *

The creed of a plurality of gods was one that carried in itself the seeds

of its destruction. But there was another cause of weakness in their

mortal attributes. Deriving their existence from the life of nature, they

were subject to the accidents which that life involved. Thus, the sun at

noonday might glow with splendour, but at night it was conquered by the

shadows, and in winter it seemed to yield to some stronger Power. The moon

waxed and waned, and was frequently eclipsed. As nature is subject to

change, so also must be the gods that represent its forces and aspects.

Such instability, such inherent weakness could not long satisfy the human

mind; having risen to the height of the idea of one God, it next demanded

that that God should be immutable. What rest, what contentment would it

find in the supposition of deities as changeful as the winds? Tossed about

by the currents of passion and feeling, buffeted by adverse circumstances,

the soul yearns intensely for something fixed, something absolute,

something unaffected by vicissitude, and finds it in the Divine Being, the

same to-day as yesterday, and the same to-morrow as to-day.

These two opposite principles did not come into immediate collision; the

priests of heathendom laboured long and earnestly to avert such a

catastrophe. In Greece they succeeded by transferring the mortal or

changeable element from “the gods” to “the heroes.”[5] The human details

in the characters and lives of Zeus and Apollon were transferred to the

demi-gods or heroes represented as the sons or favourites of the gods. The

two-fold character of Herakles as a god and a hero is recognized even by

Herodotus; and indeed, some of the epithets applied to him sufficiently

indicate his solar and originally divine personality. But to make some of

the solar myths of which Herakles was the centre intelligible and

conceivable, it became needful to depict Herakles as a mere human being,

and to raise him to the seat of the Immortals only after he had endured

toils and sufferings incompatible with the dignity of an Olympian

divinity.

In Peru the same treatment was adopted, but with different results. A

thinking, or, as he was called, a free-thinking Inca, remarked that the

sun’s perpetual travelling--he knew nothing, of course, of the Copernican

theory--was a sign of servitude, and he threw doubts on the divine nature

of aught so restless as the great luminary appeared to him to be. These

doubts led to a tradition, which, even if unhistorical was not wholly

untrue, that in Peru had existed an earlier worship--that of an Invisible

Deity, the Creator of the World--Pachacamac.

“In Greece, also, there are signs of a similar craving after the ‘Unknown

God.’ A supreme God was wanted, and Zeus, the stripling of Creta, was

raised to that rank. He became God above all gods--ἁπάντων κύριος, as

Pindar calls him. Yet more was wanted than a mere Zeus; and then a supreme

Fate or Spell was imagined before which all the gods, and even Zeus, had

to bow. And even this Fate was not allowed to remain supreme, and there

was something in the destinies of man which was called ὑπέρμορον or

‘beyond Fate.’ The most awful solution, however, of the problem belongs

to Teutonic mythology. Here, also, some heroes were introduced; but their

death was only the beginning of the final catastrophe. ‘All gods must

die.’ Such is the last word of that religion which had grown up in the

forests of Germany, and found a last refuge among the glaciers and

volcanoes of Iceland. The death of Sigurd, the descendant of Odin, could

not avert the death of Balder, the son of Odin, and the death of Balder

was soon to be followed by the death of Odin himself, and of all the

immortal gods.”

Such a catastrophe was inevitable, so that Prometheus, the man of

forethought, could safely predict the fall of Zeus.[6]

A similar issue was worked out in India, but with this difference; that

the seeming triumph of reason threatened to end in the destruction of all

religious belief. At the outset no vehement contention took place. On the

basis of the old mythology arose two new formations,--the Brahmanical

philosophy and the Brahmanical ceremonial; the former opening up all

avenues of philosophical inquiry, the latter immuring religious sentiment

and sympathy within the narrowest possible barriers. Both, however,

claimed to find their origin and antiquity in the sacred book of the Veda.

It was in the sixteenth or fifteenth century before CHRIST that the

Brahmans, a branch of the white Aryans, passed into Hindustan from the

north-west, and mixed with a more numerous race of coloured and barbarous

aborigines. Among their immigrants the sacerdotal and the royal or noble

classes already occupied an authoritative and a distinct position; and

soon after their settlement in India, the lower classes, by a natural

process, sank into the markedly inferior condition of the aborigines. Thus

was established a singularly rigorous system of caste,--the priesthood

and the aristocracy combining to oppress and keep down the two inferior

orders of the Brahmans and the aborigines. Intermarriage was strictly

forbidden, and every device adopted which could be made useful in

strengthening and perpetuating the class-distinction.

This revolution in the social world assisted the revolution in the

religious; and the educated classes rapidly abandoned their nature worship

in favour of the idea of an infinite and everlasting Godhead, which soared

far above the feeblenesses and sins of humanity. To become one with this

Godhead by throwing off the personality linked with a mind that was mean

and miserable, thenceforth constituted the religious aspiration of the

Brahman. And in attaining this object he was instructed to seek the help

of the Brahmanical priesthood; nay, he was taught that without that help

he would never succeed, and for this purpose a complex and comprehensive

ceremonial was enjoined upon him. From his cradle to his grave it dogged

his footsteps. Put forward as a stay and support, it was really a clog, an

encumbrance. Not an event in his life could take place for which a formula

of praise or prayer was not invented. Thanksgiving and sacrifice were

alike minutely regulated. For the benefit of the inferior castes the old

Pantheon of gods and demons had been retained, and the priesthood allotted

to each his share of the worshipper’s offerings and oblations. Each was

represented as insisting so strongly on certain observances, and punishing

so heavily any neglect or violation of them, that the votary feared to

approach their shrine unless under the protection and guidance of their

priests. Otherwise he might unwittingly rush into all kinds of sins. They

alone knew what food might be eaten, what dress might be worn, what god

might be addressed, what sacrifice paid. An error in pronunciation, a

mistake about clarified butter, an unauthorised arrangement of raiment or

hair, might involve the unassisted worshipper in pains and penalties of

the most awful character. Never was so complete and absolute a ceremonial

system known as that by which the Hindu priesthood obtained an entire

mastery over the Hindu people. Never was any law more minute in its

provisions, or more Draconic in the severity with which it punished their

violation.

Yet, strange to say, this ceremonial did not interfere with liberty of

thought. Any amount of heresy was compatible with its observance. A man

might think as he liked so long as he complied with its various

conditions. In some of the Brahmanical schools of thought the names of the

devs or gods were never heard; in others their existence was ignored, was

virtually contradicted. Thus, one philosophical system maintained the

existence of a single Supreme Being, and asserted that everything else

which seemed to exist was but a dream and an illusion which might and

would be dispelled by a true knowledge of the One God. Another contended

for two principles,--first, a Mind, subjective and self-existent; second,

Matter endowed with qualities; and explained that the world with its cloud

and sunshine, its sorrows and joys, was the result of the subjective self,

reflected in the mirror of Matter, and that the freedom of the soul could

be secured only by diverting the gaze from the shows and phantasms of

Nature, and becoming absorbed in the knowledge of the true and absolute

self. A third system allowed the existence of atoms, and referred every

effect, including the elements and the mind, gods, men, and animals to

their fortuitous concourse. This was identical with the Lucretian system,

which in its turn was related to the Epicurean. Hence it has been said

that the history of the philosophy of India is an abridgment of the

history of philosophy. Each of these systems was traced back to the sacred

books of the Vedas, Brâhmanas and Upanishads; and those who believed in

any one of them was considered as orthodox as the most devout worshipper

of Agni,--if the latter were saved by works and faith, the former was

saved by faith and knowledge,--a distinction not unknown in the Christian

philosophy.[7]

Out of this condition of the Hindu mind arose Buddhism, springing from it

as naturally as the flower from the seed.

The remarkable man[8] who founded this wide-spread religion is reputed to

have been a prince of the name of Siddhartha, son of Suddhodana, king of

Kapilavastu, a territory supposed to have been situated on the borders of

Oudh and Nipal. He is often called Sakya, after his family, and also

Gautama, from the great “Solar” race of which the family was a branch.[9]

Having at an early age exhibited an ascetic and contemplative tendency,

his father fearing he might be induced to abandon his high station as

Kshatriga, found him a wife in a princess of great personal charms, and

involved him in all the pomp and luxury of a magnificent court. But

Siddhartha drank of the cup only to taste the bitter in the draught; and

each year’s experience of the world convinced him of its inability to

satisfy the aspirations of the soul; so that, like Solomon, he would

exclaim, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.” The joys of life could not

render him forgetful of its sorrows. The thought would force itself upon

him that at any moment he might be afflicted with some loathsome or

torturing disease; that his friends might be suddenly snatched away; that

however sunny and bright the present, it could not prevent the inevitable

approach of old age, with its grey hairs, its wrinkled brow, and its

tottering limbs; and that the moral of the whole show was to be sought in

the darkness of the grave. Unable to endure any longer the mental conflict

begotten of his keen sense of the realities as compared with the illusions

of the world, he stole from the guarded palace, and at the age of 29 or

30, went forth as a beggar, or religious mendicant, to study in the

schools of the Brahman priests. He underwent their penances; he mastered

their philosophy; but dissatisfied with their cumbrous code of

superstitious ceremonial, he withdrew into the forest, and adopted a

course of religious asceticism.

This lasted for six or seven years, but brought him no repose. Then he

resolved on returning once more to human companionship. Beset by the

Spirit of Evil he fought long and bravely against temptation, and having

triumphed, prepared to attain the secret of happiness by giving himself up

to abstruse meditation. Week after week he was absorbed in thought,

continually investigating the origin of things, and the mystery of

existence. All the evils under which he, in common with his fellow-men,

groaned, he traced back to birth. Were we not born, we could not suffer.

But whence comes birth or continued existence?... We have no room,

however, to dwell on his processes of thought; enough to say that he came

to the conclusion that the ultimate cause of existence is ignorance, and

that the removal of ignorance means, therefore, the termination of

existence, and of all the pain and sorrow which existence implies and

induces. Realising this absolute unconsciousness of the outer world in his

own self, he claimed and assumed the name of the Buddha, or “Enlightened.”

The scene of his victory over life and the world received the name of

Bodhimanda, (the seat of intelligence,) and the tree under which the

religious reformer sat in his hour of moral and intellectual triumph was

called Bodhidruma, (the tree of intelligence,) whence Bo-tree. The

Buddhists believe that it marks the centre of the earth. Hiouen-thsang,

the Chinese pilgrim, professes to have found the Bodhidruma, or some tree

that passed for it, twelve hundred years after Buddha’s death, at a spot

near Gaya Proper, in Bahar, where still may be seen an old dagoba, or

temple, and some considerable ruins.

Having at last attained to a knowledge of the causes of human suffering,

and of the method of removing and counteracting them, the Buddha felt that

the task was imposed upon him of communicating that knowledge to others.

He began “to turn the wheel of the law,”--that is to preach,--at Benares;

and among his earliest disciples was Bimbisara, the ruler of Magadha. His

career as a teacher extended over forty years, during which period he

travelled over almost every part of Northern India, making a large number

of converts, and firmly establishing his religious system. He died at

Kusinagara in Oudh, in 543 B.C., at the age of eighty, and his body being

burned, the relics were distributed among numerous claimants, who raised

monumental tumuli, or topes, for their preservation.

All the expositions and teachings of the Buddha were oral, and the task of

committing them to writing was undertaken by the chief of his disciples

shortly after his death. These canonical books are divided into three

classes, forming the “Tripitaka,” or “three-fold basket.” In the first

class we find the _Soutras_, or Sermons of the Buddha; in the second, the

_Vinaya_, or book of discipline; in the third, the _Abhidharma_, or

philosophy. After a period of a century or so, the Buddhist leaders met

and revised the Tripitaka, and a third revision took place in 250 or 240

B.C., since which date the text has remained without alteration.

The doctrine of Buddha has been defined as a development of four main

principles, (or “Sublime Verities.”) 1st. That every kind of existence is

painful and transitory; 2nd. That all existence is the result of passion;

3rd. That, therefore, the extinction of passion is the one means of escape

from existence and from the misery necessarily attendant upon it; 4th.

That all obstacles to this existence must be swept away.

But what is meant by existence? That separation from the general Being of

the world which is involved in individual life, and in the opposition of

the subject which thinks, and the object which is thought about. And what

is meant by its extinction? Not so much annihilation, as the becoming one

with nature, wherein that form of consciousness which separates subject

and object is set aside. This extinction Buddha called Nirvâna, or “the

blowing out of the lamp;” it does not necessarily mean the annihilation of

consciousness altogether, but only of a finite form of it, which may be as

the light of a lamp compared with the light of day.

Buddha’s doctrine has been stigmatised as Atheism and Nihilism, and was

unquestionably liable on its metaphysical side to both charges. It was

Atheistic, not because it denied, for it simply ignored, the existence of

such gods as Indra and Brahma, but because, like the Sankhya philosophy,

it admitted but one subjective Self, and considered creation as an

illusion of that Self, imaging itself for a while in the mirror of Nature.

If there were no reality in nature, there would be no real Creator.

Says Max Müller,[10] stating with his usual clearness a problem which has

perplexed most students of the history of religion: “How a religion which

taught the annihilation of all existence, of all thought, of all

individuality and personality, as the highest object of all endeavours,

could have laid hold of the minds of millions of human beings, and how at

the same time, by enforcing the duties of morality, justice, kindness, and

self-sacrifice, it could have exercised a decided beneficial influence,

not only on the natives of India, but on the lowest barbarians of Central

Asia, is one of the riddles which no philosophy yet has been able to

solve. The morality which it teaches is not a morality of expediency and

rewards. Virtue is not enjoined because it necessarily leads to happiness.

No; virtue is to be practised, but happiness is to be shunned, and the

only reward for virtue is, that it subdues the passions, and thus prepares

the human mind for that knowledge which is to end in complete

annihilation.”

Probably no religious system has ever attained a wide-spread influence

over the minds of men which has held out so few of those inducements most

alluring to human nature. The idea of complete annihilation might

recommend itself to a philosopher, but would hardly have been regarded as

likely to attract the masses. We suppose the explanation is to be found in

the particularity of ritual enjoined by the Buddhist priests, this

particularity of ritual having always had a fascination for the multitude.

“There are ten commandments which Buddha imposes on his disciples. They

are--not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to lie, not to

get intoxicated, to abstain from unseasonable meals, to abstain from

public spectacles, to abstain from expensive dresses, not to have a large

bed, not to receive silver or gold. The duties of those who embraced a

religious life were most severe. They were not allowed to wear any dress

except rags collected in cemeteries, and these rags they had to sew

together with their own hands; a yellow cloak was to be thrown over these

rags. Their food was to be extremely simple, and they were not to possess

anything except what they could get by collecting alms from door to door

in their wooden bowl. They had but one meal in the morning, and were not

allowed to touch any food after midday. They were to live in forests, not

in cities, and their only shelter was to be the shadow of a tree. There

they were to sit, to spread their carpet, but not to lie down, even during

sleep. They were allowed to enter the nearest city or village in order to

beg, but they had to return to their forest before night, and the only

change which was allowed, or rather prescribed, was, when they had to

spend some nights in the cemeteries, there to meditate on the vanity of

all things. And what was the object of all this asceticism? Simply to

guide each individual towards that path which would finally bring him to

Nirvâna, to utter extinction or annihilation. The very definition of

virtue was that it helped man to cross over to the other shore, and that

other shore was not death, but the cessation of all being. Thus charity

was considered a virtue; modesty, patience, courage, contemplation, and

science, all were virtues, but they were practised only as a means of

arriving at deliverance.”

Buddha himself was an incarnation of the virtues. His charity, for

example, was melting as day. When he saw a tigress standing, and unable to

feed her cubs, he offered up his body to be devoured by them. The Chinese

pilgrim, visiting the spot on the banks of the Indus where this miracle

was supposed to have occurred, remarks that the soil was still red with

the blood of Buddha, as were also the trees and flowers.

Then as to his modesty, it was as supreme as that of a virgin who has

never seen men. One day Prasenagit, his royal disciple and protector,

besought him to work some miracles in order to silence his adversaries,

the Brahmans. Buddha complied, and performed the required miracles; but at

the same time he exclaimed, “Great King, I do not teach the law to my

pupils, telling them, Go, ye saints, and before the eyes of the Brahmans

and householders perform, by means of your supernatural powers, miracles

greater than any man can perform. I tell them, when I teach the law, Live,

ye saints, hiding your good works and showing your sins.” And yet, all

this self-sacrificing charity, all this self-sacrificing humility by which

the life of Buddha was distinguished throughout, and which he preached to

the multitudes that came to listen to him, had but one object, and that

object was final annihilation.[11]

Annihilation! what drearier prospect can be opened to the heart, or soul,

or mind of man? The utter cessation of that individuality of which the

meanest and wretchedest among us feels proudly conscious; of the thoughts

which animate, the desires which warm, the dreams that delight, the hopes

that stimulate, the affections that inspire! Do we indeed suffer all the

sorrows and uncertainties of life,--do we indeed strive, and endure, and

struggle,--do we, indeed, learn to labour and to wait, to bear the burden

of the day and the torture of the night, for no other purpose, with no

other prospect, than when the brief fever is over, to pass away into

nothingness? With so much difficulty can the mind reconcile itself to such

a dreary hypothesis that the creed of almost every race and people has

contemplated a future stage of existence, even when it has failed to

attain to anything like a clear and full conviction of the immortality of

the soul. The law of compensation seems to demand that a future life shall

redress the inequalities of the present.

Yet this doctrine of Annihilation was preached by Buddha, and apparently

accepted by the millions who became his disciples. But did they really

accept it as he preached it? No; the truth is, they read into it, as it

were, their own innate, unconquerable belief in a hereafter, and converted

his Nirvâna into a Paradise, which they embellished with the bright

colours of imagination. It can hardly be doubted that this was not the

meaning or intention of Buddha himself. Look, for a moment, at his “Four

Verities.” The first of these, as we have already stated, asserts the

existence of pain; the second, that the cause of pain is sin; the third,

that the cessation of pain may be secured by Nirvâna; the fourth, that the

way to this Nirvâna consists of eight things: right faith or orthodoxy,

right judgment or logic, right language or veracity, right purpose or

honesty, right practice or religious life, right obedience or lawful life,

right memory, and right meditation.

These precepts may be understood as the usual laws of an elevated

morality, pointing to and terminating in a state of meditation on the

highest object of thought, such as has been enjoined by several

philosophical or religious systems;--such as was revived in France and

Germany in the seventeenth century under the name of Pietism. There is

nothing in this teaching incompatible with a belief in the immortality of

the soul and the existence of a GOD. But with the Buddhist Nirvâna it is

otherwise. Its motive principle, by the way, is a mean and cowardly one,

for it makes happiness depend upon the cessation of pain; represents as

the highest purpose of human effort the escape from pain. The Buddhist

insists that life is a prolonged misery; that birth is the cause of all

evil; and he adds that even death cannot deliver him from this evil,

because he believes in transmigration, or an eternal cycle of existence.

To escape from it we must free ourselves from the bondage, not of life

only, but of existence; and this must be done “by extirpating the cause of

existence.”

But what _is_ that cause?

The Buddhist teacher, involving himself in a cloud of metaphysics,

answers, that it is attachment; an inclination towards something, having

its root in thirst or desire. “Desire presupposes perception of the object

desired; perception presupposes contact; contact, at least a sentient

contact, presupposes the senses; and as the senses can only perform what

has form and name, or what is distinct, distinction is the real cause of

all the effects which end in existence, birth, and pain. Now this

conception is itself the result of conceptions or ideas; but these ideas,

so far from being, as in Greek philosophy, the true and everlasting forms

of the Absolute, are in themselves mere illusions, the effects of

ignorance. Ignorance, therefore, is really the primary cause of all that

seems to exist. To know that ignorance, as the root of all evil, is the

same as to destroy it, and with it all effects that flowed from it.”

In Buddha’s own case we may see how such teaching operated upon the

individual.

He entered into the first stage of meditation when he became conscious of

freedom from sin, acquired a knowledge of the nature of all things, and

yearned after nothing but Nirvâna. But he was still open to the sensation

of pleasure, and could employ his powers of discrimination and reasoning.

In the second stage he ceased to use those powers, and nothing remained

but the desire of Nirvâna, and the satisfaction inherent to his

intellectual perfection.

In the third stage indifference succeeded to satisfaction; but

self-consciousness remained, and a certain amount of physical

gratification.

These, too, faded away in the fourth stage, along with memory, and all

sense of pain; and before the neophyte opened the doors of Nirvâna.

After having gone through the four stages once, Buddha began them a second

time, but died before he attained the fourth stage.

After passing through the four stages of meditation, every Buddhist enters

into the infinity of space; thence rises into the infinity of

intelligence; to soar, afterwards, into the region of Nothing. But even

there he finds no repose; something still remains--the idea of the Nothing

in which he rejoices. This is annihilated in the fourth and last region,

and then he enjoys absolute, perfect rest, “undisturbed by nothing, or

what is not nothing.”

Buddha taught that this Nirvâna--which to most persons will seem a

metaphysical incomprehensibility--could be attained by all men. As there

is no difference between the body of a prince and the body of a beggar, so

is there none between their spirits. Every man is equally capable of

coming to a knowledge of the truth, and if he but _will_ to do so, of

working out his own emancipation.

It is important to observe the absence of any theological element in

Buddhism. Its founder seems never to have spoken of God, and his Nirvâna

is wholly different from the Brahmanic idea of absorption into the Divine

Essence. Of the gods of the people he taught that they were, like men,

subject to the law of Metempsychosis, or Transmigration, and therefore

that as they were unable to deliver, they were unworthy to be worshipped.

A recent writer thinks it would be incorrect to speak of Buddha either as

a theist or an atheist, and asserts that he simply describes a condition

of absolute rest as an escape from the popular metempsychosis, which may

be interpreted either in a theistic or an atheistic sense. But a careful

examination of his system shows, we think, that it was wholly alien to a

belief in a Supreme Spirit.

“Buddhism,” says Barthélémy Saint-Hilaire, “has no God; it has not even

the confused and vague notion of a Universal Spirit, in which the human

soul, according to the orthodox doctrine of Brahmanism, and the Sânkhya

philosophy, may be absorbed. Nor does it admit Nature, in the proper sense

of the word, and it ignores that profound division between spirit and

matter which forms the system and the glory of Kapila. It confounds man

with all that surrounds him, all the while preaching to him the laws of

virtue. Buddhism, therefore, cannot unite the human soul, which it does

not even mention, with a God, whom it ignores; nor with nature, which it

does not know better. Nothing remained but to annihilate the soul; and in

order to be quite sure that the soul may not re-appear under some new

guise in this world, which has been cursed as the abode of illusion and

misery, Buddhism destroys its very elements, and never wearies of glorying

in this achievement. What more is wanted? if this be not the Absolute

Nothing, what is Nirvâna?”

* * * * *

Repellent as seems to us the central doctrine of Buddhism, it extended

rapidly. This extension was due, however, to the simplicity of the ritual

which Buddha enjoined; the pure morality which he advocated; the equality

of all men on which he insisted; and the spirit of love, tenderness,

gentleness, compassion, and toleration which he inspired. Hence it came to

pass that his disciples multiplied in the north-western territories of

Hindustan, and his creed found acceptance, at a later period, probably

about three centuries before CHRIST, all over India. In Ceylon it was

adopted at a very early period; but it was not until the second century

before CHRIST that it made its way into China and Tibet. From Ceylon it

spread into Birmah and Siam, and the islands of the Indian Archipelago,

and from China it penetrated into Japan. It is now the religion of more

than one fifth of the whole human race.

Its influence has been very considerable, and may distinctly be traced in

some of the Gnostic teaching and in the Alexandrine or Neo-Platonic

philosophy. It modified the old Brahmanic religion, which, acting under

its impulse, threw off its human sacrifices and more barbarous rites. The

festival of Juggernaut, which for the time places in abeyance all caste

distinctions, and adopts many Buddhist symbols, shows that the Brahmans,

even when they drove it out of India, were compelled to retain some of

its relics, just as they were under the necessity of recognising Buddha as

one of the Avatars of their god Vishnu. Buddhism may be described as “the

parent of Indian architecture,” which, fashioned at first on the Greek

patterns, speedily assumed a character of its own, as may be seen in its

colossal temples.

But, as is the case with all religious systems of purely human origin,

Buddhism gradually fell away from the standard of its founder. The heart

craves an object of worship, a something or some one on which or on whom

to rest its hopes and fears, and the Buddhists, untaught to reverence a

Supreme Being, transferred their adoration to Buddha himself, whose life

and work they involved in a cloud of myth and legend. His relics came to

be worshipped, and reliquary towers for their preservation were everywhere

erected.

The enthusiasm which fired the Buddhists, and largely contributed to the

rapid extension of their creed, for Buddhism, unlike Brahmanism, is a

proselytising religion, finds a striking illustration in the career of

Hiouen-thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, who, in the middle of the seventh

century, crossed the deserts and mountains which separate China from

India, and visited the principal cities of the Indian Peninsula.

HIOUEN-THSANG, A BUDDHIST PILGRIM.[12]

Hiouen-thsang was born in a provincial town of China, in one of the

revolutionary and anarchical periods of the Chinese Empire. His father,

having quitted the public service, was able to devote his leisure to the

education of his four children, one of whom, Hiouen-thsang, was

distinguished at an early age by his genius and his thirst for knowledge.

After receiving instruction at a Buddhist monastery, he was admitted as a

monk, when only thirteen years old. During the next seven years, he

travelled about with his brethren from place to place, in order to profit

by the lectures of the most eminent professors; but his peaceful studies

were frequently interrupted by the horrors of war, and he was forced to

seek refuge in the more remote provinces of the empire.

At the age of twenty he took priest’s orders, having already become famous

for his multifarious learning. He had studied the chief canonical book of

the Buddhist faith, the records of Buddha’s life and teaching, the system

of ethics and metaphysics, and had completely mastered the works of

K’ung-fu-tze and Lao-tse. But, like many inquiring minds, he was tortured

by doubt. For six years more he prosecuted his studies in the principal

places of learning in China, and was frequently solicited to teach when he

had come to learn. Baffled in all his efforts to satisfy his anxious and

restless intellect, he resolved at last on paying a visit to India, the

parent-land of Buddhism, where he knew he should find the original of the

works, which, in their Chinese translation, had proved so dubious and

excited so much mistrust. From the records of his pilgrim predecessors he

was aware of the dangers of his journey; yet the glory, as he says, of

recovering the Law, which was to be a guide to all men, and the means of

their salvation, seemed to him worthy of attainment. In common with

several other priests, he applied for the Imperial permission to travel

out of China. It was refused, and his companions lost heart. But

Hiouen-thsang was made of sterner stuff. His mother had often told him

how, before his birth, she had had visions of her future offspring

travelling to the Far West in search of the law; and he himself had been

similarly encouraged.

Having no worldly pleasures to enfeeble him, and believing only in one

object as worth living for, he resolved to face danger and difficulty;

made his way to the Hoang-Ho, and the place of departure of the caravans

for the West, and, eluding the vigilance of the Governor, succeeded in

crossing the frontier. He was without friends or helpers; but after

spending the night in fervent prayer, found a guide in a person who, next

morning, unexpectedly presented himself. For some distance this guide

conducted him faithfully, but abandoned him when they reached the Desert.

There were still five watch-towers to be passed, and the uncertain track

through the Desert was indicated only by skeletons and the hoof-marks of

horses. Bravely went the pilgrim on his way, and though misled by the

“mirage” of the Desert, he safely reached the first tower. There he

narrowly escaped death from the arrows of the watchman, but the officer in

command was himself a devout Buddhist, and he not only allowed

Hiouen-thsang to proceed, but gave him letters of recommendation to the

governors of the other towers. At the last tower, however, he was refused

leave to pass, and neither bribes nor entreaties proved of any avail. He

was compelled to retrace his steps, and make a long détour, in the course

of which he lost his way. His water-bag burst, and for the first time his

courage wavered. Should he not return? But no; he had taken an oath never

to make a step backward until he had reached India. It were better to die

with his face to the West, than return to the East and live.

For four nights and five days he traversed the Desert, without a drop of

water to quench his thirst, with no other refreshment than that which he

derived from his prayers; and that these should afford any hope or

consolation seems strange enough, when we remember that Buddhism held out

to him no hope of a God or a Saviour. “It is incredible in how exhausted

an atmosphere the Divine spark within us will glimmer on, and even warm

the dark chambers of the human heart.” Comforted by his prayers, he

resumed his onward march, and in due time arrived at a large lake in the

country of the Oigom Tatars, by whom he was received with an abundant

hospitality. One of the Tatar Khans insisted that he should reside with

him and teach his people; and as he would listen to no remonstrances or

explanations, Hiouen-thsang was driven to a desperate expedient. The king,

he said, might fetter his body, but had no power over his mind and will;

and he refused all food, with a view to put an end to a life which he no

longer regarded as of value. In this resolution he persisted for three

days, and the Khan, afraid that he would perish, was compelled at last to

yield. But he extracted from him a promise that on his return to China he

would visit him, and abide with him for three years. At last, after a

month’s detention, during which the Khan and his court daily attended the

lectures of the pious monk, he resumed his journey, attended by a strong

escort, and furnished with letters of introduction to the twenty-four

princes whose dominions he must cross.

His route lay through what is now called Dsungary, across the

Musur-dabaghan mountains, the northern chain of the Belur-tag, the valley

of the Yaxartes, Bactria, and Kabulistan. The pilgrim’s description of the

scenes through which he passed is interesting and vivid; he was a keen

observer, and gifted with considerable powers of expression.

Of the Musur-dabaghan mountains he says:--

“The crest of these heights rises to the sky. Since the beginning of the

world the snow has been accumulating, and it is now transformed into

masses of ice, which never melt, either in spring or summer. Hard shining

sheets of snow are spread out until they vanish into the infinite, and

mingle with the clouds. If one looks at them, one’s eyes are dazzled by

the splendour. Frozen peaks impend over both sides of the wood, some

hundred feet in height, and some twenty or thirty feet in thickness. It is

not without difficulty and danger that the traveller can clear them or

climb over them. Sudden gusts of hurricane and tornadoes of snow attack

the pilgrims. Even with double shoes, and in thick furs, one cannot help

trembling and shivering.”

But as Max Müller justly observes, what is more important in the early

portion of our traveller’s narrative than any descriptions of scenery, is

his account of the high degree of civilisation that then obtained among

the tribes of Central Asia. Historians have learned to believe in the

early civilisation of Egypt, Babylon, China, India; but they will have to

abandon all their old ideas of barbarism and barbarians now that they find

the Tatar hordes possessing, in the seventh century, “the chief arts and

institutions of an advanced society.” The theory of M. Oppert, who gives

to a Turanian or Scythian race the original invention of the cuneiform

letters and a civilisation anterior to that of Babylon and Nineveh, ceases

to be improbable; since no new wave of civilisation could have touched

these countries between the cuneiform period of their literature and

history and the epoch of Hiouen-thsang’s visit.[13]

“In the kingdom of Okini, on the western portion of China, Hiouen-thsang

found an active commerce, gold, silver, and copper coinage; monasteries,

where the chief works of Buddhism were studied, and an alphabet derived

from Sanskrit. As he travelled on he met with mines, with agriculture,

including pears, plums, peaches, almonds, grapes, pomegranates, rice, and

wheat. The inhabitants were dressed in silk and woollen materials. There

were musicians in the chief cities who played on the flute and the guitar.

Buddhism was the prevailing religion, but there were traces of an earlier

worship, the Bactrian fire-worship. The country was everywhere studded

with halls, monasteries, monuments and statues. Samarkand formed at that

early time a kind of Athens, and its manners were copied by all the tribes

in the neighbourhood. Balkh, the old capital of Bactria, was still an

important place on the Oxus, well-fortified, and full of sacred buildings.

And the details which our traveller gives of the exact circumference of

the cities, the number of their inhabitants, the products of the soil, the

articles of trade, can leave no doubt in our minds that he relates what he

had seen and heard himself. A new page in the history of the world is here

opened, and new ruins pointed out, which would reward the pickaxe of a

Layard.”

Hiouen-thsang passed into India by way of Kabul. Shortly before he reached

Pou-lou-cha-pou-lo, the Sanskrit Purushapura, the modern Peshawer, he was

informed of a remarkable cave, where Buddha had converted a dragon, and

had promised to leave it his shadow, in order that, whenever the fierce

passions of its dragon-nature should awake, it might be reminded of its

vows by the presence of its master’s shadowy features. The promise was

fulfilled, and the dragon-cave became a favourite resort for pilgrims. Our

traveller was warned that the roads to the cave were haunted by robbers,

so that for three years no pilgrim had been known to return from it. But

he replied that it would be difficult during a hundred thousand Kalpas to

meet once with the true shadow of Buddha, and that having come so near it

in his pilgrimage, he could not pass on without paying the tribute of his

adoration.

He left his companions in their security, and having, with some

difficulty, obtained a guide, proceeded on his way. They had accomplished

but a few miles when they were attacked by five robbers. Hiouen-thsang

showed them his shaven head and priestly robes. “Master,” said one of the

fraternity, “where are you going?” “I desire,” replied Hiouen-thsang, “to

adore the shadow of Buddha.” “Master,” said the robber, “do you not know

that these roads are full of bandits?” “Robbers are men,” was the answer,

“and as for me, when I am going to adore the shadow of Buddha, though the

roads might be full of wild beasts, I shall walk on fearless. And inasmuch

as I will not fear you, because you are men, you will not be insensible to

pity.” These words, in their simple faith, produced a strange effect upon

the robbers, who opened their minds to the enlightenment of the wise man’s

teaching.

Hiouen-thsang resumed his journey, with his guide, and passed a stream

which rushed tumultuously between the walls of a precipitous ravine. In

the rock was a door opening into a depth of darkness. With a fervent

prayer the pilgrim entered boldly, advanced towards the east, then moved

fifty steps backwards, and began his devotions. He made one hundred

salutations, but saw nothing. This he conceived to be a punishment for his

sins; he reproached himself despairingly and wept bitter tears, because he

was denied the happiness of seeing Buddha’s shadow. At last, after many

prayers and invocations, he saw on the eastern wall a dim patch of light.

But it passed away. With mingled joy and pain he continued to pray, and

again he saw a light, and again it vanished swiftly. Then, in his ecstasy

of loving devotion, he vowed that he would never leave the place until he

had seen the “Venerable of the age.” After two hundred prayers, he saw the

cave suddenly fill with radiance, and the shadow of Buddha, of a brilliant

white colour, rose majestically on the wall, as when the clouds are riven,

and all at once flashes on the wondering eye the marvellous image of the

“Mountain of Light.” The features of the divine countenance were

illuminated with a dazzling glow. Hiouen-thsang was absorbed in wondering

contemplation, and from an object so sublime and incomparable he could not

turn his eyes away.

After he awoke from his trance, he called in six men, and bade them kindle

a fire in the cave, that he might burn incense; but as the glitter of the

flame made the shadow of Buddha disappear, he ordered it to be

extinguished. Five of the attendants saw the shadow, but the sixth saw

nothing; and the guide, when Hiouen-thsang told him of the vision, could

only express his astonishment. “Master,” he said, “without the sincerity

of your faith and the energy of your vows, you could not have seen such a

miracle.”

Such is the account which Hiouen-thsang’s biographers give of his visit to

Buddha’s cave; but Max Müller remarks, to the credit of Hiouen-thsang

himself, that in the _Si-yu-hi_, which contains his own diary, the story

is told much more simply. After describing the cave, he merely

adds:--“Formerly, the shadow of Buddha was seen in the cave, bright, like

his natural appearance, and with all the marks of his divine beauty. One

might have said, it was Buddha himself. For some centuries, however, it

has not been possible to see it completely. Though one does perceive

something, it is only a feeble and doubtful resemblance. If a man prays

with sincere faith, and if he have received from above a secret

impression, he sees the shadow clearly, but cannot enjoy the sight for any

length of time.”

* * * * *

From Peshawer the undaunted pilgrim proceeded to Kashmir, visited the

principal towns of Central India, and arrived at last in Magadha, the Holy

land of the Buddhists. There, for a space of five years, he devoted

himself to the study of Sanskrit and Buddhist literature; he explored

every place which was consecrated by memories of the past. Passing through

Bengal, he travelled southward, with the view of visiting Ceylon, the

chief seat of Buddhism. But, unable to carry out his design, he crossed

the peninsula from east to west, ascended the Malabar coast, reached the

Indus, and after numerous excursions to scenes of interest in

North-Western India, returned to Magadha to enjoy, with his old friends,

the delights of learned leisure and intellectual companionship.

Eventually, his return to China became necessary, and traversing the

Punjab, Kabulistan, and Bactria, he struck the river Oxus, following its

course nearly up to its springhead on the remote Pamir tableland; and

after a residence of some duration in the three chief towns of Turkistan,

Khasgar, Yarkand, and Khoten, he found himself again, after sixteen years

of varied experience, in his native land. By this time he had attained a

world-wide reputation, and he was received by the Emperor with the honours

usually accorded to a military hero. His entry into the capital was marked

by public rejoicings; the streets were decked with gay carpets, festoons

of flowers, and waving banners. The splendour of martial pomp was not

wanting; the civic magistrates lent the dignity of their presence to the

scene; and all the monks of the district issued forth in solemn

procession.

If this were a triumph of unusual character, not less unaccustomed were

the trophies which figured in it.

First, 150 grains of Buddha’s dust;

Second, a golden statue of Buddha;

Third, another statue of sandal-wood;

Fourth, a statue of sandal-wood, representing Buddha as descending from

heaven;

Fifth, a statue of silver;

Sixth, a golden statue, representing Buddha victorious over the dragon;

Seventh, a statue of sandal-wood, representing Buddha as a preacher; and

Eighth, a collection of 657 Buddhist works in 520 volumes.

* * * * *

Admitted to an audience of the Emperor in the Phœnix Palace, he was

offered, but declined, a high position in the Government. “The doctrine of

Confucius,” he said, “is still the soul of the administration;” and he

preferred to devote his remaining years to the study of the Law of Buddha.

The Emperor invited him to write a narrative of his travels, and placed at

his disposal a monastery where he might employ himself in peaceful and

happy seclusion in translating the works he had brought back from India.

He quickly wrote and published his travels, but the translation of the

Sanskrit MSS. occupied the rest of his life. It is said that the number of

the works he translated, with the assistance of a large staff of monks,

amounted to 740, in 1335 volumes. Often he might be seen pondering a

passage of difficulty, when suddenly a flash of inspiration would seem to

enlighten his mind. His soul was cheered, as when a man walking in

darkness sees all at once the sun piercing the clouds and shining in its

full brightness; and, unwilling to trust to his own understanding, he used

to attribute his knowledge to a secret inspiration of Buddha and the

Bôdhisattvas.

When his last hour approached, he divided all his property among the poor,

invited his friends to come and see him, and take a cheerful farewell of

the impure body of Hiouen-thsang. “I desire,” he said, “that whatever

merits I may have gained by good works may fall upon other people. May I

be born again with them in the heaven of the blessed, be admitted to the

family of Mi-le, and serve the Buddha of the future, who is full of

kindness and affection. When I descend again upon earth to pass through

other forms of existence, I desire at every new birth to fulfil my duties

towards Buddha, and arrive at the last at the highest and most perfect

intelligence.” He died in the year 664.

The life of Hiouen-thsang, and his narrative of travel, have been

translated into French by M. Stanislas Julien.[14] The foregoing

particulars have been borrowed from a review of M. Julien’s work, by Max

Müller, which originally appeared in the “Times” of April 17 and 20, 1857.

We translate from Stanislas Julien’s “Vie et Voyages de Hiouen-thsang” the

Chinese narrative of the pilgrim’s last days:--

“After completing his translation of the Pradjñâ, the Master of the Law

became conscious that his strength was failing, and that his end was near

at hand. Accordingly he spoke to his disciples: ‘If I came into the palace

of Yu-hoa-kong, it was, as you know, on account of the sacred book of the

Pradjñâ. Now that the work is finished, I feel that my thread of life is

run out. When after death you remove me to my last resting-place, see that

everything be done in a modest and simple manner. You will wrap my body

in a mat, and deposit it in some calm and solitary spot in the bosom of a

valley. Carefully avoid the neighbourhood of palace or convent; a body so

impure as mine should be separated from it by a great distance.’

“On hearing these words, his disciples broke out into sobs and cries.

Drying their tears, they said to him: ‘Master, you have still a reserve of

strength and vigour; your countenance is in no wise altered; why do you

give sudden utterance to such miserable words?’

“‘I know it through and in myself,’ replied the Master of the Law; ‘how

would it be possible for you to understand my presentiments?’

“On the first day of the first moon in the spring of the first year

_Lin-te_ (664), the neighbouring interpreters and all the religious of the

convent, came to solicit him, with the most pressing earnestness, to

translate the collection of the _Ratnakoûta soûtra_.

“The Master of the Law, yielding to their fervid persistency, made an

effort to overcome his weakness, and translated a few lines. Then, closing

the Hindu text, he said: ‘This collection is as great as that of the

_Pradjñâ_, but I feel I have not sufficient strength to complete such an

enterprise. My last moments have arrived, and my life can be only of short

duration. To-day I would fain visit the valley of Lantchi, to offer my

last homages to the statues of the innumerable Buddhas.’

“Accordingly, he set forth with his disciples. The monks, at his

departure, did not cease to shed tears.

“After this pious excursion he returned to the convent. Thenceforward he

ceased to translate, and occupied himself solely in his religious duties.

“On the eighth day, one of his disciples, the monk Hiouen-Khio, originally

of Kao-tch’ang, related to the Master of the Law a dream which he had had.

He had seen a _Fesu-thou_ (or _Stoûpa_,) of imposing aspect and prodigious

height, crumble suddenly to the ground. Awakened by the fall, he ran to

inform the Master of the Law. ‘The event does not concern you,’ said

Hiouen-thsang; ‘it is the presage of my approaching end.’

“On the evening of the ninth day, as he crossed the bridge of a canal in

the rear of his residence, he fell, and injured his leg. From that moment

his strength declined perceptibly.

“On the sixteenth day he cried out, as if awaking from a dream: ‘Before my

eyes I see an immense lotus-flower, charming in its freshness and purity.’

“He had another dream on the seventeenth day, in which he saw hundreds and

thousands of men of tall stature, who, decorated with garments of

embroidered silk, with flowers of marvellous beauty, and jewels of great

price, issued from the sleeping-chamber of the Master of the Law, and

proceeded to set out, both internally and externally, the hall consecrated

to the translation of the holy books. Afterwards, in the rear of that

hall, on a wooded mountain, they everywhere planted rich banners of the

most vivid colours, and created an harmonious music. He saw moreover,

without the gate, an innumerable multitude of splendid chariots loaded

with perfumed viands and fruits of more than a thousand kinds, as

beautiful in form as in colour; no fruits were there of terrestrial

growth! The people brought them to him, one after the other, and offered

him a profusion; but he refused them, saying: ‘Such viands as these belong

only to those who have obtained the superior intelligence. Hiouen-thsang

has not yet arrived at that sublime rank: how could he dare to receive

them?’ In spite of his energetic refusal they continued to serve him

without intermission.

“The disciples who watched by him happening to make some slight sound, he

opened his eyes suddenly, and related his dream to the sub-director

(_Karmmadana_), a certain Hoeï-te.”

“‘And from these omens,’ added the Master, ‘it seems to me that such

merits as I have been able to acquire during my life have not fallen into

oblivion, and I believe, with an entire faith, that it is not in vain one

practises the doctrine of the Buddha.’

“Immediately, he ordered the master Kia-chang to make a written list of

the titles of the sacred books and the treatises which he had translated,

forming altogether seven hundred and forty works and thirteen hundred and

thirty-five volumes (_livres_). He wrote down also the _Kôti_ (ten

millions) of paintings of the Buddha, as well as the thousand images of

_Mi-le_ (_Mâitrêya bôdhisattva_), painted on silk, which he had caused to

be executed. There were, moreover, the _Kôtis_ (one hundred millions) of

statuettes of uniform colour. He had also caused to be written a thousand

copies of the following sacred books:

_Nong-touan-pan-jo-king (Vadjra tchhêdika pradjñâ parâmitâ soûtra)._

_Yo-sse-jou-laï-pou-youen-kong-te-king (Arya bhagavati bhâichadja

gourou poûrwa pranidhâna nâma mahâ yâna soûtra)._

_Lou-men-t’o-lo-ni-king (Chat moukhi dhârani)._”

He had ministered to the wants of upwards of twenty thousand persons among

the faithful and heretical; he had kindled a hundred thousand lamps, and

purchased thousands upon thousands (_ocean_) of creatures.

When Kia-chang had finished this long catalogue of good works, he was

ordered to read it aloud. After hearing it, the religious crossed their

hands and loaded the Master with congratulations. Then he said to

them:--“The moment of my death approaches; already my mind grows feeble

and seems to be on the point of quitting me. Distribute at once in alms my

clothes and goods; let statues be fabricated; and order the religious to

recite some prayers.”

On the twenty-third day, a meal was given to the poor, at which alms were

distributed. On the same day, he ordered a moulder named Song-kia-tchi, to

raise, in the Kia-cheou-tien palace, a statue of the Intelligence

(Buddha); after which he invited the population of the convent, the

translators, and his disciples, to bid “a joyous farewell to that impure

and contemptible body of Hiouen-thsang, who, having finished his work,

merited no longer existence. I desire,” he added, “to see poured back upon

other men the merits which I have acquired by any good works; to be born

with them in the heaven of the Touchitas; to be admitted into the family

of _Mi-le_ (_Mâitrêya_); and to serve the Buddha, full of tenderness and

affection. When I shall return to earth to pass through other existences,

I desire, at each new birth, to discharge with boundless zeal my duties

towards the Buddha, and finally to arrive at the Transcendent Intelligence

(_Anouttara samyak sambôdhi_).”

After having made these adieux, he was silent, and engaged in meditation;

then with his dying tongue he faltered forth his bitter regret that he did

not enjoy more of the “world of the eyes” (the faculty of seeing), of the

“world of the thought” (the faculty of thinking), of “the world of the

knowledge which springs from observation” (the knowledge of sensible

objects); of the “world of the knowledge which springs from the

mind”--_l’esprit_ (the perception of spiritual things); and that he did

not possess the fulness of the Intelligence. Finally, he pronounced two

_gubhas_, which he caused to be repeated to the persons near him:--

“Adoration to _Maitrêya Tathagata_, gifted with a sublime intelligence! I

desire, with all men, to see your affectionate visage.

“Adoration to _Maitrêya Tathagata_! I desire, when I quit this life, to be

born again in the midst of the multitude who surround you.”

The Master of the Law, after having long fixed his gaze upon Te-hoeï, the

sub-director of the convent (_Karmmadana_), raised his right hand to his

chin and his left upon his breast; then he stretched out his legs, crossed

them, and lay down on the right side.

He remained thus, immovable, without taking anything, until the fifth day

of the second moon. In the middle of the night his disciples asked him:

“Master, have you at length obtained to be born in the midst of the

assembly of _Maitrêya_?”

“Yes,” he replied, with a failing voice. And having spoken, his breathing

grew rapidly weaker, and in a few moments, his soul passed away.

His servants, feeling quietly, found that his feet were already cold, but

that the back part of the head retained its warmth.

On the seventh day (of the second moon) his countenance had not undergone

any alteration, and his body exhaled no odour.

The religious of the convent having passed several days in prayers, it was

not until the morning of the ninth day that the sad news reached the

capital.

* * * * *

The Master of the Law was seven _tchi_ high; his face was of a fresh

complexion. His eyebrows were wide apart, his eyes brilliant. His air was

grave and majestic, and his features were full of grace and vivacity. The

quality or tone (_timbre_) of his voice was pure and penetrating, and his

language at times soared to a lofty eloquence, so noble and so harmonious

that one could not refuse to listen. When he was surrounded by his

disciples, or animated by the presence of an illustrious guest, he would

often speak for half-a-day, while his hearers sat riveted in an immovable

attitude. His favourite attire was a robe of fine cotton stuff,

proportioned to his height and figure; his gait was light and easy; he

looked straight before him, throwing his glances neither to the right nor

to the left. He was majestic as those great rivers which embrace the

earth; calm and shining as the lotus which springs in the midst of the

waters. A severe observer of discipline, he was unchanged and

unchangeable. Nothing could equal his affectionate benevolence and tender

pity, the fervour of his zeal or his inviolable attachment to the

practices of the Law. He was reserved in his friendship, made no hasty

bonds, and when once he had entered his convent, nothing but an imperial

decree could have drawn him from his pious retreat.

On the third day of the second moon (of the period _Lin-te_,--664), the

Master of the Law had sent Hiu-hiouen-pi to inform the Emperor of the

wound he had received, and of the malady it had induced.

On the seventh day of the same month the Emperor, by a decree, ordered one

of the imperial physicians to take with him medicaments and attend upon

the Master of the Law, but by the time he arrived, the Master was already

dead. Teou-sse-lun, governor of Fang-tcheou, announced by a report this

melancholy event.

At the news, the Emperor shed tears copiously, and cried aloud in his

sorrow, declaring that he had just lost the treasure of the empire. For

several days he suspended the usual audiences.

All the civil and military functionaries abandoned themselves to groans

and tears: the Emperor himself was unable to repress his sobs or moderate

his grief. On the next day but one, he spoke to his great officers as

follows:

“What a misfortune for my empire is the loss of Thsang, the Master of the

Law! It may well be said that the great family of Cakya has seen its sole

support shattered beneath it, and that all men remain without master and

without guide. Do they not resemble the mariner who sees himself sinking

into the abyss, when the storm has destroyed his oars and his shallop? the

traveller astray in the midst of the darkness, whose lamp dies out at the

entrance to a bottomless gulf?”

When he had uttered these words, the Emperor groaned again, and sighed

many times.

On the twenty-sixth day of the same month, the Emperor issued the

following decree:

“In accordance with a report addressed to me by Teou-sse-lun on the death

of the Master of the Law, Hiouen-thsang, of the convent _Yu-hoa-sse_, I

order that his funeral take place at the expense of the State.”

On the sixth day of the third moon, he issued a new decree as follows:

“By the death of Thsang, the Master of the Law, the translation of the

sacred books is stopped. In conformity to the ancient ordinances, the

magistrates will cause the translations already completed to be copied

carefully: as for the (Indian) manuscripts which have not yet been

translated, they will be handed over in their entirety to the director of

the convent _Ts’e’-en-sse_ (of the Great Beneficence,) who will watch over

their safety. The disciples of Hiouen-thsang and the translators’ company,

who previously did not belong to the convent _Yu-hoa-sse_, will all return

to their respective convents.”

On the fifth day of the third moon appeared the following decree:

“On the day of the funeral of the Master of the Law, Hiouen-thsang, I

permit the male and female religious of the capital to accompany him _with

banners and parasols_ to his last resting-place. The Master of the Law

shone by his noble conduct and his eminent virtues, and was the idol of

his age. Wherefore, now he is no more, it is just that I should diffuse

again abundant benefits to honour the memory of a man who has had no equal

in past times.”

His disciples, faithful to his last wishes, formed a litter of coarse

mats, removed his body to the capital, and deposited it in the convent of

the Great Beneficence, in the middle of the hall devoted to the labours

of translation. United by the sentiment of a common sorrow, they uttered

such cries as might have shaken the earth. The religious and the laics of

the capital hastened to the spot, and poured out tears mingled with sobs

and cries. Every day the crowd was swollen by fresh arrivals.

On the fourteenth day of the fourth month, preparations were made for his

interment in the capital of the West. The male and female religious, and a

multitude of the men of the people, prepared upwards of five hundred

objects necessary for the celebration of his obsequies; parasols of smooth

(_unia_) silk, banners and standards, the tent and the litter of the

_Ni-ouan_ (Nirvâna;) the inner coffin of gold, the outer one of silver,

the _so-lo_ trees (_salas_,) and disposed them in the middle of the

streets to be traversed by the procession. The plaintive cadences of the

funereal music, and the mournful dirges of the bearers resounded even to

Heaven. The inhabitants of the capital and of the districts situated

within a radius of five hundred _li_ (fifty leagues,) who formed the

procession, exceeded one million in number. Though the obsequies were

celebrated with pomp, the coffin of the Master nevertheless was borne upon

a litter composed of rude coarse mats. The silk manufacturers of the East

had employed three thousand pieces of different colours in making the

chariot of the Nirvâna, which they had ornamented with flowers and

garlands, loaded with precious stones. They had asked permission to place

the body of the Master of the Law upon this resplendent catafalque; but

afraid of infringing his dying command, his disciples had refused. So it

went first, bearing the Master’s three robes and his religious mantle, of

the value of one hundred ounces of silver; next came the litter

constructed of coarse mats. Not one of the assistants but shed copious

tears or was almost choked with grief!

Upwards of thirty thousand religious and laics spent the night near his

tomb.

On the morning of the fifteenth day the grave was closed; then, at the

place of sepulture, an immense distribution of alms was made, and the

crowd afterwards dispersed in silence.

On the eighth day of the fourth moon of the second year of the

Tsong-tchang period (669,) the Emperor decreed that the tomb of the Master

of the Law should be transported into a plain, situated to the west of the

_Fan-tch’ouen_ valley, and that a tower should be erected in his

honour.[15]