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beauty. At the tenth hour of the same night, he attained the wisdom by which he knew the exact circumstances of all the beings that have ever existed in the infinite worlds; at the twentieth hour he received the divine eyes by which he had the power to see all things within the space of the infinite systems of worlds as clearly as if they were close at hand; and at the tenth hour of the following morning, or the close of the third watch of the night, he attained the knowledge by which he was enabled to understand the sequence of existence, the cause of all sorrow and of its cessation. The object of his protracted toils and numerous sacrifices, carried on incessantly through myriads of ages, was now accomplished. By having become a Budha he had received a power by which he could perform any act whatever, and a wisdom by which he could see perfectly any object, or understand any truth, to which he chose to direct his attention.

At this time he began the exercise of his ministry, announcing himself as the teacher of the three worlds, wiser than the wisest, higher than the highest. The places near which he principally resided were Benares, Rajagaha, Wésáli, and Sewet; but he visited many other parts of India, and is said to have proceeded as far as Ceylon. The déwas and brahmas were also included among his auditors, as he occasionally visited the celestial worlds in which they reside. The wonders that he performed were of the most marvellous description; but in those days the possession of supernatural power was a common occurrence, and there were thousands of his disciples who could, with the utmost ease, have overturned the earth or arrested the course of the sun. At the age of eighty years he died, near Kusinára, which is supposed by some to be in Assam, and by others near Delhi. After the burning of his body, his relics were preserved, and became objects of worship to his disciples.

According to the doctrines propounded by Gótama Budha, there are innumerable systems of worlds, called sakwalas, which attain their prime, and then decay and are destroyed, at periods regularly recurring, and by agencies that are equally regular in the manner of their operation. Upon the earth there are four great continents, which do not communicate with each other, except in specified cases. In the centre of the earth is an immense mountain, called Maha Méru, around and above the summit of which are the déwa and brahma lókas, the abode of those beings who in their different

states of existence have attained a superior degree of merit.

Within

the earth is a material fire, the abode of those who possess a decided preponderance of demerit. Neither the one state nor the other is of permanent duration; though it may extend to a period immensely great, it is not infinite.

The Budhas are beings who appear after intervals of time inconceivably vast. Previous to their reception of the Budhaship, they pass through countless phases of being; at one time receiving birth as a déwa, and at another as a frog, in which they gradually accumulate a greater degree of merit. In this incipient state they are called Bodhisatwas. In the birth in which they become Budha they are always of woman born, and pass through infancy and youth like ordinary beings, until at a prescribed age they abandon the world and retire to the wilderness, where, after a course of ascetic observance, at the foot of a tree they receive the supernatural powers with which the office is endowed. But their greatest distinction and highest glory is, that they receive the wisdom by which they can direct sentient beings to the path that leads to nirwána, or the cessation of existence. At their death, they cease to exist; they do not continue to be Budhas, nor do they enter upon any other state of being. Expositions of the doctrines of Budha, whether orally delivered or written in books, are called bana, or the Word; and the system itself is called dharmma, or the Truth.

According to Budhism, there is no Creator, no being that is selfexistent and eternal. All sentient beings are homogeneous. The difference between one being and another is only temporary, and results from the difference in their degrees of merit. Any being whatever may be a candidate for the Budhaship; but it is only by the uniform pursuit of this object throughout innumerable ages that it can be obtained.

The power that controls the universe is karma, literally action; consisting of kusala and akusala, or merit and demerit. There is no such monad as an immaterial spirit, but at the death of any being, the aggregate of his merit and demerit is transferred to some other being, which new being is caused by the karma of the previous being, and receives from that karma all the circumstances of its existence. Thus, if the karma be good, the circumstances are favourable, producing happiness, but if it be bad, they are unfavourable, producing misery.

The manner in which being first commenced cannot now be

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ascertained. The cause of the continuance of existence is ignorance, from which merit and demerit are produced, whence comes consciousness, then body and mind, and afterwards the six organs of sense. Again, from the organs of sense comes contact; from contact, desire; from desire, sensation; from sensation, the cleaving to existing objects; from this cleaving, reproduction; and from reproduction, disease, decay, and death. Thus, like the revolutions of a wheel, there is a regular succession of death and birth, the moral cause of which is the cleaving to existing objects, whilst the instrumental cause is karma. It is therefore the great object of all beings who would be released from the sorrows of successive birth to seek the destruction of the moral cause of continued existence, that is to say, the cleaving to existing objects, or evil desire. It is possible to accomplish this destruction, by attending to a prescribed course of discipline, which results in an entrance to one of the four paths, with their fruition, that lead, by different modes, to the attainment of nirwána. They in whom evil desire is entirely destroyed are called rahats. The freedom from evil desire ensures the possession of a miraculous energy. At his death the rahat invariably attains nirwána, or ceases to exist.

But this review must be regarded as containing only a brief summary of some of the principal doctrines of Budhism, intended to assist the reader of the following pages; the system is so vast and complicated, that many volumes must be written before it can receive a perfect elucidation.

II. THE LAWS AND REGULATIONS OF THE PRIESTHOOD.

About two months after the prince Sidhártta had attained the dignity of a supreme Budha, he went to the city of Benares, and there delivered a discourse, by which Kondanya, and afterwards four other ascetics, were induced to become his disciples. From that period, whenever he preached, multitudes of men and women embraced his doctrines, and took upon themselves certain obligations, by which they declared themselves to be prawarjita, or to have renounced the world. From time to time rules were made, and afterwards enlarged or modified, and exceptions allowed, by which the code was gradually completed. It is evident that all

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laws referring to untried situations and circumstances must arise in this manner; and though the Budhists maintain that their founder declared at an early period in his career that this would be his rule, the statement was most probably invented to avoid the imputation that might otherwise have been made against his omniscience. It is necessary to remember that these modifications took place, or the student of Budhism will meet with many anomalies for which he cannot account.

Milinda, the king of Ságal, when conversing with the priest Nágaséna, objected to the mode in which Budha instituted the priestly discipline, and said, "If the rishis, by their own intuitive knowledge, were able to tell at once the nature of all diseases, and to prescribe remedies for them, why did not Budha, who by his divine eyes must have seen beforehand the faults of his disciples, forbid the commission of such and such things previous to their occurrence?" Nágaséna replied that it was forseen by Budha, at the commencement, that there were 150 precepts it would be proper to enforce; but he reflected thus, "If I at once enforce the observance of all these precepts, the people will say, 'In this religion there are a great number of things that it is necessary to observe; it is indeed a most difficult thing to be a priest of Budha,' and be afraid; those who might think of becoming priests will hesitate; they will not listen to my words; they will not learn my precepts; they will despise them, and thus be born in a place of torment. It will therefore be better, when a fault has been committed, to issue a precept forbidding it to be repeated." At subsequent periods, nine kelas (each kela containing ten millions), one hundred and eightyfive lacs, and thirty-six precepts, were promulgated by Budha.*

The manner in which the code was gradually perfected may be learnt from the circumstances under which the precept relative to continence arrived at the state in which it was promulgated in its complete form. There was a priest named Sudinna, who was solicited by his mother-in-law to lie with the woman who was his wife previous to his embracing the life of an ascetic, that there

Milinda Prasna: a work in Pali, of which there is a Singhalese translation, that contains an account of conversations that took place between Milinda, king of Ságal, supposed to be the Sangala of the Greeks, and Nagaséna, a Budhist priest, a short time previous to the commencement of the Christian era. In the following chapters, whenever the name of Nágaséna, is introduced, it is to be understood that the information is taken from this work.

might be a rightful heir to the family possessions. At that time there appears to have been no law prohibiting such a course; but when Sudinna yielded to the solicitations by which he was assailed, and was afterwards led, from a conviction that he had done wrong, to declare to his fellow priests what had taken place, Budha, after reproving him for his conduct, enacted the following law, and declared that it was universally binding upon those who would renounce the world. "Yo pana bhikkhu méthunan dhamman patiséweyya párájikó hóti asanwáso: What priest soever shall have intercourse with a woman is overcome and excluded." Under the plea that intercourse with women alone was prohibited by this law, another priest acted improperly in a forest frequented by monkeys, so that it became necessary to introduce the clause "antamaso tiratchánagatayapi: Even with an animal." At a subsequent period, some priests of Wajji, without a formal renunciation of asceticism, were guilty of improper conduct. Though they then laid aside their robes, yet, as they met with many afflictions in the world, such as the loss of relatives, they requested readmission to the priesthood. This request was not granted; but a clause was added to the form of prohibition, by which any priest who was unable to maintain a state of continence might receive permission to become a laic, without any bar to his readmission to the priesthood at a future period, if he so willed it. The entire prohibition was then to this effect: "Any bhikkhu who has engaged to live according to the laws given to the priesthood, if he shall, without having made confession of his weakness and become a laic, hold intercourse with a female of what kind soever, is overcome and excluded."*

Of the five sections into which the Winaya Pitaka is divided, the first and second, Párájiká and Páchiti, contain a code of ordinances relative to priestly crimes and misdemeanors; the third and fourth, Maha Waga and Chula Waga, miscellaneous rules and regulations, relative to ordination, the ceremony called wass, &c.; and the fifth, Pariwánapáta, contains a recapitulation of the preceding books.

The precepts and prohibitions contained in the Párájiká and Páchiti, 227 in number, are collected together, apart from the details and explanations by which they are accompanied, in a work called Pátimokkhan, or in Singhalese, Prátimóksha, which is to be recited twice every month in an assembly of priests consisting of

* Gogerly's Essay on Budhism, Journ. Ceylon Branch Royal As. Soc.

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