Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-04-28
search, a loftier, nobler, . more consist.


emit, congruous, and altogether deeper ex-
PLANTATION of the Cosmos and of Mans place
In it, than has hitherto been known beyond
the Orient.
Religion in India, as everywhere else,
has been subject to mutation and decay.
No creed has ever vet escaped the injury
which arises from encrusting superstition,
and oficious, unintelligent Interpretation.
The religion Of Gantama Buddha is no ex.
ception to the rule. Yet it must always
be most interesting subject to the student,
and though during the last thousand years
it has been banished from its native home,
it has, in the words of DIR. Hunter, the
learned historian of India, "won greater
triumphs in its exile than it could have
ever achieved in the land of its birth. 1t
has created q literature and religion for
nearly half the human race, and has at
fected the beliefs of the other half. Five
hundred millions Of men, or forty per cent.
of the inhabitants of the world, still follow
the teaching of Buddba. Afghanistan,
Nepal, Eastern Turkistan, Tibet, Mongolia,
Manchuria, China, Japan, the Eastern
Archipelago, Siam, Burma, Ceylon, and
India, at one time marked the magnificent
circumference of its conquests. Its shrines
and monasteries stretched in continuous
line from what are now the confines of the
Russian Empire to the equatorial islands
of the Pacific. During twenty-five CEN
turtles Buddhism has encountered and out
lived series of powerful rivals. At this
day it forms, with Christianity and Islam,
one of the three great religions of the
world and the most numerously followed
of the three" In the eighth century
of our era Hinduism began to make head
against Buddhism. The Brahmans came
to the front with the theory of a personal
God, and the distractions of Buddhism
proved unequal to the competition, in
India at least. But just as Sakya NUM-
did not introduce altogether new doc
trines, but merely modified Brahmanism,
SO Hinduism adopted much of Buddhism
while supplanting other of its doctrines.
And there can be no question that Buddh-
ism has exercised a most powerful infu-
ence for good upon the people OF India,
not only during its hold upon the country,
which lasted Thousand years, but since
the rise of Hinduism also. For apart
from that mystic doctrine of Nirvana,
which has so perplexed Western scholars,
and not apart from that doctrine go far as
the initiates are concerned, Buddhism ID a
religion of Love and Peace and Purity.
And what is most remarkable about the
religion is that its votaries have followed
their founders doctrine in the main faith
fully. liberation is of the essence of
Buddhism. It has been violently perse-
cuted at various times, and has never
sought revenge. As johnson observes :
at has been faithful to its principle that
truth is not to be impressed by violence ;
that opinion must be free. Its rejection of
bloodshed has been absolute. Beside the
history of its peaceful progress, the records
of Islam and Christianity are black with
tyranny and hate" Western commenta.
tors, for the most part missionaries, have
been repeatedly compelled to bear testi-
mony to the nobility of the creed of
Buddha. Thus Bishop Bigandet, a Roman
Catholic prelate who has written Life
of Buddha, frankly declares that there is
not single moral precept to be found in
Christianity which has not its counterpart
in the religion of Sakya NUM-. The life OF
the Founder, and even some of the princi-
pal tenets of his faith, have been made
familiar to the English and American pub.
lie through Mr.. Edwin Arnold's beautiful
poem, The Light of Asia" 1t may in
fact be said that the lofty moral tone of
pure Buddhism is incontestable, and that
it yields to no religion in this respect. The
stumbling block in the way of its accept
ance by the Western mind has always been
the doctrine of Nirvana, which has been
regarded as implying humiliation. Burn
ouf, Barih, st. Hilaire, Rhys- Davids, and
others, have been unable to see in the evil
dence attainable any other conclusion than
this. Max Muller, Fausboll, Wilson, and
.ox,,o okhars have bas;f,baj ko aocopf fba
Nihilistic view. 1t must be admitted that
the latter is deducible from many expires.
sions in the Buddhist scriptures, always
provided that the interpreter is right in
the meaning he ascribes to the term eek.
istence." The Buddhist scriptures do un.
doubtedly hold that existence is an evil,
and that the aim of the wise man will be
to bring it to an end az soon as possible.
The canon teaches that when, by the dis.
cipline of the mind and the right conduct
of life, the sage has extinguished all desire
in himself for anything whatever, Kharma
(which is the aggregate of merits and de-
merits governing the destiny of every
human being) is abolished. 1t then be.
comes unnecessary for him to undergo any
more rebirths and he can enter forthwith
into Nirvana, which, according to the
usual Interpretation, is state of non.
existence.
Western opinion on such question is,
however, not trustworthy, and therefore
an extract from Pail work called Milinda
Prasaa, containing an account of a CONVEX.
sation between Milinda, King of Sagal,
and Negasana, a Buddhist priest, about 400
years after the time of Gautama, is given
here. Milinda is trying to find out what
Nirvana is. Negasana declares that it is a
condition, and that because it is produced
neither by merit nor by demerit, it is be.
yond comprehension. He says: at
cannot be said that it is produced, nor that
it is not produced that it is past, or flu.