Page:Ancient India, 2000 B.C.-800 A.D..djvu/124

106 Buddha, therefore, who attained it in hfe, is the object of veneration of gods and men alike. He is the central figure, therefore, of veneration, and even of worship, and the whole universe of living beings is struggling in different worlds, under different forms of life, and in different circumstances, to attain that which Gautama attained in life. The faith of Buddhists, therefore, points to Buddha as the ideal of life and of religion. The Buddhist loves his brother men; he recognizes gods, who are fellow-beings striving for the same end; he respects Bodhisatvas, or saints who have, after repeated births, nearly reached the state of a Buddha; but his final idea is the state of a Buddha—a state of sinlessness and holiness, beyond which there is nothing higher, greater or holier, and towards which all living beings are marching. The great and striking idea of placing a sinless life, attainable by man by his own exertions in this world, above all the powers and beings of the universe, attests to the loftiness of Gautama's faith in purity and in holiness.

Buddhism is a system of self-culture for the attainment of this sinless state of existence. The Four Truths of this religion are, that life is suffering; that the thirst for life is the cause of suffering; that the cessation of this thirst is the cessation of suffering; and that this salvation can be secured by following the path of duty, the Eightfold path, or Middle path, as it is sometimes called. It is called the Eightfold path because it prescribes right beliefs, aspirations, speech, and conduct, and right living, exertion, thought, and contemplation; and it is called the Middle path because it avoids sensuality on the one hand, and needless penances and mortification on the other. The rules of self-culture are elaborate and minute, but they need not detain us, as we are concerned here merely with the main principles of Buddhism.

It is by such prolonged self-culture that one can attain