Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/366

308 desire, the perfect peace, goodness, and wisdom, which continuous self-culture can procure for man.

But is there no future bliss and no future heaven for those who have attained Nirvana? This was a question which, often puzzled Buddhists, and many a time they pressed their great Master for a categorical answer.

On this point Gautama's replies are uncertain; nor does he ever appear to have inspired in his followers any hopes of heaven, beyond Nirvana, which is the Buddhist's heaven and salvation.

If a man does not attain to this state of Nirvana in life, he is liable to future births. Gautama did not believe in the existence of a soul; but, nevertheless, the theory of transmigration of souls was too deeply implanted in the Hindu mind to be eradicated, and Gautama therefore adhered to the theory of transmigration by assuming that the karma, or deeds, of man cannot die, but must necessarily lead to its legitimate result. When a living being dies, a new being is produced according to the karma of the being that is dead, and Buddhist writers are fond of comparing the relation of one life to the next with that of the flame of a lamp to the flame of another lighted by it.

But the theory of transmigration was not the only doctrine which Gautama accepted from ancient Hinduism and adopted in a modified form into his own religion, for the whole of the Hindu pantheon of the day was taken over and made to square with his cardinal idea of the supreme efficacy of a holy life. The thirty-