Page:History of Zoroastrianism.djvu/155

Rh estimate of life upon earth as a life of woe. Buddha and, who founded their great religions at short intervals during the sixth century , had their minds saturated with the pessimistic view of man's life upon earth. The one great thinker whose teachings exerted lasting influence upon Buddha was Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya philosophy. It was the dictum of the Sankhya system, that existence was suffering. What men considered pleasure was pain in disguise. Life was pain.

Buddha lays down with greater emphasis than ever before that life is suffering. There is no cure for the world-ache. The world is irremediable and not to be born in it is the only escape from suffering. Life, says Buddha, is steeped in sorrow and suffering. Pleasure is gilded pain. Joy is veiled sorrow. Birth is sorrow. Age is sorrow. Wealth is sorrow. Sickness is sorrow. Death is sorrow. Union with the unpleasant is sorrow. Separation from the pleasant is sorrow. Desire for life is sorrow. Ungratified desire is sorrow. The tears, he adds, that the weary wayfarers have shed upon their pilgrimages upon earth make a vaster expanse of water than the waters of all the oceans upon the earth. Just as the ocean has only one taste of salt so, it is said, Buddha's teachings have but one taste, deliverance from suffering. The comprehension of the origin and nature of this suffering and the knowledge of the path that leads to its cessation bring freedom from birth and death. Life is suffering and Buddha's mission is to preach the gospel of deliverance from it.

The philosophy of escape from life. There are occasions in the lives of all human beings when they think they cannot adapt themselves to the world around them. Hard facts of life seem to press very heavily upon them and they seek diverse means to lighten the burden. Some like to forget their environments and seek seclusion in out of the way places far from society, where they can feel happy to be alone in the company of nature. They crave the joy of solitude where they can lose themselves in the soliloquy of their own thoughts. Men with literary leanings read so that they may forget themselves for a time and transplant themselves into other environments. Society's baseness revolts some who long to strip themselves bare of the trappings of civilization and escape to the freedom of primitive simplicity. Morbidity drives some to seek isolation from society. Despair and distress drive others to seek refuge in a world of dreams, where