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 396 BUDDHISM the dairi. Some writers assert that it entered that country as early as A. D. 60. From Cey- lon it found its way into Aracan, Burrnah, and Pegu (then a mighty empire, A. D. 397), Siam, Laos, Anam, Cochin China, and Tonquin. From Nepaul, where there is a very rich Buddhistic literature, the creed came into Thibet and Mongolia, the Mongol emperors of Hindostan having instituted a patriarchate. In Thibet, great dignitaries, called (about 1430) dalai-lamas (sea priests), pretended to be per- sonified Bodhisattvas. Many Calmuck and other tribes of Tartary and Siberia also adopted this religion, and its influence is even perceived in Swedish Lapland. Its priests bear different names, as talapoins (umbrella-bearers) in Siam, bonzes in Japan, rahanes in Mongolia, &c. ; they are dressed in yellow gowns, shave their heads, and go about bareheaded. The total number of Buddhists is about 300,000,000. In all Buddhistic countries there is a profusion of temples, monasteries, stupas, dhagobas (pil- lars and mounds containing relics of Buddha), and other monuments overloaded with statues and sculptures of deities in grotesque forms. Among the great number of ancient grottoes containing temples and cells hewn in rock, many of them also containing monuments of Brahraanic worship, we may mention those on the islands of Salsette and Elephanta, those at or near Dhumnar, Carlee, Nassuck, Ayanti, and those most magnificent specimens at Ellora. Ceylon boasts of its Lova Maha Paya, with 1,600 pillars; of its mountain temples at Me- hentele, grottoes and temples at Dambulu-galle, &c. Most of them are in ruins caused by time or by Portuguese devastation. Of the many battles of the Buddhists with the Brahmans in India, few turned out favorably for the former, one of their victories only (A. D. 473) being worthy of record. Although Buddhism was most ruthlessly overthrown during a contest which lasted for 15 centuries, still some of its traces remain in Hindostan. In the 4th cen- tury, Fa-hian witnessed its decadence, and with other Chinese pilgrims, especially Hiuan- Thsang (629-'45), recorded what remained of it and its monuments. Having thus narrated the history of Buddhism, we now come to a summary of its doctrines, and of their principal ramifications. First of all, Buddhism main- tains the vacuity, unreality, and illusiveness of nature. Naught is everywhere and always, and is full of illusion. This very nihilism levels all barriers between castes, nationalities, and conditions of worldly fortune, embracing even the vilest worm in the brotherhood of Buddhism. " All compounds are perishable," is the last sentence which Sakyamuni is be- lieved to have uttered. The final object is Moksha, Nirvana, or the deliverance of the soul from all pain and illusion. The endless round of metempsychosis is broken, by pre- venting the soul from being born again. This is attained by purification from even the desire of existence. These fundamental traits of Buddhism are plainly comprehended in the most ancient positive dogma, which is con- tained in the four Aryani Satyanis, the sub- lime truths attributed to Sakyamuni in his first sermon in the gazelle grove near Benares. These four truths relate to pain, its origin, its annihilation, and the way leading to anni- hilation. " Pain is birth, age, disease, death, the meeting with what one dislikes, the sepa- ration from what one loves, the failure to obtain what one strives for. The causes of pain are the desires, lusts, passions. Annihila- tion of all these causes is the third truth. The way of annihilation again has eight .parts: right view, right sense, right speech, right ac- tion, right position, right energy, right memory, and right meditation. Such is the " formula of faith," found upon many monuments, as well as in many books. The essence of Buddhistic morality is " to eschew everything bad, to perform everything good, to tame one's thoughts." As the doctrine of Mohammed is succinctly called al hlamu (obedience to the precepts of the apostle), so the precepts of Sakyamuni are named the "Way" (Gati), or the " Way of the four truths." To teach is "to turn the wheel of faith." The genuine law of Buddha Sakyamuni was contained in these four truths, and was altogether moral and practical. All the mythology, sacrifices, penances, hierarchy, scholasticism, mysticism, which we find connected with it, have been superadded in progress of time, in different countries, and under manifold circumstances. This mixed Buddhism, as depicted in the above-mentioned Hinayana, comprehends three sections, the Dharma, Vinaya, and Abhidha- rama. We will give an account of each in its order. I. THE DHAKMA (virtue, duty, law, from dhri, to support) comprehends the revelation, the dogmas, and their precepts; and in a strict sense, cosmology and cosmog- raphy, mythology, metempsychosis, and the theory of salvation. Buddhism knows of no creation. " The worlds are, from the not-be- ginning; in a continual revolution of arising and of perishing." Succession is the only reality, everything else being a process and progress of becoming in the concatenation of cause and effect. This rotation has no cause, hence no beginning. It is not within the domain of the intellect to know whence all entities come or whither they go. Four things are immeasur- able, viz. : the science of Buddha, space, the number of breathing beings, and that of worlds. A Buddha alone can conceive the worlds. It is heresy to believe the worlds limited or illim- ited, or neither limited nor illimited. Mount Snmeru is the centre of the world, as deep in the ocean as it is high above its level. This ocean is enclosed by a girdle of rocks, within six other concentric oceans with similar girdles, which decrease toward the periphery (the oceans in breadth, the rocks in height), in the progression of 84, 42, 21, 10J, 5J, 2, 1^ thou- sands of yojanas (about five miles each). The