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 BUDDHISM 399 tially, but in consequence of the endless chain of causes and effects. Only a Buddha or an Archcha (arch, to worship) or saint can over- look and unravel the thousandfold knotted threads of the moral chain. Buddha said once to Ananda: "If a well-doer comes to hell, the merit of his present life is not yet matured, but the evil of a former. To be rewarded before such maturity would be tantamount to being paid before the appointed term." Free- dom is obtained only after the escape from the bonds of desires, and from the power of our past deeds. Then only do we see, with a "divine eye," our numberless births, risings, and fallings, which are all due to our actions. The succession of the existences of a determi- nate being is also a succession of souls, which are united by the law of moral causality, each one being the product of the guilt or merit of all its predecessors. When an individual dies, the body is broken, the soul is extinguished, leaving merely its deeds with their consequen- ces, as a germ of a new individual. According to the germinating power, determined by the Karman (morality of actions), the result is an animal, or a man, or a demon, or a god. Iden- tity of souls is thus replaced by their continuity, in the solution of the moral problem. Each soul inherits the fruits of the Karman, and the office of liberating and purifying its predeces- sor. I ought, therefore, not to act well merely on behalf of my own selfish weal, but for the benefit of a new " I," which is to follow after me. The Buddhistic metempsychosis is, there- fore, rather a metamorphosis of the soul. "A lamp is lighted from another; the lamps differ, the second only receiving the light from the first. So is it also in regard to souls." The final goal of Buddhistic salvation is the uproot- ing of sin, by exhausting existence, by imped- ing its continuance; in short, by passing out of the Sansara into the Nirvana. The signifi- cation of the latter term is a prolific subject of discussion and speculation with the differ- ent philosophic- schools and religious sects of Buddhistic Asia. Its interpreters prefer vague definitions, from fear of offending sectarians. It means the highest enfranchisement; to theists, the absorption of individual life in God; to atheists, in naught. The Thibetans translate it by Mya-ngan-los-hdah-ba, the con- dition of one freed from pain ; eternal salvation, or freedom from transmigration. Its etyma are: nir, not; va, to blow; suffix ana; its or- thography is also Nirvvana ; its collaterals are : Jfirvvdnamastaka, liberation ; nirvvdpa, put- ting out, as a fire, &c. It is Nibbana, in Pali, Niban in Burmese, NirupJian in Siamese, Ni- pan in Chinese. Weighing all divergences in its exegesis, it may be safely designated as the definitive enfranchisement from existence with- out a new birth, the cessation from all misery. It is the beyond of the Sansara, its contradic- tion; without space, time, or force. In the third council it was declared to be ineffable and indescribable. Life being the summum. 129 VOL. in. 26 malum, its annihilation is the summum 'bonum. The common definition is "total annihilation of pains and of the Skandhas or attributes of existence." But this " beatifying dogma of naught" became with the laity a mere eman- cipation from suffering and cessation of exist- ence. By dint of Dhyana (divine meditation) and of ecstasy, the soul, forsaking its selfish- ness, may, even during bodily life, exalt itself momentarily to the Nirvana; and for this rea- son this was also considered as one of the higher heavens, as the empyreum of the form- less and colorless world. In progress of time the Nirvana was divided into three kinds, the simple Nirvana, the Parinirvana or complete Nirvana, and the MahSparinirvana or great complete Nirvana, answering to the three de- grees of wisdom and of sanctity. In the mod- ern mystic-pantheistic schools, which contain a mixture of Sivaism, the Nirvana means the absorption into the abstract, nameless monad or original Buddha. From a higher point of view, both the Sansara and Nirvana are each a naught; the former being changeable naught by deception; the latter naught absolutely. The Sansara exists only to ignorance ; it is a mere illusion of the Maya. From the destruc- tion of this ignorance the Nirvana results. In the Kalpa of restoration the most perfect Buddhas appear to turn the wheel of faith, and inaugurate a new period of revelation and sal- vation. Innumerable Buddhas have already appeared. They are beings who have raised themselves with their own energy, by virtues and sacrifices of all sorts, in thousands of births, to this highest pinnacle. All are born in cen- tral India, and their mother dies on the seventh day after giving them birth ; their doctrine ia one and the same; in short, their whole bi- ography is a stereotyped copy of that of Sakya- muni. They differ merely in parentage, one being of Brahmanic, another of Kshattriyic extraction ; in age (which is determined by that of the period in which they reveal them- selves), one living less than a hundred, an- other many thousands of years ; in size, one being six feet, another 80,000 miles in stature, according to the character of the period. They are called Tathagatas (tathd, thus; gata, known, and gone). The teaching of each evaporates with time, while sins grow. Then a Bodhisattva (intelligence of truth) is chosen among and by the blessed on high, who is to become, by a new birth on earth, a Buddha. His career has three stages of immeasurable length, viz. : 1, that of decision to become a Buddha; 2, that of prospect; and 3, that of nomination by the Tathagata, whom he meets on earth. Only a monk possessed of the fruit of the four Dhyanas, and who has met with a Buddha during a preceding life, can thus be chosen. The exercise of the six Pilramitfis (para : Lat. prwteritaitus, a, urn) of charity, kindness, patience, energy, meditation, and wisdom, in their highest degree, and during millions of existences, can alone fit the individual for this