Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/460

450 yet does goodness. And accordingly many of the teachings of the great teachers of righteousness must coincide.

On the other hand it is interesting to note that Buddha's teachings lay great emphasis, and lay it often, upon things about which in the Gospels comparatively little or nothing is expressly said. Don't hurry, don't worry, the simple life; don't accept a belief upon the authority of me or of anyone else; don't let your outgo exceed your income; the relation of master and servant; the duty not only of kindness but even of courtesy to animals: these are some of the themes upon which Buddha discourses, now with a touch of humor, now with pathos, and always with gentleness and wisdom and cogency.

To the readers of Warren's faithful translations a word is due as to the extreme repetitiousness of much of the Buddhist writings. The charming stories are free from it. Not so the doctrinal discourses. Scientific opinion upon this strange and tedious fault is rapidly clearing. These texts that claim to be the actual "Buddha-word" are in reality the product of conscious scholastic literary activity, and of a time considerably subsequent to that of Buddha. This is quite certain. But no less so is it that they do in fact contain the real sayings of Buddha. "Be ye heirs of things spiritual, not heirs of things carnal." This, we may confidently assert, is in its simplicity and pregnant brevity, an absolutely authentic utterance of Gotama Buddha. At the same time it is the substance, and indeed we may say the entire substance, of a discourse of about four hundred Pali words attributed to Buddha. Of the lengths to which perverse scholasticism may go, the case is a luculent illustration.