Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/196

 names of these implements, viz.: Halayudha, plough-armed; and Masali, as bearing a musal or rice-beater. His name, Bala, means strength, and he is sometimes seen with the skin of a lion over his shoulders. A full account of the three Ramas is given in the Ramayanamayana prev. p.], a great epic poem, so highly venerated that the fourth class of Hindūs, the Sudra, is not permitted to read it. At the end of the first section, a promise is made of great benefit to any individual of the first three tribes who shall duly read that sacred poem:—"A Brahman, in reading it, acquires learning and eloquence; a Kshettria will become a monarch; a Vaisya will obtain vast commercial profits; and a Sudra, hearing it, will become great."

9. BUDDHA.

Such Hindūs as admit Buddha to be an incarnation of Vishn[)u] agree in his being the last important appearance of the deity on earth; but many among the Brahmans and other tribes deny their identity; and the Buddhists, countenanced by the rahans their priests, do, in general, likewise assert the independent existence, and, of course, paramount character, of the deity of their exclusive worship.

Buddha opposed the sanguinary sacrifices of the Brahmans, and consequently, in a degree, the holy vedas themselves which enjoined them: in India, therefore, there has always been a sect who are violently hostile to the followers of Buddha, denominating them atheists, and denying the genuineness of his avatar. A rock altar is sacred to him throughout Asia; and he himself was often represented by a huge columnar black stone, black being among the ancients a colour emblematical of the inscrutable nature of the deity. His fame and the mild rites of his religion have been widely diffused; the Indian Buddha is the Deva-Buddha of the Japanese, whose history and superstitious rites are detailed at great length by Kœmpfer: among other circumstances, he relates, that, "in the reign of the eleventh Emperor from Syn Mu, Budo came over from the Indies into Japan, and brought with him, upon a white horse, his religion and doctrine."