within it ; and it holds that everything is subject to the law of cause and effect, and that everything is constantly, though perhaps imperceptibly, changing. Though in its principles it anticipates much that modern science has proved, in its details it does not, as might be expected, rise much above the beliefs most current at the time of its origin ; but it has formulated them into a hypothetical system sufficiently consistent with itself to have satisfied Buddhists for more than 2000 years, however little consist ent with actual truth. Scattered through space, it teaches, there are innumerable circular worlds in sets of three. All of these are exactly similar to our own, in the centre of which rises an enormous mountain, called Mfdia Mem, which is surrounded by seven concentric circles of rock of an enormous height, and the circle enclosed by the outer most is divided into four quarters, or great continents, part of one of which is Jambudvlpa, the earth in which we live. On the heights of Malia Mern, and above it and the rock circles, rise the twenty-four heavens, and beneath it and the earth are the eight great hells. These heavens and hells are part of the material world, subject like the rest of it to the law of cause and effect, and the beings within them are still liable to rebirth, decay, and death. Between Maha Meru and ths outmost circle of rocks, the sun, moon, and stars revolve through space ; and it is when they pass behind the first circle of rocks that they appear to the inhabitants of JambudvTpa to set. This world, like each of the others scattered through space, is periodically destroyed by water, fire, or wind, but the sum of the demerits of the beings (men, animals, angels, &c.) who lived within it produces each time a new world, which in its turn is fated to be destroyed. The number of these beings never varies save on those few occasions when one of them either in earth or heaven attains Nirvana ; in every other case, as soon as an individual dies, another is produced under more or less material conditions, according as the sum of the former individual s demerits, minus the sum of its merits, was, at the time of its death, large or small. A belief in such hypotheses seems inconsistent with a funda mental tenet of Buddhist philosophy, that there arc only two sources of knowledge, experience, and inference ; but the hypotheses themselves are too intimately involved in the whole scheme of Buddhism to leave much doubt as" to their having formed part of the original doctrine of its founder. They are, however, scarcely distinctive of Bud dhism, but, like the pessimist view of life, are rather modifications of previous beliefs which Buddhism adopted into its system, and from the consequences of which it
promised to relieve those who followed out its teachings.[1]The two ideas of the utter vanity of all earthly good and the inevitable law of rebirth, decay, and death will be seen to lead naturally to the belief in Nirvana. If life be an evil, and death itself be no delivery from life, it is necessary to go further back to discover the very origin, the seed, so to speak, of existence ; and by destroying that to put an end at last to the long train of misery in which we are compelled to go again and again through the same weary round of experiences, always ending in disappointment. This seed of existence Buddhism finds in " Karma," the sum of merit and demerit, which, as each one s demerit is the greater of the two, often comes practically to much the same thing as sin or error. It forms the second link in the Buddhist chain of causation,[2] and arises itself from ignorance. Destroy that ignorance which brings with it such a progeny, cut the links of this chain of existence, root out karma with the mistaken cleaving to life, and there will be deliverance at last deliverance from all sorrow and all trouble in the eternal rest of Nirvana. Anything less than this would be a mockery of hope ; for there is no life outside the domain of transmigration, and by the inevitable law of change that which causes existence of any kind would itself be the cause also of decay, and bring with it after a time the whole chain of evils from which the tired heart of man seeks relief.
To reach this end, to destroy karma, and thus to attain Nirvana, there is only one way the fourfold path already explained above, which is also summed up in the Buddhist books in the eight divisions, " right views, right thoughts, right speech, right actions, right living, right exertion, right recollection, and right meditation."[3] By these means ig norance will be overcome and karma destroyed, and after the organized being has been dissolved in death, there will be nothing left to bring about the production of another life. For it must be understood that while Buddhism occasionally yielded so far to popular phraseology as to make use of the word soul, it denies altogether that the word is anything more than a convenient expression, or that it has any counterpart in fact. Birth is not rebirth, but new birth ; transmigration of soul becomes a transfer of karma ; metempsychosis gives way to metamorphosis. As one generation dies and gives way to another the heir of the consequences of all its vices and all its virtues, the exact result of pre-existing causes so each individual in the long chain of life inherits all of good or evil that all its predecessors have done or been, and takes up the struggle towards enlightenment precisely there where they have left it. There is nothing eternal, but the law of cause and effect, and change ; the kosmos itself is passing away; even karma can be destroyed ; nothing is, everything becomes. And so with this organized life of ours, it contains within itself no eternal germ ; it passes away like everything else, there only remains the accumulated result of all its actions. One lamp is lighted at another ; the second flame differs from the first, to which it owes its existence. A seed grows into a tree and produces a seed from which arises another tree different from the first, though resulting from it. And so the true Buddhist saint does not mar the purity of his self-denial by lusting after a positive happiness which he himself is to enjoy hereafter. He himself will cease to be, but his virtue will live and work out its full effect in the decrease of the sum of the misery of sentient beings.
the result of each man s actions is held not to be dissipated as it were into many streams, but concentrated together in the formation of one new sentient being. This link of connection between the two otherwise distinct individuals has led to expressions in Buddhist writings which when read by Christians seemed to infer the existence of a soul. Phrases used of those living saints who have entered the fourth path, and have practically attained Nirvana, have also been supposed by mistake to apply to Nirvana itself. And when further Nirvana has been described in glowing terms as the happy seat ; the excellent eternal place of bliss, where there is no more death, neither decay ; the end of suffering ; the home of peace ; the other side of the ocean of existence ; the shore of salvation ; the harbour of refuge ; the medicine for all evil ; the transcendent, formless, tranquil state , the Truth, the Infinite, the Unspeakable, the Everlasting, it has been supposed by some European scholars to mean a blissful state, in which
the soul (!) still exists in an everlasting trance. There can,- ↑ On the Buddhist cosmogony, sco Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, chap. 1; Burnouf, Lotus, &c., pp. 8-12, etseq.; Beal, Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, Part I.; and Childers s Pali Diet., under the names given by Hardy.
- ↑ Paticca-samitppada, the twelve niclfmas. Sec Childers in Cole- brooke s Essays (1873), vol. ii. p. 453 , Gogerly in the Journal of the R.A.S., Ceylon Br. 3845, p. 18, 1867, p 127.
- ↑ From the third book of the Maha Vngga, which is the third part of the first Pitaka. Gogerly, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic So ciety, Ceylon Z>rand> 1845, p. 24 ; this summary is constantly quoted.
