feet of the infant,[1] spoke of him as the "deliverer of sin and sorrow, and death." Weeping, he repeated the following canticle: —
Alas, I am old and stricken in years;
The time of my departure is at hand;
I rejoice and yet I am sad.
The misery and the wretchedness of man shall disappear,
And at his bidding peace and joy shall everywhere flourish.
And he added: "Alas! while others shall find deliverance for their sins, and arrive at perfect wisdom through the preaching of the child, I shall not be found among them." The princes of the tribe of Sakya brought rare and costly gifts and presented them to the child; but the brightness of his person outshone the lustre of the jewels, and a voice from heaven proclaimed:
- In comparison with the fulness of true religion The brightness of gems is as nothing.
The neighboring king of Maghadha is advised to send an army to destroy the child who is to become a universal monarch; but he answers: "Not so, if the child become a holy man and wield a righteous sceptre, then it is fitting for me to reverence and obey him, and we shall enjoy peace and safety under his rule. If he become a Buddha, and his love and compassion leads him to save and deliver all flesh, then we ought to listen to his teaching, and become his disciples." He astonished his teachers when he entered the schools of letters and of arms: they said, "Surely this is the instructor of gods and men, who condescends to seek for a master!" He simply said, "It is well; I am self-taught."[2] This is the only record of his youth until his twenty-ninth year, when he was converted.
It is difficult to assign any definite date to those legends. "All evidence tends to prove that they are earlier than the Christian era."[3] There is little doubt, however, that they arose after the death of Buddha; because he would have rejected all such appeals to the miraculous. Buddha never refers to them,[4] and when some enthusiasts sought a sign from him to convince the people, he answered, "The miracle my disciples should show is to hide their good deeds and confess their faults."[5] The chief are sculptured on the rails of the tope at Sanchi, which is a sort of Buddhist picture-Bible carved in stone.[6]
These legends are of comparatively small value, for they add nothing to the glory of the man's life, which, after his "conversion," became a life of the loftiest moral perfection and the noblest self-devotion to the good of others. Born the son of a king, he was brought up in all the luxury of an Oriental court. From this epicurean life he was converted by three sights — an old man tottering under the weight of his years, a young man tossing in the raging heat of fever, and a corpse lying exposed by the roadside. These sights made him reflect that though he were now young and vigorous, yet he, too, was liable to the sorrows of old age, disease, and death.
While he pondered in his heart over these things, he saw a holy mendicant with the placid expression of a disciplined spirit who had renounced all pleasures and had attained to perfect calm. He asked who the holy man might be, and was told: "Great prince! this man constantly practises virtue and flees vice; he gives himself to charity, and restrains his appetites and desires; he is at peace with all men; and, so far as he can, he does good to all, and is full of sympathy for all."
These sights depressed his spirits, and he sought for means to escape from such sorrows, if, indeed, they were not irrevocably fixed upon all men alike. Herodotus mentions a Thracian tribe who mourned when a child was born and rejoiced when any one died. The same sad aspect of life oppressed the mind of the young prince. His sadness was no selfish desire of escape from his own troubles; it arose from intense sympathy with the sorrows of others. As he walked about the palace, men heard him repeat: "Nothing on earth is stable, nothing is real. Life is passing as a spark of fire or the sound of a lute. There must be a Supreme Intelligence wherein we can rest. If I attained it, I could then bring light to men. If I were free myself, I could deliver the world."
This thought of the salvation of mankind and the deliverance of the world became the dominant aim of his life. On
- ↑ In Spier's "Ancient India" there is a drawing from the Cave of Ajanta, which represents the old man with the infant Buddha in his arms (p. 248).
- ↑ Cf. Apoc. Epistle of Thomas vi., Pseudo-Matthew xxx. xxxi. The same legend reappears in the biography of Nanak, founder of the Sikh religion. (1469 A.D.). The "Adi Granth," p. 602. Printed for India Office, 1877.
- ↑ Beal's "Rom. Hist." ix.
- ↑ Christ never refers to the events recorded in St. Matthew and St. Luke i. and ii.
- ↑ So Mohammed's reply: "My Lord be praised! am I more than a man sent as an apostle? … Angels do not commonly walk the earth, or God would have sent an angel to preach his truth to you."
- ↑ Fergusson's "Tree and Serpent Worship," p. 182.
