COLLECTED WORKS

THE RIGHT HON. F. MAX MULLER

XVIII

LAST E SSA YS

II . ESSAYS ON THE SC IENCE

OF RELIGION

L AST E SSAYS

BY THE

RIGHT HON . PROFESSOR F . MAX/MULLER,

K .M .

LATE FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE

SECOND SER IES

ESSAYS ON THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

L ONGMA NS,GR EE N A ND co .

39 PATERNOSTER ROW ,LONDON

NEW YORK AND BOMBAY

1 9 0 1

[All reg/m reserved ]

PREFACE

IN the preface to the First Series of myfather’s Last Essays , I expressed the hope thatI should be able, at the expiration of a yearfrom the date of publ ication of the last of hisarticles on the Religions of China

,to bring out

a f urther volum e of his Essays not hithertorepublished .

Thanks to the k indness of the editors of the

various reviews in which these art icles firstappeared ,

I am enabled to offer to the publica Second Series of Last Essays , dealing exclusively with s ubjects connected with the Scienceof Religion , the favourite study of my fatherduring the latter part of his literary career.But besides this obl igation to the editors of

the Nineteen th Century and other period icals ,I am further indebted to the k indness of Mr.

Arch ibald Douglas,who not on ly gave me

perm ission to include his article on his visitto the Monastery of Himis in connexion with

Notovitch’

s Unknown Life of Christ, but also

vi PREFACE.

suppl ied me with a supplementary note givingfu rther details of his investigations .

The essay on Ancient Prayers has never, asfar as I can ascertain

,been publ ished before .

On looking through my father'

s papers I d iscovered it among several unfinished essays

, and

as it was apparently ready for press I haveincluded it in the present volume.

The last essay , Is Man Immortal ? ’

has alsonever been published in England

,though i t

appeared in several American newspapers someyears ago under the auspices of the AmericanPress Association I am very gratefu l to

that Association for supplying me with the

manuscript wh ich enables me to give it hereas originally written . I have placed th is articleat the end of the volume , as it seemed to me

that , whether they agree with its reasoning or

not , every reader of my father’s writings will

feel that the last paragraph forms a beautifulending to h is l iterary work , a fitting farewel lto the world which he was always trying to

instruct and improve.

W . G . MAX MULLER .

SAN SE BASTIAN,

October

CONTENTS

PAGI

FORGOTTEN B 1BLEs (1 884)

ANCIENT PRAYERS

I ND1AN FABLEs AND ESOTERIC Bunnm su ( 1893)

ESOTEE IC Bunnm sn (a Reply by Mr. A. P. Sinnett)ESOTERIC B U DDHISM (a Rejoinder)

THE ALLEGED SOJOU EN or Cnms'r IN IND1A

STATEMENT or THE CH IEF LAMA or Hn us, by Mr. J. A .

Douglas

Posrscm r'r by F . M . M .

SU PPLEMENTARY NOTE by Mr. J. A . Douglas

THE KU 'm o-DAW ( 1 895 )

BuDDHA’

s B IRTHPLACE ( 1 898)

MOHAMMEDAm sn AND CHRISTIANITY ( 1 894)

THE REmO1ONs or CHINA ( 1 900)

( 1 ) Conrocu msx

(2) TAOISM

(3) B UDDH ISM AND CHRISTIANITY

THE PARLIAMENT or RELIGIONS AT CHICAGO ( 1 894)

WHY I AM NOT AN AGNOS'I‘IC ( 1 894)

I s MAN qonTAL ?

L AST E SSAYS.

FORGOTTEN B IBLES 1.

HE first series of Translations of the SacredBooks of the East 2

,consisting of twenty-four

volumes,is nearly finished

,and a second series , which

is to comprise as many volumes again, is fairly started .

Even when that second series is finished , there willbe enough material left for a third and fourth series ,and though I shall then long have ceased from mylabours as editor , I rejoice to think that the reinswhen they drop out of my hands will be taken upand held by younger

,stronger , and abler conductors .

I ought indeed to be deeply gratefu l to all whohave helped me in this arduous , and, as it seemed atfirst , almost hopeless undertaking. Where will youget the Oriental scholars, I was asked, willing to giveup their time to what is considered the most tediousand the most ungrateful task

,translating difficult

texts that have never been translated before , and notbeing allowed to display one scrap of recondite learning in long notes and essays , or to skip one singlepassage, however corrupt or unintelligible ?

Nineteenth Century, June, 1 884.Forty-eight volumes are now printed —En.

B

2 LAST ESSAYS.

And if you should succeed in assembling such anoble army of martyrs, where in these days will youfind the publisher to publish twenty-four or fortyeight portly volumes , volumes which are meant tobe studied

,not to be skimmed, which will never be

ordered by Mudie or Smith , and which conscientiousreviewers may find it easier to cut up than to cutopen ?It was no easy matter, as I well knew, to find

either enthusiastic scholars or enthusiastic publishers,but I did not despair, because I felt convinced thatsooner or later such a collection Of translations of theFathers of the Universal Church would become anabsolute necessity. My how was at first that somevery rich men who are tired of investing their money

,

would come forward to help 1n this undertaking,but

though they seem willing to help in digging upmummies in Egypt or oyster-shells 1n Denmark

,they

evidently do not think that much good could comefrom digging up the forgotten Bibles Of Buddhists orFire-worshippers. I applied to learned Societies andAcademies, but, of course , they had no disposablefunds. At last the Imperial Academy of Viennaall honour be to it—was found willing to lend ahelping hand. But in 1 875 , just when I had struckmy tent at Oxford to settle in Austria , the thenSecretary of State for India, Lord Salisbury , and theDean Of Christ Church, Dr. Liddell, brought theircombined influence and power of persuasion to bearon the Indian Council and the University Press atOxford . The sinews of war were found for at leasttwenty-four volumes . In October, 1 876, the undertaking was started , and, if all goes well, in October,

FORGOTTEN BIBLES. 3

1 884 , the‘ first series of‘ twenty-four volumes will

stand on the shelves of every great library in Europe,America

,and India. And more than that. Such

has been the interest taken in this undertaking bythe students of ancient language, religion, and philosophy , that even the unexpected withdrawal of thepatronage of the India Office under Lord Salisbury ’ssuccessor l could not endanger the successful continuation of this enterprise , at least during the few yearsthat I may still be able to conduct it.But while personally I rejoice that all obstacles

which were placed in our way,sometimes from a

quarter where we least expected it , have beenremoved

,and that with the generous assistance of

some of the best Oriental scholars of our age, someat least of the most important works illustrating theancient religions of the East have been permanentlyrescued from Oblivion and rendered accessible to everyman who understands English , some of my friends ,men whose judgem ent I value far higher than my own,wonder what ground there is for rejoicing. Some,more honest than the rest, told me that they had beengreat admirers of ancient Oriental wisdom till theycame to read the translations of the Sacred Books ofthe East. They had evidently expected to hear thetongues of angels , and not the babbling of babes .

But others took higher ground . What,they asked,

could the philosophers of the ninewenth centuryexpect to learn from the thoughts and utterances ofmen who had lived one

,two , three, or four thousand

years ago ? When I humbly suggested that these

The expense of the Second Series has been entirely defrayedby the Oxford Universi ty Prose—ED.

B 2

4 LAsT EssAvs .

books had a purely historical interest , and that thehistory of religion could be studied from no otherdocuments , I was told that since Comte

’s time it wasperfectly known how religion arose

,and through how

many stages it had to pass in its development fromfetishism to positivism

,and that whatever facts might

be found in the Sacred Books of the East , they mustall vanish before theories which , like all 051ttheoriesg are infallible and incontrovertible. If anything more was to be discovered about the origin andnature of religion , it was not from dusty historicaldocuments

,but from psycho-physiological experiments

,

or possibly from the creeds of living savages .I was not surprised at these remarks . I had heard

similar remarks many years ago,and they only

convinced me that the old antagonism between thehistorical and theoretical schools of thought was asstrong to-day as ever. This antagonism applies notonly to the study of religion

,but likewise to the study

of language, mythology, and philosophy, in fact of allthe subjects to which my own labours have morespecially been directed for many years

,and I therefore

gladly seize this opportunity of clearly defining once

for all the position which I have deliberately chosenfrom the day that I was a young recruit to the timewhen I have become a veteran in the noble army ofresearch .

There have been, and there probably always will be ,two schools of thought, the Historical and the Theoretical. Whether by accident or by conviction I havebeen through life a follower of the Historical School,a school which in the study of every branch of humanknowledge has but one and the same principle,

FORGOTTEN BIBLES. 5

namely , ‘Learn to understand what is by learning tom ufcrstand what has been .

’

That school was in the ascendent when I beganlife . It was then represented in Germany by suchnames as Niebwhr for history, Savigny for law,

Boppfor language, Grimm for mythology ; or, to mentionmore familiar nam es , in France by Caviar for naturalhistory ; in England by a whole school of students ofhistory and nature, who took pride in calling themselves the only legitimate representatives of theBaconian school of thought.What a wonderful change has come over us during

the last thirty or forty years ! The Historical Schoolwhich, in the beginning of our century , was in thepossession of nearly all professorial chairs

,and wielded

the sceptre of all the great Academ ies, has almostdwindled away , and its place has been taken by theTheoretical School, best known in England by itseloquent advocacy of the principles of evolution.

This Theoretical School is sometimes called thesynthetic, in opposition to the Historical School

,

which is analytic. It is also characterized as con

structwe, or as reasoning a prior i . In order to

the two schools, let us see how their principles havebeen applied to such subjects as the science of language ,

The Historical School,in trying to solve the

problem of the origin and growth of language, takeslanguage as it finds it. It takes the living languagein its various dialects , and traces each word backfrom century to century, until from the English nowspoken in the streets, we arrive at the Saxon of

6 m ar ESSAYS.

Alfred, the Old Saxon of the Continent, and theGothic of U lfilas , as spoken on the Danube in thefifth century . Even here we do not step. Forfinding that Gothic is but a dialect of the greatTeutonic stem of language, that Teutonic again isbut a dialect Of the great Aryan fami ly of speech, wetrace Teutonic and its collateral branches, Greek ,

Latin, Celtic, Slavonic, Persian, and Sanskrit, backto that ProtO-Aryan form of speech which containedthe seeds of all we now see before us, as germs , plants ,flowers

,fruits in the languages of the Aryan race.

After having settled this historical outline Of thegrowth of our family Of speech, the Aryan , we takeany word

,or a hundred , or a thousand words, and

analyse them,or take them to pieces . That words

can be taken to pieces , every grammar teaches us ,though the process Of taking them to pieces scientifically and correctly, dissecting limb from limb

,is

Often as difficult and laborious as any anatomicalpreparation . Well, let us take quite a modern wordthe Am erican cu te

,sharp. We all know that cute is

only a shortening Of acute, and that acute is the

recognize the frequent derivative tus , as in commas ,

horned,from corna

,horn . This leaves us acn ,

as inacu -s

,a needle. In this word the n can again be

separated, for we know it is a very common derivative

,in such words as pee-n , cattle, Sanskrit past ,

from PAS,to tether ; or tami , thin , Greek rapt

,Lat .

tenu-i-s, from TAN ,to stretch . Thus we arrive in

the end at AK,and here our analysis must stop , for

i f we were to divide AK into A and K , we should get,as even Plato knew (The rm , mere letters , and

FORGOTTEN n ew s . 7

no longer significant sounds or syllables . Now whatis this AK ? We call it a root, which is, of course,a metaphor only. What we mean by calling it a rootis that it is the re siduum of our analysis , and aresiduum which itself m ists all further analysis .But what is important is that it is not a mere theoreticpostulate

,but a fm , an histo rical fact, and at the

same time an ultimate fact.With these ultimate that is, wi th a limited

number of predicative syllablw , to which every wordin any of the Aryan languages can be traced back ,or, as we may also express it, from which every wordin these languages can be derived, the historicalschool Of comparative philology is satisfied , at len tto a ca tain extent ; for it has o to amount for

a roots, and which have supplied, at the sametime

,many Of those deri vative elements, like tee

in aou-tw , which we generally call sufi xes orterminations.AM T this analysis is finuished , the historiml student

has done his work. AK, he says, conveys the conceptOf sharp, sharpness, being sharp or pointed . How it

ice to do that we cannot tall, or, at least, we cannotfind out by historical analysis. But that it did so ,we can prove by a number of words derived fromAx in Sanskrit

,Persian

,Greek, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic,

quick (originally sharp) , Greek (tats, Lat. oc-io'r, In t.

the highest point, our edge, A -S. ecg ; also to egg on ;dfimv, a javelin acidas, sharp, f

,oa,gue, a sharp

8 LAST sssars.

fever , earof corn, Old High German dhir, Gothi c aha,Lat. ace/mic, husk of grain , and many more.Let us now look at the Theoretical School and its

treatment of language . How could language arise ?it says ; and it answers, Why , we see it every day.

We have only to watch a child, and we shall see thata child utters certain sounds of pain and joy , and

very soon after imitates the sounds which it hears .It says Ah ! when it is surprised or pleased ; it soonsays Baa l when it sees a lamb, and Bo<w~wow l whenit sees a dog. Language

,we are told

,could not arise

in any other way ; so that interj ections and imitationsmust be considered as the ultimate, or rather the

real words is , we are assured , a mere question of time.This theory seems to be easily confirmed by a

number of words in all languages,which still exhibit

most clearly the signs of such an origin ; and stillfurther

,by the fact that these supposed rudiments of

human speech exist , even at an earlier stage, in thedevelopment of animal life, namely, in the soundsuttered by many animals ; though , curiously enough ,far more fully and frequently by our most distantancestors

,the birds , than by our nearest relation,

the ape.It is not surprising , therefore, that all who believe

in a possible transition from an ape to a man shouldgladly have embraced this theory of language . Theonly misfortune is that such a theory

,though it easily

explains words which really require no explanation,such as crashing

,cracking

,creak ing, crunching,

scrunch ing, leaves us entirely in the lurch when wecome to deal with real words— I mean words expressive

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10 LAST scan s.

are told that savages would naturally do the same.

A savage , in fact, is made to do everything that ananthropologist wishes him to do ; but, even then , thequestion of all questions

,why he does what he is

supposed to do,is never asked . We are told that he

worships a stone as his god, but how he came topossess the idea of God, and to predicate it of thestone , is called a metaphysical question of no interestto the student of anthropology— that is , of man. If,however, we press for an answer to this all-importantquestion, we are informed that animnlsm , personifica

agencies which fully account for the fact that theancient inhabitants of India, Grm e, and Italy believedthat there was life in the rivers

,the mountains

,and

the sky that the sun,and the moon , and the dawn

were cognizant of the deeds of men,and , finally, that

Jupiter and Juno,Mars and Venus, had the form and

the beauty, the feelings and passion s of men. Wemight as well be told that all animals are hungrybecause they have an appetite .

We read in many of the most popular works ofthe day how, from the stage of fetishism , therewas a natural and necessary progress to polytheism ,

monotheism,and atheism ,

and after these stages havebeen erected one above the other, all that remainsis to fill each stage with illustrations taken fromevery race that ever had a religion, whether theseraces were ancient or modern, savage or civilized,genealogically related to each other, or perfect

roaoorrss BIBLES. 1 1

this school . Far from it. I differ from it ; I have notaste for it I also think it is often very misleading.

But to compare the thoughts and imaginations ofsavages and civilized races , of the ancient Egyptians ,for instance , and the modern Hottentots, has its value,and the boldest combinations of the Theoretic Schoolhave sometimes been confirmed in the most unexpectedmanner by historical research .

Let us see now how the Hi storical School goes towork in treating of the origin and growth of religion .

It begins by collecting all the evidence that isaccm

’

ble, and classifies it. First of all, religions aredivided into those that have sacred books , and thosethat have not. Secondly, the religious which can bestudied inbooks of recognized or canonical authority,are arranged genealogically. The New Testament istraced back to the Old , the Koran to both the Newand Old Testaments . This gives us one class ofreligions, the Sem itic.

Then , again , the sacred books of Buddh ism , ofZoroastrianism ,

and ofBrahmanism are classed togetheras Aryan, because they all draw their vital elementsfrom one and the same Proto-Aryan source. Thisgives us a second class of religions , the Aryan .

Outside the pale of the Semitic and Aryan religions ,we have the two book-rel igions of China

,the old

national tradi tions collected by Confucius , and themoral and metaphysical system of Lao-tee. Thisgives us a class of Turanian religions . The studyof those religions which have sacred books 18 in somerespects easy

,because we have in these books

authoritative evidence on which our further reasoningsand conclusions can be safely based . But, in other

12 LAST ESSAYS.

respects,the very exis tence of these books creates

new difficulties , because , after all, religions do notlive in books only

,but in .human hearts

,and where

we have to deal with Vedas , and Aves tas , andTripitakas , Old and New Testaments, and Korans ,we are often tempwd into taking the book for thereligion.

Still the study of book-religions , if we once havemastered their language, admits , at all events , of moredefinite and scientific treatment than that of nativereligions which have no books, no articles , no tests ,no councils, no pOpe. Any one who attempts to

Romans— I mean their real faith, not their mythology,their ceremonial , or their philosophy— knows theimmense difficulty of such a task. And yet we havehere a large literature, spread over many centuries ,we know their language, we can even exam ine theruins of their temples .Think after that

,how infinitely greater must be

the difficulty of forming a right conception, say,of the religion of the Red Indians , the Africans , theAustralians . Their religions are probably as old astheir languages, that is , as old as our own language ;but we know nothing of their antecedents

,nothing

but the mere surface of to-day, and that immensesurface explored in a few isolated spots only

,and

often by men utterly incapable of understanding thelanguage and the thoughts of the people . And yetwe are asked to believe by the followers of theTheoretic School that this mere surface detritus is inreality the granite that underlies all the religionsof the ancient world

,more primitive than the Old

roscorrrm mamas. 13

Testament, more intelligible than the Veda, moreinstructive than the mythological language of Greeceand Rome. It may be so . The religious map ofthe world may show as violent convulsions as thegeological map of the earth . All I say to the

religious thought is , let us wait till we know a littlemore of Hottentots and Papflans ; let us wait till weknow at least their language

,for otherwise we may

go hopelessly wrong.

The Historical School , in the meantime, is carryingon its more modest work by publishing and translatingthe ancient records of the great religions of the world ,undisturbed hy the sneers ofthose who do notfind in theSacred Books of the Eas t what they, in their ignorance ,expected— men , who, if they were geologists would nodoubt turn up their noses at a kitchen-midden , becauseit di d not contain their favourite lollypops . Wherethere are no sacred texts to edit and to translate , thetrue disciples of the Historical School— men such as ,for instance , Bishop Caldwell or Dr. Hahn in SouthAfrica, Dr. Brinton or Horatio Hale in North America—do not shrink from the drudgery of learning thedialects spoken by savage tribes

,gaining their con

fidence , and gathering at last from their lips somerecords of their popular traditions, their ceremonialcustom s , some prayers , it may be, and some confessionof their ancient faith. But even with all thesematerials at his disposal

,the historical student does

not rush at once to the conclusion that either in thelegends of the Eskimos or in the hymns of the VedicAryas , we find the solution of all the riddles in thescience of religion . He only says that we are not

14 t r ESSAYS.

likely to find any evidence much more trustworthy,

and that therefore we are j ustified 1n deriving certainlessons from these materials . And what 18 the chieflesson to be learnt from them ? It 1s this

,that they

contain certain words and concepts and imaginationswhich are as yet inexplicable, which seem simply

cedents which are lost to us ; but that they containalso many words and concepts and imaginationswhich are perfectly intelligible, which presuppose noantecedents , and which , whatever their date may be ,may be called primary and rational. However strangeit may seem to us, there can be no doubt that theperception of the Unknown or the Infinite was withmany races as ancient as the percept ion of the Knownor the Finite, that the two were , in fact, inseparable.

To men who lived on an island,the ocean was the

Unknown , the Infinite ,and became in the end their

God. To men who lived in valleys , the rivers thatfed them and whose sources were unapproachable, themountains that protected them , and whose crests wereinaccessible , the sky that overshadowed them ,

andwhose power and beauty were un intelligible, thesewere their unknown beings , their infinite beings, theirbright and kind beings, what they called their Devas,their ‘Brights,

’ the same word which , after passingthrough many changes, still breathes in our Divimlty.

This unconscious process of theogony is historicallyattested

,is intelligible , requires no antecedents , and

i s , so far, a primary process . How old it is, whowould venture to ask or to tell i All that the HistoricalSchool ventures to assert is that it explains one sideof the origin of religion, namely, the gradual process

FORGOTTEN BIBLE . l 5

of naming or conceiving the Infinite . While theTheoretic School takes the predicate of God , whenapplied to a fetish , as granted , the Hi storical Schoolsees in it the result of a long-continued evolution ofthought, beginning with the vague consciousness ofsomething invis ible

,unknown

,and unlim ited

,which

gradually assumes a more and more definite shapethrough similes

,names , myths, and legends, till at last

it is divested again of all names, and lives withinus as the invisible , inconceivable, unnameable— the

infinite God .

I need hardly say that though in the science ofreligion as in the science of language , all my sympathiesare with the Historical School

,I do not m ean to deny

that the Theoretical School has likewise done somegood work . h t both schools work on, carefully andhonestly, and who knows but that their ways, whichseem so divergent at present, may meet in theend .

Nowhere,perhaps

,can we see the different spirit

in which these two schools, the Historical and theTheoretical

,set to work

,more clearly than in what is

called by preference the Science of Man, Anthropologyor the Science of People

,Ethnology ; or more generally

the science of old things,of the works of ancient men,

Archaeology. The Theoretic School begins , as us ual,with an ideal conception of what man must have beenin the beginning. According to some, he was theimage of his Maker

,a perfect being, but soon destined

to fall to the level of ordinary humanity. Accordingto others

,he began as a savage , whatever that may

mean,not much above the level of the beasts of the

field,and then had to work his way up through suc~

16 m ar ssssrs.

cessive stages which are supposed to follow each otherby a kind of inherent necessity. First comes thestage of the hunter and fisherman

,then that of the

breeder of cattle , the tiller of the soil , and lastly thatof the founder of cities .

As man is defined as an animal which uses tools,

we are told that according to the various materials ofwhich these tools were made, man must again bynecessity have passed through what are called the threestages or ages of stone, bronze, and iron, raising him selfby means of these more and more perfect tools towhat we might call the age of steel and steam and

to culm inate . Whatever discoveries are made byexcavating the ruins of ancient cities , by openingtombs, by ransacking kitchen-middens , by exploringonce more the flint-mines of prehistoric races

,all must

submit to the fundamental theory,and each specimen

of bone or stone or bronze or iron must take the placedrawn out for it within the lines and limits of an

The Historical School takes again the very oppositeline . It begins with no theoretical expectations

,with

no logical necessities , but takes its spade and shovelto see what there is left of old things ; it describesthem

,arranges them , classifies them ,

and thus hopesin the end to understand and explain them . When aSchliemann begins his work at Hissarlik he digsaway , notes the depth at which each relic has beenfound , places similar relics side by side , unconcernedwhether iron comes before bronze , or bronze beforefl int. Let me quote the words of a young and verycareful archaeologist

,Mr. Arthur Evans

,in describing

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18 m ar ESSAYS.

party and the other,which you may be accustomed

to hear from the promoters of rival gold-mines inIndia or in the south of Africa .

I m ight show the same conflict between Historicaland Theoretical research in almost every branch ofhuman knowledge . But

,of course , we are all most

familiar with it through that important controversy ,which has occupied the present generation more thananything else

,and in which almost every one of us

has taken part and taken sides— I mean the controversy about Evolution .

It seems almost as if I myself had lived in prehistoric times, when I have to confess that, as a youngstudent

,I witnessed the downfall of the theory of

Evolution which , for a time, had ruled supreme in theUniversities of Germany

,particularly in the domain

of Natural History and Biology. In the school ofOken, in the first philosophy of Schelling

,in the

eloquent treatises of Goethe, all was Evolution, Development, or as it was called in German, Das Warden ,

the Becoming. The same spirit pervaded the philosophy of Hegel. According to him , the whole worldwas an evolution , a development by logical necessity ,to which all facts must how. If they would not

, tau t

pie pour lcsfaits.

I do not remember the heyday of that school, butI still remember its last despairi ng struggles . I stillremember at school and at the University rumoms ofCarbon

,half solid , half liquid, the famous Urschleim ,

now called Protoplasm, the Absolute Substance out ofwhich everything was evolved. I remember the moreor less amusing discussions about the less of the tail,about races supposed to be still in possession of that

roacor'rsu arenas . 19

ancestral relic. I well remember my own particularteacher, the great Greek scholar Gottfried Hermanngiving great offence to his theological colleagues bypublishing an essay in 1 840 in which he tried toprove the descent of man from an ape . Allow me toquote a few extracts from this rare and li ttle noticedessay. As the female is always less perfect than themale, Hermann argued that the law of developmentrequired that Eve must have existed before Adam, notAdam before Eve. Quoting the words of Enni us

Simiaquam sim i lis, turpissima bes tia, nobi s, ’

he goes on in his own peculiar Latin‘ Ex hac nobili gen ts quid dubitemus un am aliquando simiam

exortam putare, quae paullo m inus belluina facie et indole esset ?Ea, sive illam Evam sive Pandoram appellare placet, quam ex aliosimio gravida facts esset

, peperit, ut saepenum ero fieri constat,filium matriquam patri similiorem,qui primus homo fui t.Haec ergo est hom ini s generisque human i origo, non illa quidemvalde honesta, sed paullo tamen honestior multoque probabilior,quam si ex luto aqua permixto, cui anima fuerit inspirata, genusduceremns.

’

Surely Gottfried Hermann was a bolder man thaneven Darwin, and to me who had attended his lecturesat Leipzig in 1 84 1 , Darwin

’s Descent of Man , published in 1 87 1 , was naturally far less novel andstartling by its theory than by the facts by whichthat theory was once more supported . Kant’s philosophy also had fam iliarized students of Anthropologywith the same ideas . For he

,too, towards the end of

his Anthropologie, had spoken of a third period inthe development of nature, when an Oran-U tang or

Evam ante Adamum crestam fuisse, sive dequodam communispud Mosen et Hes iodum errore circa creationem generis human i,

’

in Iigen ’eW WW die Mater. M ia, 1840, B. X. pp. 6 1 - 70.

0 2

20 Lasr rssars.

Chimpanzee may develop his organs of locomotion,

touch, and speech to the perfection of human organs ,raise his brain to an organ of thought , and slowlyelevate himself by social culture .

But this was not all. Oken ( 1 779- 1 85 1) and his

organic nature was likewise a mere matter of development. The first step, according to him , was theformation of rising bubbles, which he called infusoria,and the manifold repetition ofwhich led

,as he taught

,

to the formation of plants and animals. The plantwas represented by him as an imperfect animal, theanimal as an imperfect man . To doubt that thevarious races of men were descended from one pairwas cons idered at that time

,and even to the days of

Prichard , not only a theological, but a biologicalheresy. All variety was traced back to unity—andin the beginning there was nothing but Being whichBeing , coming in conflict with Not-being, enteredupon the process of Becom ing, of development, ofevolution . While this philosophy was still beingpreached in some German universities , a sharp re

action took place in others,followed by the quick

ascendency of that Historical School of which I spokebefore . It was heralded in Germany by such men asNiebuhr, Savigny, Bopp, Grimm , Otfried M iiller,Johannes M iiller, the two Humboldts, and manyothers whose names are less known in England , butwho did excellent work , each in his own special line .

I have tried to describe the general character ofthat school , and I have to confess that during thewhole of my life I have remained a humble discipleof it. I am not blind to its weak points . It fixes

roseorrs s mamas. 21

its eye far too much on the individual ; it seesdifferences everywhere

,and is almost blind to simi

larities . Hence the bewildering mass of species whichit admitted in Botany and Zoology. Hence its strongprotest against the common origin of mankind ; henceits still stronger protest against the transition frominorganic to organi c life , from the plant to the beast ,from the beast to the man . Hence , in the science oflanguage , its reluctance to admit even the possibilityof a common origin of human speech , and, in the

ce of religion,its protest against deriving the reli

gion of civilized races from a supposed anterior stageof fetishism . Hence in Geology its rejection ofPlutonic and Volcanic theories, and its careful observation of the changes that have taken place, or arestill taking place, on the surface of the earth , within,or almost within, the historical recollection of man .

In the careful anatomy of the eye by JohannesMiiller, and his philosophical analysis of the conditions of the process of seeing

,we have a specimen of

what I should call the best work of the HistoricalSchool

,even in physical science . In Mr . Herbert

Spencer’s account of the origin of the eye, we havea specimen of what I call the best work of theTheoretical School . Mr. Spencer tells us that whatwe now call the eye consisted originally of a fewpigmentary grains under the outermost dermal layer,and that rudimentary vision is constituted by thewave of disturbance which a sudden change in thestate of these pigmentary grains propagates throughthe body ; or, to put it into plain English, that theeye began with some sore place in the skin, sensitiveto light

,which smarted or tickled , and thus developed

22 LAST ESSAYS.

in time into what is now the most wonderful mechanism , as described by Johannes Miiller , Helmholtz, andothers .Now I have little doubt that many of my readers

who have patiently followed my argumen t up to thispoint

,will say to themselves : What then about

Darwin ism '

i'

Is that histor ical or theoretic ? Is ita mere phase in the evolution of thought

,or is

it something permanent, and beyond the reach offurther development ? Such a question is not easy toanswer. Nothing is so misleading as names— I mean

,

even such names.

as materialism , idealism , realism ,

and all the rest—which , after all , admit of some kindof definition. But when we use a proper name— thename of a philosopher— and then speak of all he hasbeen and thought and taught, as his ism , such asPuseyism or Darwinism , the confusion becomes quitechaotic . And with no one is this more the case thanwith Darwin. The difference between Darwin andmany who call themselves Darwinians

,is as great at

least as that between the horse and the mule . ButDarwin himself is by no means a man who can beeasily defined and classified . The very greatness andpower of Darwin seem to me to consist in his combining the best qualities of what I have called theHistorical and Theoretical Schools . So long as heobserves and watches the slow transition of individualpeculiarities into more or less permanent varieties ;so long as he exhibits the changes that take placebefore our very eyes by means of artificial breeding

,

as in the case of pigeons ; so long as he shows thatmany of the numberless so-called species amongplants or animals share all that is essential in

ros corrsx mamas . 23

common , and differ by accidental peculiarities only ;so long as he traces living species back to extinctspecies , the remains of which have been preservedto us in the geological archives of our globe ; so long,in fact, as he goes backward, step by step, and opensto us page after page in the forgotten book of life

,he

is one of the greatest and most successful representativsa of the Histori cal School . But when his love ofsystematic uniformity leads him to postulate fourbeginnings for the whole realm of organic life, thoughnot yet one, like his followers ; when he begins tosketch a possible genealogical tree of all generationsof living things

,though not yet with the heraldic

m inuteness of his pupil,Professor Haeckel ; when he

argues that because natural selection can account forcertain very palpable changes , as between the wolfand the spaniel , it may also account for less palpabledifi

'

erences,as between the ape and the man , though

no real man of science would venture to argue in thatway ; when , in fact, he allows his hopes to get thebetter of his fears , he becomes a follower and a verypowerful supporter of the Theoretic School.It may be the very combination of these two

characters which explains the enormous influencewhich Darwin’s theories have exercised on the presentgeneration ; but, if so , we shall see in that combination the germs of a new schism also, and the conditions of further growth . Great as was Darwin

'

sconscientiousness

,we cannot deny that occasionally

his enthusiasm ,or his logical convictions , led him

to judge -of things of ‘which he knew nothing, orvery little. He had convinced himself that manwas genealogically descended from an animal . That

24 LAST ESSAYS.

was as yet merely a theoretical conviction , as all

chow— now fully admit. As language had beenpointed out as a Rubicon which no beast had evercrossed , Darwin lent a willing ear to those who thinkthat they can derive language, that is, real logos, frominterjections and mimicry

,by a process of spontaneous

evolution,and produced himself some most persuasive

arguments. We know how able, how persuas ive a

pleaderDarwin could be . When he wished to showhow man could have descended from an animal whichwas born hairy and remained so during life ‘

,he could

not well maintain that an animal without hair wasfitter to survive than an animal with hair . He therefore wished us to believe that our female semi humanprogenitors lost their hair by some acciden t , were , asHermann said, ‘ minus belluina facie et indole,

’ andthat in the process of sexual selection this partial orcomplete baldness was considered an attraction , andwas thus perpetuated from mother to 8011 . It wasdifficult, no doubt , to give up Milton

’s Eve for a semihuman progenitor, suffering, it may be , from leprosyor leucoderma, yet Darwin, like Gottfried Herm&1n ,

nearly persuaded us to do so. However, in defendingso hopeless, or , at all events , so unfortified a positionas the transition of the cries of animals into thelanguage of man , even so great a general as Darwinundoubtedly was will occasionally encounter defeat ,and

,I believe I may say without presumption

,that

,

to speak of no other barrier between man and beast,

the barrier of language remains as unshaken as ever,

Descent o/Man, i i. p. 377, where m ore details may be found as tothe exact process of baldness or denudation in animus.

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26 LAST s ssars.

his ignorance of the past. I think I can best makemy meaning clear by taking an instance. WhetherDean Stanley was what is now called a scientifichistorian

,a very laborious student of ancient chroui

cles and charters , is not for me to say ; but if I wereasked to define his mind, and his attitude towards allthe burning questions of the day, whether in politics ,or morality

, or religion , I should say it was historical .He was a ‘ true di sciple of the Historical School .I could show it by examining the position he tookin dealing with some of the highest questions oftheology. But I prefer

,as an easier illustration, to

consider his treatment of one of the less exci tingquestions

,the question of vestments . Incredible as

it may seem ,it is a fact nevertheless that not many

years ago a controversy about surplices, and albs , anddalmatics , and stoles raged all over England . Thequestion by whom , at what time, and in what place ,the surplice should be worn , divided brother frombrother, and father from child, as if that piece ofwhite linen possessed some mysterious power

,or could

exercise some m iraculous influence on the spirit ofthe wearer. Any one who knew Stanley would knowhow little he cared for vestments or garments

,and

how difficult he would have found it to take sides ,either right or left

,in a controversy about m illinery

or ritual. But what did he do ? Let us look at thesurplice historically} he said. What is a surplice ?—and first of all

,what is the historical origin or the

etymology of the word. Smrlice is the Latin super

pellici/um . Super-pellicium means what is worn over

a fur or fur-j acket. Now this fur-jacket was not wornby the primitive Christians in Rome , or Constanti

roaoorTsN mamas . 27

nor is there any mention of sucha vestment at the time of the Apostles . What

,then ,

is the'

history of that fur-jacket ? So far as we know ,

it was a warm jacket worn ‘by German peasants in thecolder climate of their country , and it was worn bylai ty and clergy alike , as in fact all garments werewhich we now consider exclusively ecclesiastical . Asthis fur-jacket was apt to get dirty and unsightly

,

a kind of smock-frock , that could be washed fromtime to time

,was worn over it— and this was called

the super-pellicium , the surplice .

Stanley thought it sufiicient gently to remind thewearer of the surplice that what he was so proud ofwas only the lineal descendant of a German peasant’ssmock-frock ; and I believe he was right, and hishistorical explanation certainly produced a bettereffect on all who had a sense of history and ofhumour than the most elaborate argument on themystical meaning of that robe of purity and innocence .

He did the same with other vestments . Under thewand of the historian, the alb turned out to be the oldRoman tunic or shirt

,and the deacon officiating in his

alb was recognized as a servant working in his shirtsleeves . The dalmatic, again , was traced back tothe shirt with long sleeves worn by the Dalmatianpeasants

,which became recognized as the dress of the

deacon about the time of Constantine . The cassockand chewable turned out to be great coats, wornoriginally by laity and clergy alike—while the cape,

descended from the copa or capo , also called pluviale ,

was translated by Stanley as a ‘waterproof. ’ Themitre was identified with the caps and turbans worn

28 LAST assars.

in the East by princes and nobles , and to this day bythe peasant women. The division into two pointswas shown to be the mark of the crease which is theconsequence of its having been folded and carriedunder the arm , like an opera-hat. The stole, lastly,in the sense of a scarf

,had a still humbler origin. It

was the substitute for the o'rarium or handkerchief,

used for blowing the nose. No doubt , the possessionand use of a handkerchief was in early times restrictedto the higher circles .’ It is so to the present day inBorneo , for instance , where only the king is allowedto carry a handkerchief and to blow his nose. Inlike manner then as in Borneo the handkerchiefbecame the insignia of royalty , it rose in the RomanChurch to become the distinctive garment of thedeacon.

I know that some of these explanations have beencontested, and rightly contested , but the general driftof the argument remains unafi

'

ected by such reservations . I only quote them in order to explain whatI meant by Stanley ’s historical attitude

,an attitude

which all who belong to the Historical School, andare guided by an historical spirit, like to assumewhen brought face to face with the problems ofthe day.

But what applies to small questions applies likewise

the mystic marriage between Church and State canever be dissolved , the historian looks to the registerand to the settlements, in order to find out how thatmarriage was brought about . Instead of discussingthe various theories of inspiration, the historian asks,who was the first to coin the word ? In what sense

FORGOTTEN BIBLES. 29

did he use it ? Did he claim inspiration for himselfor for others ? Did he claim it for one book only

,or

for all truth ? How much light can be thrown onthis subject by a simple historical treatment may beseen in some excellent lectures, delivered lately beforea Secularist audience by Mr. Wilson 1 , the HeadMaster Of Clifton College , in the presence of theBishop Of Exeter, and published under the title, TheTheory of I nspiration , or , Why men do not Believethe B ible.

And this historical treatment seems to me the best,not only for religious and philosophical , but also forsocial problems . Who has not read the eloquent pagesOf Mr. Henry George on Progress and Poverty ? Whohas not pondered on his social panacea

,the nationali

zation Of the land ? It is Of little use to grow angryabout these questions , to deal in blustering rhetoric,OI hysterical invective. SO long as Mr. Henry Georgetreats the question Of the tenure Of land historically,his writings are extremely interesting, and, I believe ,extremely useful

,as reminding people that a great

portion of the land 111 England was not simply boughtfor investment , but was granted by the sovereign oncertain conditions , such as military service, for instance.

Those who held the land had to defend the land, andit may well be asked why that duty, or why the taxesfor army and navy

,should new fall equally on the

whole country . It might be said that all this happeneda long time ago . But the reign Of Charles the Seconddoes not yet belong so entirely to the realm Of fablethat the nation m ight not trace its privileges backto that time quite as much as certain families

Now the Archdeacon Of Rochdale.

30 LAST ESSAYS.

whose wealth dates from the same period . Again , ifMr. Henry George shows that in more recent timescommon land was enclosed in defiance Of historicalright, he is doing useful work, if only by remindinglords Of the manor that they should not court tooclose an inspection Of their title-deeds. If there arehistorical rights, there are historical rights on bothsides

,on the Side Of those who have no land quite as

much as on the side Of those who have, and surelywe are all Of us most thankful that at the tim s Of

Charles the Second,and earlier still, at the time Of

Henry the Eighth , some large tracts Of land werenationalized—were confiscated

,in fact— that is, trans

ferred from the hands Of former proprietors to thefiscus, the national treasury . What would our nationalUniversities be without nationalized land Theywould have to depend

,as in Germany, on taxation,

and be administered,as in Germany, by a Government

Board . If, at the same time, some more land hadbeen nationalized in support Of schools, hospitals,almshouses

,aye, even in support Of army and navy,

instead Of being granted to private individuals,should

we not all be m ost grateful ? But though we mayregret the past, we cannot ignore it, and, to quoteMr. Henry George’s own words, instead Of weakeningand confusing the idea Of property, we should surroundit with Stronger sanctions .

SO far all historical m inds would probably go withMr . Henry George . But when he joins the TheoreticalSchool, and tells us that every human being born intothis world has a divine right to a portion Of God ’searth , it is difficult to argue with him ,

for how doeshe know it ? Again, how does he know how much it

FORGOTTEN BIBLES. 8 1

should be , and, what is more important still , in whatpart Of the world it should be ? An acre Of land inthe city Of London is very difi'

erent from an acre Of

land in Australia . Besides , what is the use Of landunless it has been cleared ? An Old Indian lawgiversays very truly , The deer belongs to him who stickshis arrow into him ,

and the land to him who digs thestumps out Of it If a man by his spade hasmade a piece Of was te land worth having

,surely it

belongs to him as much as a sheet of paper belongsto the man who has made it worth having by hispen.

But,though I do not see how, with any regard for

the rights Of property, which Mr. Henry George

regards as sacre d, the nationalization Of the landcould ever be carried out in an ancient country

,such

as England , without fearful conflicts , or without s1e ligious revival, nor how it could effect, by itselfalone, the cure Of the crying evils Of the present stateOf our society

,I admire Mr. Henry George f or the

truths, the bitter truths , which he tells us, and itseems to me sheer intellectual cowardice tO say thathis ideas are dangerous , and should not be listenedto . The facts which he places before us are dangerons

,but there is far less danger in his theories,

even if we all accepted them. We all held t heorieswhich m ight be called dangerous

,if we ever thought

of carrying them out. We all hold the theory thatwe ought to love our neighbour exactly as our

In Australia. if two or more spears are found in the sameanimal when k illed , i t is th e property of h im who threw thefirst. N icolay, Account of the Natives (I Western Australia, Perth,1 8 79, p. n .

82 LAST ESSAYS.

selves ; but no one seems afraid that we should everdo so.One m ore question still waits for an answer.

Although the historical treatment may be the best,and the only eflicacious treatment of all problemsaffecting religion , philosophy, morality , and politics,should we not follow up our tangles in a straightline

,from knot to knot, from antecedent to antece

dent ? And if so , what can be the use of the SacredBooks of the East for the religious problems of theWest ? What light can the Rig-veda or the

’

Vedfinta

philosophy of India throw on Kant’s Critique of PureReason ? How can the Koran help us in facingmodern problems of morality ? How can the Lawsof Mann,

applicable to the village system of ancientIndia

,help us in answering the social problems of

Mr. Henry George ?Perhaps the readiest answer I can give , is— Look

at the sciences of Language , of Mythology, of Religion .

What would they be wi thout the East ? They wouldnot even exist. We have learnt that history does notnecessarily proceed from the present to the past inone straight line only. The stream of history runs inmany parallel branches , and each generation has notonly fathers and grandfathers , but also uncles andgreat-uncles . In fact , the distinguishing characterof all scientifi c research in our century is comparison .

We have not only comparative philology,but also

comparative j urisprudence, comparative anatomy, comparative physiology . Many points in English Lawbecome intelligible only by a comparison with GeLaw. Many difficulties in German Law are removedby a reference to Roman or Greek Law. Many even

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84 LAST essays .

anatomical preparations correspond to their ownmuscles , their own bones , their own nerves , even theirown brains . They gladly listened to an explanationhow all these organs work together in the bodies ofanimals, and produce results very similar to thosewhich they know from their own experience . Theirmind thus grew stronger, larger, and more comprehensive— it may be , more tolerant.If after a time you go a step further, and bring

a dead human body before them to dissect it beforetheir eyes, there will be at first a little shuddercreeping over them

,something like the feeling which

first time the smock-frock of a German peasant asthe prototype of his own beloved surplice . However,even that shudder m ight possibly be overcome

,and

in the end some useful lesson m ight be learned fromseeing ourselves as we are in the flesh.

But now suppose some bold vivisectionist wereto venture beyond, and to dissect before our eyesa living man, in order to show us how we reallybreathe, and diges t, and live, or in order to makeus see what is right and wrong in his system . Weshould all say it was horrible

,intolerable. We should

turn away, and stop the proceedings .If we apply all this

,mutatis mutand is, to a study

of religion, we shall readily understand the greatadvantages not only of an historical study of our

own religion,but also of a comparative study of

Eastern religions as they can be studied now in thetranslations of the Sacred Books of the East . Thosewho are willing to learn may learn from a comparative study of Eastern religions all that can be known

FORGOTTEN BIBLES. 35

about religions— how they grow , how they decay ,and how they spring up again. They may see allthat is good and all that is bad in various forms andphases Of ancient faith, and they must be blinderthan blind if they cannot see how the comparativeanatomy Of those foreign religions throws light onthe questions Of the day

,on the problems nearest

to our own hearts, on our own philosophy, and onour own faith .

ANCIENT PRAYERS 1.

THERE are few religions, whether ancient ormodern, whether elaborated by uncivilizcd

or civilized people , m which we do not find tracesOf prayer. Hence

,if we consult any work on the

science or on the history of religion , we generally findprayer represented as something extremely natural ,as something almost inevitable in any religion. Itmay seem very natural to us , but was it really sO

very natural in the beginning ?What was the meaning Of prayer ? It 18 always

best to begin with the etymology Of a word , if wewant to know its original or its most ancient meaning.

It 1s generally supposed that prayer was at first whatits name implies in English, a petition. Our ownword prayer is derived from a mediaeval Latin wordprecar ia ,

literally a bidding-prayer. In Latin wehave precar i , to ask, to beg, but also to pray in amore general sense ; for instance , in such expressionsas precari ad dcos, to pray to the gods , which doesnot necessarily mean to ask for any special favours.We have also the substantive press, mostly used in theplural preces , meaning a request , but more particularlya request addressed to the gods, a prayer or supplication. Procne, also , a wooer or suitor, and procaaz,a shameless beggar

,both come from the same source.

Not published before.

ANCIENT PRAYERS.

Originally the root from which these Latin words arederived had the more general meaning of asking orinquiring . It occurs in this sense in Sanskrit prasne ,question, and in prikkhfimi , to ask . We have thesame element in Gothic fm ihnan , and in the modernGerman fragm , to ask. Even the German forschen ,

to inquire , which gives us fibrsckung, Forscher, andSprachforscher , a student Of language, was derivedfrom the same root. If, then , by prayer was meantoriginally a petition

,we ask once more, Was it really

so very natural that people in all parts of the world,in ancient as well as in modern times

,should have

asked beings whom they had never seen to give themcertain things, something to eat or something todrink , though, as a matter of fact, they knew thatthey had never directly received anything of the kindfrom these invisible hands ?It used to be said that prayers were originally

addressed to the spirits Of the departed , and not togods. This opinion has been revived Of late , butwithout much success . Historical evidence there isof course none, and no one would say that it wasmore natural to ask these departed spirits for valuable

gifis than the gods . As a matter Of fact, they hadnever been known to bestow a single tangible gift ontheir worshippers. Of course, there may have beencases where , as soon as a man had prayed to thespirit Of his father to send rain on the parched fields ,rain came down from the sky ; but the fact that evenwe call such fulfilments precarious, that is prayer-likeor uncertain (for precarious is likewise derived fromprecari), shows that we cannot call a belief in theefiicacy Of prayer very natural.

88 LAST assu re.

Prayer becomes in reality more natural and intelligible when it is addressed, not to ancestral spirits ,who are Often conceived as troublesome beggars ratherthan as givers, but to certain phenomena of nature inwhich men had recognized the presence Of agents whobecame everywhere the Oldest gods.As the rain came from the sky, and as the sky was

called Dyaus in Sanskri t, Zeus in Greek , we mayindeed call it natural that the Athenians when theysaw their harvest—that is, their very life, destroyedby d rought, should have said : Be er, 31 (MAG Zeii,

A

xarfz 1139 dporipas rm :’

A0nuac'

wv m l 7 6 1: nebimv.

‘Rain, rain,0 dear Sky, down on the land Of the

Athenians and on the fields 1

it repeated almost in the same words among theHottcntots . Georg Schmidt, a Moravian missionarysent to the Cape in 1 737 , tells us that the natives atthe return Of the Pleiades assemble and sing together,according to the Old custom Of their ancestors , thefollowing prayer : O Tiqua

,our Father above our

heads , give rain to us , that the fruits may ripen andthat we may have plenty of food , send us a good year “.

But though prayers like these may , in a certainsense, he called natural and intelligible, they presuppose nevertheless a long series Of antecedents .

People must have fram ed a name for sky,such as

Dyauc, which originally meant Bright or Light, orrather the agent and giver Of light ; they must haveextended the sphere Of action assigned to this agentso that he would be conceived not only as the giver

Scienceq/Languagc, New Edi tion, 1 892 , ii. p . 546.

Introduction to the Scienceof Religion,p. 282.

ANCIENT Pu rses . 39

of light and warmth, but likewise as the giver Of rain,and at the same time as the lord of the thunderstorm

,

as the wielder Of the thunderbolt, as the most powerfulamong the actors behind the other phenomena Of thesky . Only after all this had been done

,could they

think Of calling that Zeus or that Dyaus,dear (cit es) ;

and you perceive how that one word dear at oncechanges the sky into a being endowed with humanfeelings

,a being dear to human beings and not

altogether unlike them .

Now with regard to the belief Of the ancient peoplein the efficacy Of prayer and the fulfilment of theirpetitions , we must remember that the chances betweenrain and no rain are about equal . If

,then , after

days of drought a prayer for rain had been uttered ,and there came rain , what was more natural thanthat those who had prayed to the sky for rain shouldOffer thanksgiving to the sky or to Zeus for havingheard their prayer, and that a belief should graduallygrow up that the great gods Of nature would hearprayers and fulfil them. Nor was that belief likelyto be shaken if there was no rain in answer to prayer ;for there was always an excuse . Either it might besaid that he who Ofi

'

ered the prayer had committeda mistake— this was a very frequent explanation— or

that he was no favourite with the gods ; or , lastly ,that the gods were angry with the people , and therefore would not fulfil their prayers .It might seem that it would have been just the

same with prayers addressed to the spirits of thedeparted . But yet it was not quite so. The ancientgods Of nature were representatives Of natural powers ,and as Zeus, the god Of the sky, was naturally implored

40 LAST sssu s.

for rain , the divine representatives Of the sun wouldbe iml either to give heat and warmth or towithhold them. Lunar deities might be asked forthe return Of many moons

,that is to say, for a long

life, the gods Of the earth for fertility, the gods Of the

sea. for fair wind and weather, the gods Of rivers forprotection against invaders, or against the invasionof their own floods. But there was nothing specialthat the spirits Of the departed would seem

,able to

grant . Hence the prayers addressed to them are

mostly Of a more general character. In moments Ofdanger children would, by sheer memory, be remindedOf their fathers or grandfathers who had been theirguides and protectors in former years when threatenedby similar dangers . A prayer addressed to the

departed spirits for general help and protectionmight, therefore, in a certain sense he called natural ;that is to say, even we ourselves, if placed undersimilar circumstances , might feel inclined to rememberour parents and call for their aid , as if they werestill present with us , though we could form no ideain what way they could possibly render us any

Let us see , then , what we can learn about prayersfrom the accounts furnished to us Of the religions Ofuncivilized , or sO-called primitive, people. We oughtto distinguish between three classes Of religion, calledethn ic, natimwl, and ind ividual . The religions Of

unorganized tribes , in the lowest state of civilization ,have been called d hn ic, to distinguish them from the

religions Of those who had grown into nations , andwhose religions are called nat ional, while a thirdclass comprises all religions which claim individual

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42 LAST ssssrs.

a ghost to be ? Still , one thing is quite clear, thatthese spiritual and ghostly beings Of the Mclanesiansare invisible , and that nevertheless they receiveworship and prayers from these simple-minded people .

Some of their prayers are certainly interesting. Someof them seem to be delivered on the spur Of themoment, others have becom e traditional and are Oftensupposed to possess a kind Of miraculous power,probably on account Of having proved efi cacious onformer occasions.There is a praycr uscd at sca and addressed to

Daula,a ghost, or, in their language , a tindalo

‘DO thou draw the canoe, that it may reach the land : speed mycanoe, grandfather, that I may quickly reach the shore whither Iam bound. DO thou , Daula, lighten th e canoe, that it mayquicklygain the land and rise upon the shore. ’

Sometimes the ancestral ghosts are invoked to

‘Save us on the deep, save us from the tempest, bring us to theshore

TO people who live on fish, catching fish is Oftena matter Of life and death . Hence we can well understand a prayer like the following

‘ If thou art powerful , 0 Daula, put a fish or two into this notand let them die there.'

We can also understand that after a plentiful catchthanks should have been offered to the same beings ,if only in a few words , such asPowerful is the tindalo of the net.'

This is all very abrupt, very short, and to thepoint. They are invocations rather than real prayers,Some of these utterances become after a time charms

handed down from father to son, nay, even taught to

ANCIENT sau nas. 43

others for a consideration. They are then called1

Again, if a man is sick, the people call out thename Of the sick man

,and if a sound is heard in

response, they say, Come back to life,’

and then run

to the house shouting,He will live.’

All this to a strict reasoner may sound very un

reasonable ; still, that it is in accordance with humannature, in an uncivilized and even in a civilized age,can eas ily be proved by a comparison Of the prayersof other people

,which we shall have to consider

hereafter.If it is once believed that the ghosts can confer

benefits and protect from evil,it is but a small step

to call on them to confound our enemies . Thus weread that in Mota when the oven is Opened forpreparing a meal , a leaf of cooked mallow is thrownin for some dead person. His ghost is addressed wi ththe following wordsO Tataro l ’ (another nam e for the ghosts) ‘ this is a lucky bi t

for your eating ; they who have charmed your food, or haveclubbed you—take hold of their hands, drag them away to hell,lot them be dead l ’

And ifi afler thh the man against whom this im

precation is directed meets with an accident, theycry out

‘Oh,oh ! my curse in eating has worked upon h im—he is dead.

’

In Fij i prayer generally ends with these malignantrequests

‘Let us li ve, and let th ese that speak evil Of us perish ! Let the

enemy be clubbed, swept away, utterly destroyed, piled in heaps !Let their teeth be broken . May they fall headlong in a pi t. Letus live

,and let our enem ies perish l’

Codrington, The Melanesiam , chap. ix.

44 LAST sssu s.

We must not be too hard on these pious savages, forwith them there was only the choice between eatingor being eaten

,and they naturally preferred the

Before eating and drinking, the ghosts of the departed were often remembered at the fam ily meal .Some drops of Kava were poured out, with the

‘Tataro,grandfather, this is your lucky drop of Kava ; let boars

come to me ; let mwc come in to me : th e money I have spen t, letit come back to m e the food that is gone, let it com e back hitherto the house of you and me !

’

On starting on a voyage they say‘Tataro, uncle ! father ! Plenty of boars for you, plenty of

races, plenty of m oney ; Kava for your drinking, lucky food foryour eating in the canoe. I pray you wi th this, look down upon

me, let me go on a safe sea !’

Prayers addressed to spirits who are not mereghosts or departed souls, but connected with someof the phenomena of nature, seem to enter more intodetail . Thus the Melanesians invoke two spirits (vui),

‘Qat ! you and Marawa, ’ they say , ‘cover over with your handth e blow-hole from m e

, that 1 may come in to a quiet landingplace ; let it calm well down away from m e. Le t the canoe of youand me go up in a quiet landing-place ! Look down upon me

,

prepare the sea of you and me, that I may go on a safe sea. Beatdown the head of the waves from me ; let the tide—rip sink downaway from me ; beat it down level, that it may go down and rollaway

,and I may come into a quiet landing-place. Let the canoe

of you and me turn into a whale, a flying fish , an eagle ; let itleap on end over the waves, le t it go, let it pass out to my land. '

If all went well, need we wonder that the peoplebelieved that Qat and Marawa had actually comeand held the mast and rigging fast, and had led thecanoe home laden with fish ! If, on the contrary,

ancrss 'r sau nas. 45

the canoe and its crew were drowned,nothing could

be said against the spirits , Qat and Marawa, and thepriests at home would probably say that the crewhad failed to invoke their aid as they ought to havedone, so that, as you see, the odds were always infavour of Qat and Marawa.Nowhere is a belief and a worship of ancestral

spirits so widely spread as in Africa. Here,therefore

,

we find many invocations and petitions addmssed tothe spirits . Some of these petitions are very short.Sometim es nothing is said beyond the name of thespirits . They simply cry aloud

,

‘People of our house. ’

Sometimes they add,like angry children, what they

want, ‘People of our house ! Cattle ! ’ Sometimesthere is a k ind of barter. ‘People of our house ,

’

they say,

‘ I sacrifice these cattle to you , I pray formore cattle

,more com

,and many children ; then

this your home will prosper,and many will praise

and thank you .

’

A belief in ancestral spirits or fathers leads on ,very naturally

,to a belief in a Father of all fathers,

the Great Grandfather as he is sometimes called . Hewas known even to so low a race as that of the

Hottentots, if we may trust Dr. Hahn , who haswritten down the following prayer from the mouthof a Hottentot friend of his

‘Thou , O Tani-gm ,

Thou Father of Fathers ,Thou art our Father !Let stream the thunder-cloud !Let our flocks live !Let us also live !

46 LAST assess.

Art thou not our Father,The Father of Fathers,Thou, Tsui-goa ?Oh, that we may praise thee,That we may give thee in return,Thou Father of Fathers,Thou, O Lord,Thou, O Tsui-goa ! ’

This is not a bad specimen of a savage prayer ; nay,it is hardly inferior to some of the hymns of the Vedaand Avesta.The negro on the Gold Coast

,who used formerly to

be classed as a mere fetish-worshipper, addresses hispetitions neither to the spirits of the departed nor tohis ao-called fetish , but he prays , ‘ God , give me to-dayrice and yams ; give me slaves, riches ; and health !Let me be brisk and swift ! ’ When taking m edicine,they say, Father Heaven (Zn? mirep) ! bless thismedicine which I take .’ The negro on Lake Nyassaoffers his deity a pot of beer and a basketful of m ealand cries out, ‘Hear thou , O God , and send rain ,while the pe

ople around clap their hands and intone

a prayer, saying, ‘Hear thou,O God.

’

The idea that the religion of these negro racesconsists of fetish-worship is wellnigh given up. Ithas been proved that nearly all of them address their

prayers to a Supreme Deity, while these fetishes areno more than what a “ lineman or a horse-shoe wouldbe with us. Oldendorp, a missionary of large caperience in Africa, says

‘Among all the black natives with whom I became acquainted ,even the m ost ignorant, there is none who does not believe inGod , give H im a name , and regard Him as a maker of th e world .

Besides th is supreme beneficent deity, whom they all worship ,they believed in m any inferior gods, whose powers appear inserpents, tigers, rivers, trees , and stones. Some of them are

ANCIENT m u s s. 47

malevolent, but the negroes do not worship the bad or cruel godsthey only try to appease them by presen ts or sacrifices. Theypray to the good gods alone. The daily prayer of a Watia negrecswas, “ God, I know Thee not, but Thou knowest me. I need ThyM p 1

” ,

This is a prayer to which an Agnostic need not

A Roman Catholic Missionary,Father Loyer, who

studied the habits of the natives of the Gold Coast,says the same.

‘I t is a great mistake, ’ he wrote, ‘ to suppose that the neg oceregard the two-called fetishes as gods. They are only charms oramulets. The negroes have a belief in one powerful being, towhom they ofier prayers. Every morn ing they wash in the river,put sand on their head to express their humi lity, and, lifting uptheir-hands, ask their G-od to give them yams and rice and other

So much for the prayers of races on the very loweststage of civi lization. Dr. Tylor

,whose charming

works on Primitive Culture we never consult invain, tells us, ‘ that there are man/y races who distinctly admit the existence of spirits , but are notcertainly known to pray to them

,even in thought”

I doubt whether there are many I confess I knowof none ; and we must remember that, in a case likethis

,negative evidence is never quite satisfactory .

Still,on the other hand

,Mr. Freeman Clarke seems

to me to go too far when, in his excellent work onThe Ten Great Religions (part ii, p he calls thecustom of prayer and worship, addressed to invisiblepowers

,a universal fact in the history of man. It

may be so, but we are not yet able to prove it, andin these matters caution is certainly the better part

Clarke, Tm Religions, ii. p. 1 10.Primitive Culture, ii . p. 330.

48 mar sssavs.

of valour. Nothing can well be lower in the scale ofhumanity than the Papuans. Yet the Papuans ofTanna offer the first-fruits to the ghosts of theirancestors , and their chief, who acts as a kind of highpriest, calls out

‘Compassionate Father ! there is some food for you ; eat it, andbe kind to us on account of it i ’

And this the whole assembly begins to shout together‘.

The Indians of North America stand decidedlyhigher than the Papuans ; in fact, some of theirreligious ideas are so exalted that many studentshave suspected Christian influences 2. The Osages ,for instance, worship Wohk onda, the Master of Life ,and they pray to him

‘0Wohk onda, pity me, I am very poor ; give me what I need

give me success against my enemi es, that I may avenge the deathofmy friends. May I be able to take scalps, to take horses

John Tanner tells us that when the AlgonquinIndians set out in their frail boats to cross LakeSuperior, the canoes were suddenly stopped whenabout two hundred yards from land

,and the chief

began to pray in a loud voice to the Great Spirit,saying

‘You have made this lake, and you have made us , your children ;

you can now cause that the wate r shall remain smooth , while we

He then threw some tobacco into the lake, and theother canoes followed his example. The Delawaresinvoke the Great Spirit above to protect their wivesand chi ldren that they may not have to mourn for

Compare Turner, Polynesia, p. 88 ; Tylor, m am Quinn'

s, ii .

Po 33°

p. 1 95.

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50 m ar assay s .

has not left Himself without witness among anypeople. To me

,I confess

,this ancient Mexican

literature , and the ancient Mexican civilization , asattested by architecture and other evidence of socialadvancement, have been a constant puzzle . In onesense it may be said that not even the negroes ofDahomey are more savage in their wholesale butcheriesof human victims than the Mexicans seem to havebeen

,according to their own confession . Not dozens ,

but hundreds , nay, thousands of human beings wereslaughtered at one sacrifice, and no one seems to haveseen any harm in it. The Spaniards assure us thatthey saw in one building skulls , and that theannual number of victims was never less thanIt was looked upon almost as an honour to be selectedas a victim to the gods , and yet these people had themost exalted ideas of the Godhead , and at the time ofthe conquest they were in possession of really beautifuland refined poetry. There are collections of ancientMexican poems, published in the original , with whatprofesses to be a literal translation 1 . No doubt,whoever collected and wrote down these poems wasa Spaniard and a Christian. Such words as Dias forGod, Angel for angel, nay, even the names of Christand the Virgin Mary occurring in the original poems ,are clear evidence to that effect. But they likewiseprove that no real fraud was intended . Some poemsare professedlyChristian

,but the language, the thought ,

and the style of the majority of them seem to meneither Christian nor Spanish . I shall give a fewspecimens , particularly as some of them may really

AncientPoetry, by B rinton, 1 887 .

w orm rasmas. 5 1

Wh ere shall my soul dwell Where is my home 9Where shall be my house I am miserable on earth .

We wind and we unwind the jewels, the blue flowers are wovenover the yellow ones , that we may give them to the ch ildren .

Let my soul be draped in various flowers, let it be intoxicatedby them ; for soon must I weep, and go before the face of ourmother.

Th is on ly do I ask : thou G iver of Life,be not angry, be not

severe on earth, let us live with th ee on earth , and take n-to thyheavens .

B ut what can I speak truly here of the G iver of Life We onlydream , we are plunged in sleep. I speak here on earth, but nevercan we here on earth speak in worthy terms.Although it may be jewels and precious ointments of speech,

yet of the Giver of Life one can never speak here in worthy terms.’

Or again

‘How much , alas ! shall I weep on earth ? Trult ave livedin vain illusion . I say that whatever is here on earth must endwith our lives. May I be allowed to sing to thee, the Cause of all,there in the heaven , a dweller in thy mansion ; then may mysoul lift its voice and be seen with thee and near thee, thee bywhom we live, ohuaya l oh uaya ?

There is a constant note of sadness in all theseMexican songs ; the poet expresses a true delight inthe beauty of nature , in the sweetness of life, but hefeels that all must end ; he grieves over those whomhe will never see again among the flowers and jewelsof this earth, and his only comfort is the life that isto come . That it was wrong to dispatch thousandsof human beings rather prematurely to this life tocome— nay, to feed on their flesh—seems never to havestruck the m ind of these sentimental philosophers .In one passage of these prayers the priest saysThou shalt clothe the naked and feed the hungry, for remember

M M is (him, and they are men like0m}

But the practical application of this commandmentis seen in their sacrifices in all their ghastly hideousnoes.

52 LAST assu re.

All the prayers which we have hitherto examinedbelong to the lowest stage of civilization

,and imply

the very simplest relation between man and someunseen powers. If addressed to the ghosts of theded ,

these invocations are not much more thana continuation of what might have passed betweenchi ldren and their parents while they were stillalive . If addressed to the spirits of heaven or otherprominent powers of nature, they are often butpetulant, childish requests, or mean bargains betweena slave and his master. Yet, with all this , theyprove the existence of a belief in something beyondthis finite world, something not finite

,but infinite

,

something invisible,yet real. This belief is one of

the many proofs that man is more than a mereanimal, though I am well aware that believers in theso-called mental evolution of animals have persuadedthemselves that animals also worship and pray. Andwhat is their evidence ? Certai n monkeys in Africa

,

they say, turn every morning towards the rising sun,

exactly like the Parsees or sun-worshippers . If they donot utter any sound, it is supposed that their feelingsof reverence are too much for them ; if they do notbeg

,it is, perhaps , because they know that the lilies

of the field are clothed and fed without having topray. It is no use arguing against such twaddle.It is perfectly true, however, that in many casesthe unuttered prayei stands higher than the utteredprayer , and that there comes a time in the history ofreligion when prayer in the sense of begging is condemned . A silent inclination before the rising sun

may lift the mind to a more sublime height than themost elaborate litany

,but whether it is so in the case

ascran'

r sau nas. 3

of these monkeys who turn their faces to the risingsun, we must leave to Dr. Garnier to decide , who isnow studying the language of the gorillas in Africa.I have often quoted the words of a poor Samoyedewoman , who , when she was asked what her prayerwas

,replied : “Every morning I step out of my tent

and how before the sun and say : When thou risest,

I too rise from my bed .

” And every evening I say :When thou sink est down, I too sink down to rest.Even this utterance , poor as it may seem to us asa prayer

,was to her a kind of religious worship.

Every morning and evening it lifted her thoughtsfrom earth to heaven , it expressed a silent convictionthat her life was bound up with a higher life. Hernot ask ing for anything, for any special favour, evenfor her daily bread

,showed lik ewise somewhat of

that wonderfu l trust that the fowls of the air are fed ,though they sow not

,neither do they reap, nor gather

We have hitherto examined the incipient prayersof uncivilized or semi-civilized races . For even theMexicans and Peruvians

,whose prayers and literature

as well as their archiWctural remains point to whatmay be called civilization before their conquest bythe Spaniards

,stand nevertheless lower than many

savages when we consider the wholesale slaughterof human victims at their sacrifices, and the un

deniable traces of cannibalism to the latest periodof their national existence .

We have now to consider some of the religionswhich are called national. They have grown up ata time when scattered tribes had grown into compact

54 LAST assay s.

never appealed to as authorities . The most importantamong them are the religions of China, of India, ofPersia

,of Greece and Rome .

When we speak of the ancient religion of China .

sometimes called Confucianism ,we often forget that

Confucius himselfprotests most strongly against beingsupposed to have been the author or founder of thatrehgwn Again and again he says that he has onlycollected and restored the old faith . In the sacredbooks of China which he collected there are hardlyany prayers . It is not till quite modern times thatwe meet with prayer as an essential part of publicworship: It does not follow from this that theCh inese people at large were ignorant of privateprayers , whether addressed to their ancestors, or tothe gods of nature, or to the Supreme Spirit, inwhom they believed ; but it is curious to observe evenin Confucius a certain reserve , a certain awe thatwould prevent any familiar intercourse between manand God . Thus he says : ‘Reverence the spirits

,but

keep aloof from them .

’

There is a curious prayer recorded as having beenoffered by an Emperor of China in the year I 538 .

It was on a memorable occasion when the name ofthe Suprem e Deity was to be alte red . The old namefor God in China was Tie'n, which means heaven , justas Dyaus and l ens, according to their etymology

,

meant heaven . Even we can still say, I have offendedagainst heaven ’

; and what do we mean by saying, forinstance

,

‘He lives , heaven knows how’

l In theancient books Shang-Tien also is used for Tien . Thism eans high heaven, and makes it quite clear thatit was intended as a name of the Supreme Deity.

ancrmrr raavaas . 5 5

Another name for spirit was Ti , and this name byitself, or with Shang prefixed ,

became the recognizedname for God as the Supreme Spirit

,used often in

the same sentences as interchangeable with Tien '.

When the appointed day came, the Emperor and hiscourt assembled around the circular altar. Firstthey prostrated themselves eleven times , and thenaddressed the Great Being as he who dissipated chaosand formed the heavens

,earth

,and man.

The proclamation was as followsI, the Emperor, have respectfully prepared th is paper to inform

the spirit of the sun,the spirit of the moon, the spiri ts of the five

planets, of the stars, of the clouds, of th e four seas, of the greatrivers, of the present year, &c. , that on the first of next month weshall reverently lead our oflicers and people to honour the greatname of Sha g s . We inform you beforehand , O ye celestial andterrestrial spirits

,and will trouble you on our behalf to exert

your spiritual power, and display your vigorous efi cacy, commu

n icating our poor desire to Strong ti, praying him to accept our

worship,

and be pleased with the new title which we shallreverently present to him .

’

We see here how the Chinese recognized,between

man and the Supreme Ti,9. number of intermediate

spirits or ti ’s, such as the sun, moon, stars , seas , andrivers , who were to communicate the prayer of theEmperor to the Supreme Being. That prayer ranas follows

“Then, 0 Ti,d idst Open the way for the form of matte r to

operate ; thou , 0 Spirit, didst produce the beautiful light of thesun and moon, that all thy creatu res migh t be happy.

Thou hast vouchaafed to hear us, 0 Ti, for thou regardest us asthy children. I , thy ch ild, dull and ignorant , can poorly expressmy feelings . Honourable is thy great nam e. ’

Then food was placed on the altar, first boiled meat,

Ie gga Sam d Books o/W EM iii p. 24.

56 m s'r assays.

and cups of wine, and Ti was requested to receivethem with these words :

‘Th e Sovereign Spirit deigns to accept our ofl’

ering . G ive thypeople happin ess. Send down thy favour. All creatures are

upheld by thy love. Then alone art the parent of all things.The service of song is now completed

,but our poor sincerity

cannot be expressed aright. The sense of thy goodness is in our

heart. We have adored thee, and would unite with all spirits inhonouring thy nam e . W e place it on this sacred sheet of paper ,and now put it in the fire, with precious silks, that the smoke maygo up with our prayers to the distant blue heavens. Let all theends of the earth rejoice in thy name .

’

I doubt whether even in a Christian country anyarchbishop could produce a better official prayer. Itis marked by deep reverence

,but it also implies

a belief that the close relationship between fatherand son exists between the Supreme Spirit and man.

It is a hymn of praise rather than a prayer, and evenwhen it asks for anything, it is only the divinefavour.When we now turn from China to the ancient

religion of India, we find there a superahundance ofprayers. The whole of the Rig-veda consists ofhymns and prayers, more than a thousand ; the Semaveda contains the same prayers again , as set tomusic

,and the Yajur-veda contains verses and

formulas employed at a number of ceremonial acts.Were these hymns spontaneous compositions , orwere they composed simply and solely for the sakeof the sacrifices , both public and private ? There haslately been a long and somewhat heated controversy

,

carried on both by Aryan and Semitic scholars , asto the general question whether sacrifice comes firstor prayer. It is one of those questions which mayhe argued ad infi nitwm , and which in the and pro

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5 8 LAST sssars.

which presuppose a very elaborate ceremon ial anda very complete priesthood

,I was

,I believe

,the first

to point out ; but to say that all Vedic hymns werecomposed for ceremonial purposes is to say what cannot be proved. At a later time they may all havebeen included as part of the regular sacrifices, j ust asevery psalm is read in church on appointed days .But we have only to look at some of the best-knownVedic hymns and prayers , and we shall soon perceivethat they are genuine outpourings of personal feelings

,

which had not to wait for the call of an officiatingpriest before they could make their appearance. Onepoet says

‘Let me not yet, 0 Varuna, enter into the house of clay ’

(thegrave) ; ‘have mercy, Alm igh ty, have mercy !If I go along trembling, like a cloud driven by the wind, have

mercy, Alm ighty, have mercy !Through want of strength , th ou strong and bright god, have Igone to the wrong shore ; have mercy, Almigh ty, have mercy !Thirst came upon thy worshipper

,though he stood in the midst

of th e waters ; have mercy, Alm ighty, have mercy !Whenever we men

, 0 Vam aa, comm it an cflence before theheavenly h ost, whenever we break thy law through thoughtlessness, have mercy, Almighty, have mercy

Now, I ask, had a post to wait till a poem waswanted for a funeral service

,or for the sacrifice of

a horse,before he could compose such verses ? Is

there a single allusion to a priest,or to a sacrifice in

them ? That they, like the rest of the Rig-veda, mayhave been recited during certain ceremonies , whowould deny ? But if we see how verses from differenthymns , and from different Mand alas , or collections ofhymn s

,have to be patched together before they become

serviceable for sacrificial purposes , we can eas ily seethat the hymns must have existed as poems before

ascmnr PRAYERS. 59

they were used by the priests at certain sacrifices .Why should there have been a Rig-veda at all , thatis to say

,a collection of independent hymns

,if the

hymns had been composed simply to fit into thesacrificial ceremonial ? The hymns and verses as

fitted for that purpose are found collected in theYagur and Same-vedas . What then was the objectof collecting the ten books of the Rig-veda

,most of

them the heirlooms of certain old families,and not

of different classes of priests ? Then ,again , there is

what the Brahmanic theologians call fi lm,that is

,the

slight modification of certain verses so as to makethem serviceable at a sacrifice . Does not that showthat they existed first as independent of ceremonialemployment ? However, the strongest argument isthe character of the hymns themselves . As clearlyas some , nay, a considerable number, of them weremeant from the first to be used at well-establishedsacrifices

,others were clearly unfit for that purpose .

At what sacrifice could there be a call for the despairing song of a gambler, for the dialogue betweenSarama and the robbers

,for the address of Visvamitra

to the rivers of the Penjab, for the song of the frogs ,or for the metaphysical speculations beginning with‘ There was not nought

,there was not ought ’ As

part of a sacred canon any verse of the Rig-vedam ight afterwards have been reciwd on solemn occa~sions , but the question is, Did the inspiration comefrom these solemn occasions

,or did it come from the

heart ? It is extraordinary to see what an amountof ingenuity has been spent both by Vedic and Biblicalscholars on this question of the priority of ceremonialor poetry ! But what has been gained by it in the

60 LAST assars.

end ? For suppose that in Vedic India a complete lymute ceremonial had reached as great a perfectionand complication as the Roman Catholic ceremonialin our time , would that prove that no one could thenor now have composed an Easter hymn or Christmascarol spontaneously

,and without any reference to

ecclesiastical employment ? When there is so muchreal work to be done , why waste our time on disentangling such cobwebs ?When we consider that the Rig-veda contains more

than a thousand hymns,you will understand how

constant and intimate the intercourse must have beenbetween the Vedic poets and their gods. Some ofthese hymns give us , no doubt, the impression ofbeing artificial , and in that sense secondary and late ,only we must not forget that what we call late in theVeda cannot well be later than 1 000 Here aresome more verses from a hymn addressed to Varuna,the god of the all-embracing sky

, the Greek Ouranos‘However we break thy laws from day to day, men as we are,

0 god, Varuna.Do not deliver us un to death

, nor to the blow of the furious, norto the wrath of the spi tefulTo propitiate th ee , O Varuna, we unbend thy m ind wi th songs,as the charioteer unt ies a weary steed.

When shall we bring h ither the man who is victory to thewarriors ? when shall we bring Varuna the far-see ing to be propitiated

He who knows the place of the birds that fly through the sky,who on the waters knows the ships ;He, the upholder of order , who knows the twelve m onths, with

the ofi'

ering of each , and knows the month that is engenderedafterwards ’

(evidently the th irteenth or intercalary mon th) :‘He who kn ows the track of th e wind, th e wide, the bright, the

mighty , and knows those who reside on h igh ;He, the upholder of order, Varuna, sits down among his people

he, the wise, sits down to govern.

ANCIENT m amas. 61

From thence, perceiving all wondrous things, he sees what hasbeen and what will be.May he, the wise, make our paths straight all our days ; may heprolong our li fe !Varuaa, wearing golden mail, has put on h is shining cloak, thespies sat down around h im.

’

(Here you see mythology and

anthropomorphism begin.)‘The god whom the acoflers do not provoke, nor the tormentersof men, nor the plotters ofmisch ief ;He who gives to men glory, and not half glory, who gives it evento ourselves.Yearnin g for h im

,the far-seeing, my thoughts move onward, as

kine move to their pastures.Let us speak together again, becausemy honey has been broughtthat thou mayest eat what thou likest, like a friend. ’ (Now, herepeople would probably say that there is a clear allusi on to a sacriheiei ofl‘ering of honey. B ut why should such an ofiering not beas spontaneous as th e words which are uttered by the poet

‘Did I see the god who is to be seen by all, did l see the chariot

above the earth He must have swepted my prayers. ’ (Thisimplies a kind of vision, while th e chariot may refer to thunderand lightn ing.)

‘0 hear this my calling, Var-um , be gracious now ! Longing forhelp

, I have called upon thee.Thou, O wise god , art lord of all, of heaven and earth ; hasten

on thy way.

That I may live, take from me th e upper rope, loose the m iddle,and rem ove the lowes t. ’ (These rapes probably refer to the ropesby which a vi ctim is bound. Here , however, they are likewisein tended for the ropes of sin by which the poet, as he told us, felthimself chained and strangled .)

These translations are perfectly literal ; they havenot been modernized or beautified , and they certainlydisplay before our eyes buried cities of thought andfaith , richer in treasures than all the ruins of Egypt,of Babylon , or N ineveh .

Even what are called purely sacrificial hymns areby no means without a human interest. One of theearliest sacri fices consisted probably in putting a logof wood on the fire of the hearth . The fire was called

62 LAST assay s.

Agni,in Sanskrit

,and we find the same name again

,

not indeed in Greek, but in the Latin Ign is . If anyother gift was thrown into the fire the smoke seemedto carry it up to heaven

,and thus Agni became the

messenger and soon the mediator between men andgods . He was called the youngest among the gods,because he was new every morning. Here is a hymnaddressed to himAgn i , accept this log which I offer thee, accept this my service ;

listen well to these my songs .With this log, 0 Agni, may we worsh ip thee, the son of strength,conqueror of horses ! and with th is hymn, thou high-born !May we, thy servan ts, serve thee wi th songs, 0 granter of riches,thou who lovest songs and delightes t in riches.Thou lord of wealth and giver of wealth, be thou wise and

powerful drive away from us the enemies !He gives us rain from heaven

,he gives us inviolable strength,

he gives us food a thousandfold .

Youngest of the gods, their messenger, their invoker, m ostdeserving of worsh ip , come, at our praise, to him who worshipsthee and longs for thy h elp.

For thou, O sage, goest wisely between these two creati ons '

(heaven and earth , gods and men) ,‘like a friendly messenger

between two hamlets.Thou art wise, and thou hast been pleased : perform thou,

intelligent Agn i, the sacrifice without in terruption, sit down on

th is sacred grass .

'

That this hymn contains what may be calledsecondary ideas , that it requires the admission ofconsiderable historical antecedents , is clear enough .

Agni is no longer a mere visible fire , he is the invisibleagent in the fire ; he has assumed a certain dramaticpersonality ; he is represented as high-born , as theconqueror of horses , as wealthy and as the giver ofwealth

,as the messenger between men and gods .

Why Agni,the fire, should be called the giver of rain

is not quite clear, but it is explained by the fire

w orm Ps s vsas . 63

ascending in a cloud of smoke , and by the cloudsending down the prayed-for rain. The sacred grasson which Agni is invited to sit down is the pile ofgrass on the hearth or the altar of the house whichsurr ounds the fire, and the log of wood is the fuelto keep the fire burning. All this shows an incipientceremonial which becomes more and more elaborate ,

but there is no sign that it had begun to fetter thewings of poetical inspiration.

The habit of praying , both in private and in public,continued through all the periods of the history ofIndian religion. One phase only has to be excepted ,that of Buddhism , and this wi ll have to be consideredwhen we examine what are called ind ividual incontradistinction to national religions. We need notdwell here on those later prayers of the Brahmans

,

which we find scattered about in the epic poems,in

the Pursues,and in the more modern sects established

in every part of the country . They are to us ofinferior interest, though some of them are decidedlybeautiful and touching.

According to Schopenhauer every prayer addressedto an objective deity is idolatrous . But it is importantto remark how much superior the idolatry of prayeris to the idolatry of temple-worship. In India, moreparticularly , the statues and images of their populargods are hideous

,owing to their unrestrained symbolism

and the entire disregard of a harmony with nature .

Yet the prayers addressed to Siva and Durga arealmost entirely free from these blem ishes , and oftenshow a concept of Deity of which we ourselves neednot be ashamed .

Nor need we dwell long on the prayers of the

64 LAST assay s.

ancient Greeks and Romans, because they are wellknown from class ical literature. We know how Priamprays before

.

he sets out on his way to the Greekcamp to ask for the body of his son . We know howNestor prays for the success of the embassy sentto Achilles, and how Ulysses ofi

'

ers prayers beforeapproaching the camp of the Trojans. We find inHomer pen itentialprayers, to confess sins and to askfor forgiveness ; bidd ing pro/31m ,

to ask for favours ;and thanksgiving prayers, praising the gods for havingfulfilled the requests addrewed to them . We neverhear, however, of the Greeks kneeling at prayer.The Greeks seem to have stood up while praying, andto have lifted up their hands to heaven , or stretchedthem forth to the earth. Before praying it was thecustom to wash the hands

,j ust as the Psalmist says

(xxvi.‘ I wi ll wash mine hands in innocency : so

will I compu s Thine altar , O Lord.

’

That prayer, not only public, but private also, wascommon among the Greeks we may learn from Platowhen he says that children hear their mothers everyday eagerly talking with the gods in the most earnestmanner, beseeching them for blessings. He also states ,in another place, that every man of sense beforebeginning any important work will ask help of thegods. Men quite above the ordinary superstitions ofthe crowd , nay, men suspected of unbelief, wereknown to pray to the gods . Thus Pericles is said ,before he began his orations , always to have prayedto the gods for power to do a good work. MayI mention here what I have not seen mentionedelsewhere, and what the widow of Sir Robert Peeltold Baron Bunsen

,who told it me

,that on the day

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66 LAST mean s.

they turned the palms of their hands backward andupward to heaven , shows that the Romans wished tosurrender themselves entirely to the will and pleasureof their gods. In later times the Romans became thepupils of the Greeks in their religious as well as intheir philosophical views

,80 that when we read

a prayer of Seneca it is difficult to say whether itbreathes Greek or Roman thought. Seneca prays(Clarke , The Great Religions, p. 233)We worship and adore the framer and former of the universe

governor, disposer, keeper ; H im on whom all th ings depend ;mind and sp irit of the world ; from whom all things spring ; bywhose spirit we live ; the divine spirit, diflused through all ; Godall-powerful God always present ; God above all other gods ; theewe worship and adere .’

The religion of the Amyrians and Babylonians, asfar as we know it from inscriptions , must likewise beclassed as one of the national religions

,whose founders

are unknown. Many of their prayers have beendeciphered and translated , but one almost hesitates toquote them or to build any theories on them

,because

these translations changeso very rapidly from year

to year. Here is a specimen of an Assyrian prayer,assigned to the year 650 B .o

May the look of pity that shines in thine eternal face dispel mys is.81“

May I never feel the anger and wrath of the God.

May my om iss ions and my sins be wiped out.

May I find recon ciliation wi th h im, for I am the servant of hispower

,the adorer of the great gods.

May thy powerful face come to my help ; may i t sh ine likeheaven, and bless me with happiness and abundance of riches.May it bring forth in abundance, like the earth , h appin ess andevery sort of good .

’

If this is a correct translation,it shows much deeper

feelings and much more simplicity of thought than

ANCIENT ras rsas. 67

translated by some of the most trusted of Cuneiformscholars . They are so very stiff and formal, andevidently the work of an effete priesthood

,rather

than of sincere believers in visible or invisible gods.Here follows one short specimen

‘O my God, who art violent (against me), receive (my sup

0 my Goddess, thou who art fierce (towards me ), accept (myprayer) .Accept my prayer (may thy liver bequieted) .O my Lord, long~sufl ering (and ) merciful (may thy heart beappease ! )By day, directing unto death that whi ch destroys me

, O myGod , interpret (the vision) .0my Goddess, look upon me and accept my prayer.May my sin be forgiven, m y my transgre ssion be cleansed.Let th e yoke be unbound , th e chain be looeed.

May the seven winds carry away my groan ing.May I strip onmy evil so that the bird bear ( it) up to heaven .

May the fish carry away my trouble, may the river carry (it)along.

May the reptile of the field receive (i t) from me ; may the watersof the river cleanse me as they flow.

Make me sh ine as a mask of gold.May I be pmcious in thy sight as a goblet of glass. ’

You see how advanced and artificial the surroundings are in which the thoughts of these Babylonianprayers move. There are cities and palaces , andgolden masks and goblets of glass

,of all of which we

see, of course , no trace in really ancient or primitiveprayers, such as those of the Veda.

We have now even Accadian prayers, older thanthose of N ineveh or Babylon

,but even they smell of

temples and incense rather than of the fresh air of the

Am ore simple Accadian prayer is the followingr 2

68 user ESSAYS.

‘God , my Creator, stand by my side,Keep thou the door of my lips, guard thou my hands,0 Lord of Light. ’

The following recommendation to pray is also

‘ Pray thou , pray thou ! Before the couch , pray !B efore the dawn is light, pray ! By the tablets and books, pray !By th e hearth, by the threshold, at the sun-rising,At the sun-setting, pray ‘

We enter into a different atmosphere when we stepinto the ruined temples of Egypt . Here, too , thethoughts strike us as the outcome of many periodsof previous thought, but they possess a massivenessand earnestness which appeal to our sympathy. Hereis a specimen

‘Hail to thee, maker of all beings, Lord of law,Father of the

Gods ; maker of men,creator of beasts ; Lord of grains, making

food for the beasts of the field. The One alone without a second.

King alone, single among the Gods ; of many names, unknownis th eir number.

I come to thee, O Lord of the Gods, who has existed from thebeginning, eternal God , who hast made all th ings that are. Thyname be my protection ; prolong my term of life to a good age ;may my son he in my place (after me) ; may my dignity rema inwith h im (and h is) for ever, as is done to the righteous, who isglorious in the house of the Lord.

Who th en art thou , 0 my father Am on ? B oth a father forgethis son ? Surely a wretched lot awaiteth h im who opposes Thywi ll ; but blessed is he who knoweth thee, for thy deeds proceedfrom a heart of love . I call upon thee, my father Amon l beholdme in the midst of many peoples unknown to me ; all nations areuni ted against me, and I am alone ; no other is wi th me. My manywarriors have abandoned me, none of my horsemen hath lookedtowards me ; and when I called them , none hath listened to myvoice . But I believed that Am on is worth more to me th ana milli on of warriors, than a hundred thousand horsemen , and

ten thousands of brothers and sons, even were they all gatheredtogether. The work of many men is nought, Amon will prevailover them .

’

W. Tallack , The Inward Light and Christ's Incarnation, p. 4.

ANCIENT PRAYERS. 69

This is a prayer full of really human fee lings , andit therefore reminds us of ever so many passages inother prayers . The des ire that the son may outlivethe father, or that the older people may not weep overthe younger

,meets us in a hymn of the Veda when

the poet asks— as who has not asked l— that the godsmay allow us to die in order so that the old may notweep over the young.

’

The idea that the help of Amen is better thana thousand horsemen is re-echoed in many a psalm ,

as when we read (P8 . cxviii . 9,‘ It is better to

trust in the Lord than to put confidence in pri nces.All nations comd me about : but in the name ofthe Lord will I destroy them .

’

If we now turn our eyes from what we calledethn ic and national religions to thwe religions whichclaim to be the work of an individual founder, andare therefore called ind ivid ual religions, we mustnot imagine that they really came ready made out ofthe brain of a sin

gle person . If the name individual

religion is used in that sense, the term would bemisleading, for every religion, lik e every language,carries with it an enormous amount of accumulatedthought which the individual prophet may reshapeand revive

,but which he could not possibly create

from the beginning. The great individual religionsare Zoroastria/nis'm, Mosaism , Christian ity, Mohammeda nis'm, and Buddhism . They are all called afterthe name of their supposed founders, and the fact

to them ,no doubt

,a peculiar character. But if we

take the case of Moses , the religion which he issupposed to have founded sprang from a Semitic soil

70 LAST assays.

prepared for centuries for the reception of his doctrines .

We know now that even such accounts as that of theCrw tion

,the Fall of Man, the Deluge, and the Tower

of Babel have their parallels in the clay tablets ofAssyria

,as deciphered by George Smith and others

,

and that as there is a general Sem itic type of languagewhich Hebrew shares in common with Babylonian

,

Arabic , and Syriac, there is likewise a general typeof Semi tic religion which forms the common background of all . In the case of Christianity

,we know

that Christ -came not to destroy, but to fulfil ; and inthe case o f Mohammedanism we may safely say thatwithout Judaism and without Christianity it wouldnever have sprung into existence. The ancient religionof Persia

,which is called Zoroastrianism

, after its

reputed author, is in many respects a continuation ,in some a reform , of the more ancient Vedic religion ;and exactly the same applies to Buddhism , which hasall its roots, even those with which it breaks, in theearlier religion of the Brahmsns . In one sense, therefore

,I quite admit that the classification into ethnic,

national,and individual religions may be misleading

,

unless it is carefully defined .

The first individual religion in India is Buddh ism,

which sprang from Brahmanism , though on manypoints it stands in opposition to it. This is particularly the case with regard to prayer. Therecomes a time in the life of religions as in the life ofindividuals when prayer in the sense of importunateasking and begging for favours and benefits has tocease

,and when its place is taken by the simple

words,

‘Thy will be done. ’ But in Buddhism thereare, as we shall see, even stronger reasons why prayer

m anner PRAYERS. 7 1

in the ordinary sense of the word had to be surrendered .

I had some years ago two Buddhist priests stayingwith me at Oxford. They had been sent from Japan

,

which alone contains over thirty mi llions of Buddhists,

to learn Sanskrit at Oxford . As there was no one toteach them the peculiar Sanskrit of the Buddhists,and I did not like their going away to a Ge rmanuniversity, I offered them my servmes . Of course

,

we had many discussions,and I remember well their

strong disapprobation of prayer,in the sense of

petitioning. They belonged to the Mahayana Buddhism

, and though they did not believe'

in a SupremeDeity or a creato r of the world

,they believed in a

kind of deified Buddha,while the Hinayana Buddhists

think of their Buddha as neither existent nor nonexistent. The Mahfiyfin ists adore their Buddha, theyworship him

,they medi tate on him

,they hope to meet

h im face to face in Paradise,in Sukhhvati . But such

was their reverence for Buddha,and such was their

firm belief in the eternal order of the world, or in theworking of Karma

,that it seemed to them the height

of impiety to pray, and to place their personal wishesbefore Buddha. I asked one of them whether, ifhe saw his child dying

,he would not pray for

its life , and he replied, No , he could not ; it wouldbe wrong, because it would show a wan t of faith !‘And yet,

’ I said to him ,

‘you Buddhists haveactually prayer-wheels . What do you consider theuse of them l ’

0 no,

’ he said, those are not prayer-wheels ; theyonly contain the names and praises of Buddha, butwe ask for nothing in return.

’

‘But,

’ I said, ‘ are not some of these wheels driven

72 LAST assay s.

by the wind like a wind-mill, others by a'

river likea water-millMy friend looked somewhat ashamed at first. But

he soon recovered himself, and saidAfter all , they remind people of Buddha, the law ,

and the Church,and if that can be done by machines

driven by wind or water, is it not better than toemploy human beings who , to j udge from the way inwhich they rattle off their prayers in your chapels

,

seem sometimes to be degraded to more prayingwheels l

’

But while we look in vain for bidding prayers inthe sacred literature of the Buddhists, we find in itplenty of m editations on the Buddha and the Buddhas,on saints

,past and future . While Pallas (ii . p. 1 68)

tells us that the Buddhists in Mongolia have not evena word for prayer, he gives us (ii . p . 386) specimenswhich in other religions would certainly be includedunder that name 1 .

‘Thou, in whom innumerable creatures believe, thou Buddha,

conqueror of the hosts of evil Thou, omniscient above all beings,come down to our world ! Made perfect and glorified in in

numerable bygone revolutions ; always pitiful, always gracious ,10, now is th e right tim e to confer loving bless ings on all creatures

Bless us from thy throne, whi ch is firmly established on a trulydivine doctrine, with wonderful benefits ! Th en

,the eternal

redeemer of all creatures, incline thy face with thy immaculatecom pany towards our kingdom ! In faith we bow before thee.Thou the perfecter of eternal welfare, dwelling in the reign oftranquillity, rise and come to us Buddha and Lord of all blessedrest ! ’

Very different from Buddhism with regard to prayeris Zoroastrianism . It encourages prayer in everyform , whether addressed to the Supreme Spirit,

Koeppen, Religion do: Buddha, i. p. 555 .

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74 LAST sssars .

And again1 .

‘Towards what country shall I turn ? Where shall I go toch'er my prayer ? Relations and servants leave m e. Neither myneighbours nor the wicked tyrants of the country wish me well.How shall I succeed in satisfying thee, 0 Mazda Ahura2 . I see that I am powerless, 0 Mazda ! I see that I am poor

in flocks, poor in men. I cry to thee, look at me, 0 Ahura !I expect from thee that happ iness which friend gives to friend.

To the teaching of vohu Mano (belongs) the fortune of Ashs .

3 . When w ill come to us the increasers of days ? When will thethoughts of the saints (the Saoshyants) arise, in order to supportby their works and the ir teach ing the good world To whom willVohu Mano come for prosperi ty ? As to me

,O Lord, I desire thy

instruction .

4. In th e district and in the country the wicked prevents theworkers of holiness from oflering the cow, but the v iolent man willperish by his on sets. Whoever, 0Mazda, can prevent the wickedfrom ruling and oppressing makes wise provision for the M e

'

(From Gotta Ushtacm‘

ti, Darmesteter,Yasna, p.

In the Zoroastrian religion prayer is no longer leftto the sudden impulses of indi viduals . It has becomepart of the general religious worship, part of theconstant fight against the powers of darkness andevil

,in which every Zoroastrian is called upon to

join . A person who neglects these statutable prayers ,whether priest or ’ layman, commits a sin. EveryParsi has to say his prayer in the morning and in theevening, besides the prayers enjoined before eachmeal, and again at the time of a birth, a marriage, ora death . Three times every day the Parsi has toaddress a prayer to the sun in his various stations ,while the priest, who has to rise at midnight, has foursuch prayers to recite . These three prayers, at sunrise , at noon, and at sunset, and possibly at midnight ,were not unknown to the people of the Veda, andthey became more and more fixed in later times .Mohammad gave great prominence to prayer as an

m emsr ream s . 7 5

outward form of religion. After the erection of thefirst mosque at Medinah he ordained the office of thecrier or muezzin , who from the tower had to callthe faithful five times every day to the recital oftheir prayers . The muezzin criedGod is great ! (four times). I bear witness that there is no god

but God (twice). I bear wi tness that Mohammad is the Apostleof God (twice) . Come hither to prayers (twice). Come hither tosalvation (twice). God is great. There is no other god but God .

'

In the early morning the crier adds‘Prayer is better than sleep.

'

The five times for this official prayer areBetween dawn and sunrise . (2) After the sun has

begun to decline . (3) Midway between this . (4 )Shortly after spnset. (5 ) At nightfall.These prayers are farz, or incumbent ; all others

are nafl , supererogatory, or eunuch, in accordancewith the practices of the prophet.Bwides these public prayers, private devotions are

often recommended by Mohammed,but we possess

few specimens of these personal prayers . Mohammed ,when speaking of the birds in the air, says that eachone knoweth its prayer and its praise

,and God

knoweth what they do. He recommends his followersto be instant in prayer and almsgiving.

‘When thecall to prayer soundeth on the day of congregation(Friday), then hasten to remember God,

’ he says ,‘ and abandon business ; that is better for you , if yeonly knew ; and when prayer is done, disperse in theland

,and seek of the bounty of God .

’ The followingmay serve as a specimen of a simple Mohammedanprayer. It has sometimes been called Mohammed ’s

76 LAST sssars.

‘Praise be to God, th e Lord of the Worlds !

The com passionate, the merciful !King of the day of judgement !Thee we worship

,and Thee we ask for help.

Guide us in the straight way,The way of those to whom Thou art gracious ,Not of those upon whom is Thy wrath

,nor of the erring

The only two of the individual religions whoseprayers we have not yet examined are the Jewish andChristian, and they are so well known that littleneed be said about them here . Little of any importance is said in the Old Testament about ceremonialprayer, as a recognized part of the public religiousservice

,but private prayer is everywhere taken for

granted . When we read in Isa . i. 1 5 ,‘And when

ye spread forth your hands,I will hide m ine eyes

from you : yes , when ye make many prayers, I willnot hear,

’ this seems to re fer to public rather than toprivate prayers (bnpoo iq) . At a later time we findamong the Jews, as among Persians, Brahmans , and

morning , noon, and evening. This is so natural athought that there is no need to imagine that onenation borrowed the twofold

,threefold

,or even the

fourfold prayer from another. The Jews were generally

,like the Greeks

,standing while saying their

prayers, but we also hear of cases where they benttheir knees, threw themselves on the ground , liftedup their hands

,smote their breasts , or in deep

mourning placed their head between their knees.The proper place for private prayer was the smallchamber in the house

,but we know how, when

prayer had become purely ceremonial, pious peopleloved to pray standing in the synagogues and the

ANCI ENT PRAYERS. 7 7

corners of the streets. The Hebrew Psalms , most ofwhich are prayers, stand out quite unique among theprayers of the world by their simplicity

,their power,

and majesty of language, though , like all collectionsof prayers, the collection of the Psalms too containssome which we could gladly spare . There are otherprayers put into the mouth of Abraham , Moses , David,Solomon , and other prominent characters by theauthors of the historical book s of the Old Testament

,

but hardly one of them approaches the higheststandard of the Psalms. In substance the prayer ofElijah, for instance, is but little superior to the prayerof the priests of Baal, and the slaughter of the priestsof Baal by Elijah’s own hand , after his prayer hadbeen granted, seems indeed more worthy of a priestof Baal than of the priest and prophet of the allmerciful Jehovah . Some of the private prayers of theJews have been preserved in the Talmud . They arevery beautiful

,and the Rabbis often pride themselves

on being able to match every petition of the Lord’sprayer in the Talmud . Why should they not ? Peoplewho are at all inclined to pray have all much thesame to say , so much so that there are few prayers inthe Sacred Books of the non -Christian religions inwhich , with certain restrictions, 8. Christian is notable to join with perfect sincerity . The languagechanges

,but the heart remains the same. We do not

deny that there is progress,that there is what is

called evolution,or , more correctly , historical con

tinuity , in the different religions of the world .

Another immrtant element is the parallelism ofvarious religions, which helps us to understand whatis obscure and seemingly without antecedents in one

78 LAST assay s.

religion by the fuller light derived from others. Sopowerful is the stream of religious development thatit often seems to land our boat on the very oppositeshore from where it started While the ancientprayers seem to say , Let our will be done, the las tand final prayer of the world is , Let Thy will be done .And yet we can watch every step by which thehuman mind or the human heart changed from theone prayer to the other. Here it is where an his

most precious fruit. It teaches the followers of

we can but understand each other, we can more easilybear with each other. My Buddhist pupil would notpray even for the life of his child. What did he meanby this, if not, ‘Thy will be done

’

? Macy a Christianmother will say

,Thy will be done ,

’ yet she will addcomplainingly

,

‘ If Thou hadst been here, he would.

not have died.

’

INDIAN FABLES

AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM 1.

0 country has,I believe

,sufi

'

ered so much fromwhat are called travellers’ tales as India.

Before it had been discovered or invaded by Alexanderthe Great, it seemed to the rest of the world surroundedby a halo of fable and mystery. And even after ithad been brought within the horizon of other nationsof antiquity , it still continued to be looked upon asa land of wonders and fairy-tales . Almost anythingthat was told of its natural products

,or of the

primaeval wisdom of its inhabitants, was readilybelieved , repeated, and even exaggerated by successivewriters. The ancient Greek writers knew really verylittle about India, but almost all they have to say ofit bears this mysterious and marvellous stamp .

Homer probably knew nothing about India. If somescholars hold that his twofold Ethiopians were m eantfor the inhabi tants of India

,all we can say is, that,

like so many other things, it is possible, but that,from the very nature of the case, it can neither beproved nor disproved. The Homeric name Aitk iopsis no doubt connected with aitho to burn ,

’ and mayhave been meant originally for people with burnt ordark faces

,while aithops, as applied to metal and

rm n 0mm , May, i 893 .

80 LAST ESSAYS.

wine,may be translated by ‘fiery ’ or ruddy .

’ Knowingthat India was the richest source of fables , whichin later times were spread over the whole world

,

Welcker 1 has put forward a conjecture that Atsépos ,the fabulous inventor of fables

,was originallyAttkdpos ,

a black man, possibly from India. The change of thinto 8 is

,no doubt, irregular , but, with all respect for

the sacredness of phonetic laws, we ought not to shutour eyes to the fact that in proper names , and moreparticularly in names ofmythologyand fable , anomaliesand local dialectic varieties occur which would not betolerated in ordinary words . The change of th into 8would be perfectly legitimate, for instance , in theAeolic 2 and in the Doric 3 dialects, and it can easilybe understood how a proper name , formed accordingto the phonetic rules of one dialect

,might be taken

over and remain unchanged in others,even if their

phonetic laws were different.In Germany

,for instance

,if a man is called Schm id t

at Berlin,he would not be called Sm id at Hamburg,

nor should we call him Smith in England. We callthe composer Wagner, not Waggoner . If

,therefore ,

the old fable poet Afthdpos became first known inGreece under his Aeolic name of Atsdpos , there wouldhave been little inducement to change his name backinto Aithdpos. This is a consideration that has beenfar too much neglected in the treatment ofmythologicaland other preper names, and there is no phonetic baragainst Aesdpos having meant originally the same asA ithiops , burnt or dark-faced . If we m ight go a stepfurther

,and take A itkiops as an old name of the

inhabitants of India or the far East,this would, no

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82 LAST essay s.

we actually find the same application ofm dla z'

cstv'

g ia

retrm um in a fable related by the Kafiirs in South

Plato seems well acquainted also with the fable ofthe donkey in a lion’s skin 1 . The Greek proverb61m: wapdm fovs‘ seems to be applied to men boas tingbefore people who have no means of knowing theircharacter or testing their statements . It presupposesthe existence of some kind of fable of a donkeyappearing in a lion’s skin . In the Pafikatantras thefable is told of a dyer who, being too poor to feed hisdonkey , put a tiger

’s skin over him and sent him intohis neighbour

’s field. Here he browsed unmolestedtill one day he saw a female donkey. Thereupon thedisguised tiger began to bray, and the owner ofthe field , now summoning up courage , came and

Here the coincidences are so m inute that one feelsmore inclined to admit an actual borrowing , alwayssupposing that Aesop could have introduced some ofthe Eastern fables from India to the Greeks of AsiaMinor

.

before the time of Alexander the Great.After Homer’s time , the first Greek traveller

,or

rather sailor, who knew anything about India frompersonal experience was Skylax, who , at the commandof Darius, undertook his voyage of discovery to themouth of the Indus about 509 Unfortunatelythe account of his expedi tion which he is said to havewritten is lost to us, but Hekataeos of Miletos , whodied in 486 n. o.

, knew it and relied on it in his ownaccount of India .

This work of Hekataeos too is lost, but it served as1 Km tyl, p . 4 1 1 .

mnu x m ew s AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM 83

authority to Herodotus, who in what he has to sayof India relies chiefly on him and on the informationwhich he himself could gain from people in Persia .

Herodotus tells us the first traveller ’s tale aboutIndia . A traveller’s tale, however , need not be anintentional falsehood. Travellers’ tales arise fromvery different sources . There is in many people an

irresistible tendency not only to admire, but also tomagnify . This may he called a very pardonableweakness . It is quite right that we should neverlose the power of admi ring ; it is quite right that weshould always look up to things and to men also, andhave eyes for what is great and noble in them ratherthan for what is small and mean . A traveller whohas lost the gift of admiring would far better stay athome . But we may admire and yet praise withdiscrim ination and moderation. There are people

tremendous , colossal, or, as the French say, pyramidalin fact

,to use a more homely expression, all their

geese are swans . I do not speak of people who adm irebecause what they admire is somehow connected withthemselves. When parents admire their children orgrandchildren

,when teachers praise their pupils

,when

every one declares his own college , it may be , his ownboat

,his own university, his own country, the best in

the world , we may call it parental love, appreciationof rising merit, loyalty and patriotism , and all therest

,though in the end we cannot help suspecting

that there is in all this a minute dash of selfishness .But even apart from all selfish motives , there are

people who cannot resist giving a high colouring toG 2

84 LAST xssxrs.

all they have seen or heard , who delight in themarvellous , if only to make people stare , and whoenjoy that subtle sense of superiority which arisesfrom having seen or heard what nobody else has seenor is ever likely to see or hear. Nearly all ghoststories of which we hear so much at present arise,I believe , from that source . We all know perfectlywell that no one has ever seen a ghost ; for a ghostthat can be seen , that is, produce vibrations whichimpinge on our eyes

,must be something material, and

ceases ipsofacto to be a ghost. But there seems to besomething distinguished and aristocratic in havingseen a ghost. It is like having been presented to thePope or the Sultan

,or like having seen the sea-serpent.

To express any doubt o r to attempt anything likecross-exam ination is considered as almost rude, if notunorthodox . Here lies the real danger of travellers ,and here is one source of what we call travellers’

tales . But there is another source , namely simplemisapprehension. Unless a traveller is familiar withthe language of the people whom he undertakes todescribe , m isunderstandings are inevitable. We allknow the m istakes which Frenchmen make whendescribing the manners and customs of the English,and if we have our laugh at them , we may be quitesure that they have their laugh at us. I remembera distinguished friend of m ine whose book on Englandhas become classical in France , expressing his surpriseto me that his English landlady had brought hima beef-steak with buttered toast. To him this wasbut another proof of the low state of culinary art inEngland. The fact was , the poor woman had takenhis pronunciation of the word potatoes for bu ttered

IND IAN ru ne s AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM 85

toast, and had carried out his orders as well as she could ,an pied de la lettre. If that happens in our days offree international intercourse , how much more mustan ancient Greek

,when -travelling alone in Egypt or

Persia,have been liable to misunderstand what he

heard and saw, and what could hardly be explained tohim except by signs and gestures ? Nor must weforget that there are people who take a m ischievouspleasure in telling strangers what is supposed toamuse them, but what they are hardly intendedto believe . If a Frenchman were to ask an Englishmanwhether husbands may still sell their wives inSm ithfield market, I should not be at all surprised if,from sheer delight in m ischief, he were told by somewag to go to the market and convince himself of thecruelty of the English law and of English husbands .It happened to me only the other day that a mostintelligent German professor, who had been dining inseveral colleges, assured me that in Oxford men andwom en went about in the streets ringing a bell tosumm on the undergraduates from the streets to theirdinners in Hall . Some friend had told him so , he hadcarefully entered it in his note-book

,and I had the

greatest difficulty in persuading him that he had beenchafi

'

ed,and that the men who rang the bell in the

streets were simply trying to sell the Oxford Times .

Men were much the same thousands of years ago asthey are now , and there is no disrespect in supposingthat what happened to a German professor in Oxfordmight have happened to Herodotus in Egypt or toCtesias in Persia.

Herodotus was not himself in India, nor had be anybooks on India which he could have consulted except

86 LAST resars .

those of Skylax and Hekataeus. But though he didnot reach India he was in Persia, and Persia and Indiawere such near neighbours that there were probablymany commercial travellers from India in Persia, andfrom Persia in India. Certainly some of the thingshe tells us about India sound very much like storiesof commercial travellers , possibly m isunderstood byHerodotus himself, or palmed off on him by a waggishfellow traveller. He probably asked how it came topass that India was so rich in gold , and he was told

(iii . 1 02) that in the desert north of Kashm ir therewere ants larger than foxes, who dug up the gold .

He believed it. How an animal can be an ant withsix legs, and yet as large as a fox with four legs , hedoes not explain . Some of these ants, however; he tellsus

,and had probably been told so himself

,were caught

and brought to Persia. These fox-like ants,or ant-like

foxes,he says , make themselves dwellings beneath

the earth , and in doing so dig up the sand , which isfull of gold . In order to collect this gold the Indianstie three camels together, a female in the middle, onethat has j ust had a foal , and two males on each side .

The rider sits on the female camel,and after he has

filled his bags with gold he rides away full gallop .followed by the ants , who , it seems , want to recovertheir gold . The female camel, wishing to get hometo her young one, runs so fas t that the rider escapesfrom the pursuit of the ants, and brings home his bagsfull of gold .

Many explanations have been preposed of theseants . A recent traveller suggested that the ants weresimply the inhabitants of the country who lived incaves and were clothed in a peculiar way. But many

I NDIAN FABLES AND s so'

rsmc BUDDH ISM 87

years ago,in 1 843

1, Professor Wilson had called

attention to the gold mentioned in the Mahébhfirata,

and brought as tribute to Yudhishthira from the

Tibetan borderlands . This gold is called in Sanskritant-gold , because it is dug up by ants which arecalled pipiltkas in Sanskrit 2.Now here we clearly see that the poet of the

Mahabharata believed that the ao-cs lled ant-gold wasdug up by ants . Everything else must have beenadded by the Indians who told the Persians

,or by

the Persians who told Herodotus . But we may goeven a step further. Pipilika, or ant-gold, need nothave meant gold dug up by ants

,but gold found

almost on the surface,so that ants m igfet dig it up .

Travellers’ tales could easily have supplied all therest. When we speak of virgin-gold

,we do not mean

that it was dug up by virgins,but that it is as pure

as a virgin. In the same manner,gold lying so near

the surface that it wright be dug up by ants couldwell have been called ant-gold.

The Greek writer who is responsible for mosttravellers’ tales about India is Ctesias , who l ived inPersia as physician to the king Artaxerxes Mnemon .

His books on India and Persia are lost,but they

have often been quoted,and there is a large collection

of fragments . He had a very bad reputation evenamong the ancient Greeks on account of the incredible stories which he to ld . In fact he is simply calleda liar. But it should be stated that many of his incredible stories are not pure inventions, but were due

Joum . Roy . Asiatic Soc , vi i . p. 143 .

Tad val pipih’

kam nAma uddhn‘

tam yat pipilikaih gl tarupam

dronamayam alien-shut puitgaso nrp .

88 LAST sasu s.

to such misunderstandings as are almost inevitablebetween people speaking different languages . Weknow, for instance , that the Hindus were very fondof describing hostile neighbours as evil Spirits orRakshasas . All the hideous features which theirimagination had conjured up in describing uncannyspirits

,ghosts , ogres , and goblins were afterwards

transferred to the m ore or less savage tribes withwhom they came in contact in India, or on thefrontiers of India. It is not unusual , even with us ,to hear the Kafirs talked of as black devils. Nowonder that travellers who heard these descriptionsof half-imaginary beings , or of black devils, shouldhave taken them for descriptions of real beings inIndia. Anyhow, we can prove in several cases thatwhat Ctesias and others represent as real monstersliving in some part of India correspond with thedevils of Hindu folklore . He tells us, for instance ,of a real race of men who lived on the mountainswhere the Indian reed grows , and where their num ber,he says , is no less than Their wives bearoffspring once only in their whole l ifetime . Theirchildren have teeth of perfect whiteness

,both the

upper set and the under,and the hair both of their

head and of their eyebrows is from their infancyquite grey , whether they be boys or girls. Indeed ,

every man among them , till he reaches his thirtiethyear, has all the hair on his body white, but fromthat time forward it begins to turn black

,and by the

time they are sixty there is not a hair to be seen uponthem but what is black. These people

,both men and

women alike, have eight fingers on each hand andeight toes on each foot. They are a very warlike

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90 LAST assu re.

Ganges , they are located by the Hindu poets ina division of the terrearial heaven . In the epicpoetry of India 1 another race is mentioned calledKam aprfivarana (lit. those who used their cars as

a covering), who dwelt in the southern region . Skylax

already had mentioned a race whom he calls ’

.Qr6Amvoc,

having shovel-sized ears , and at a late r time Megasthenes also speaks of ’

v roxo(rac, that is , people whoslept in their ears. It is possible that these wereraces who had artificially distend ed their ears , a customwhich we find among other savages also , but it ispossible also that what are called ears were originallylappets , made of skins or metal, protecting the earsin battle ; nay, it has been suggested that , as in thecase of the god Ganesa

,some of these imaginary races

were represented with elephant-heads in which the

cars would naturally form a very promm ent feature .However that may be , I think we are j ustified in

saying that Ctesias was not a simple liar, or a travellerwho thought he could say anything as long as itamused his readers . It seems that he simply lenta willing ear to the more or less imaginative Orientalswith whom he came in contact. He had a taste forthe marvellous, he seized on it, and allowed himselfto magnify what had caught his own fancy. Thetemptation was much greater in his time, as therewas no one likely to control his statements or tocontradict him . This , I believe, is the genesis of mosttravellers ’ tales ; and what is curious is, that therehas always been a large public delighting in whatis marvellous and absurd , nay, taking an actual pridein their ability to believe it all.

310d ii i . 297 ; v. 16137.

IND IAN FABLES AND HsorBa BUDDH ISM 91

Marvellous stories about India continued to be told ,not only In ancient times

,when there was little chance

of checking them ,but during the whole of the Middle

Ages . Even Marco Polo cannot be quite absolvedfrom the charge of romancing , and it is curious toobserve how some of the very stories which we seein Ctesias turn up again in Marco Polo

’s Travels .

Ctesias speaks , for instance , of people with hands ofdogs, the Kynoloephalo i, and he states that they havelarge and hairy tails , both men and women . Thestory of the tails may possibly be traced back to suchnames as Sunahsepa, Sunahpukkka, Sunolangula, allmeaning Dog-tail

,and belonging to persons mentioned

in the Veda. We have lately heard a good deal ofhow it came to pass that during the Middle Ages theFrench believed that Englishmen had tails (Anglicaudat'i). That the heads of certain savage raceswere like the heads of dogs is

,no doubt, within the

lim its of possibility, and that they were black , hadteeth , tails, and voices of dogs , would soon follow.

Some baboons are called Kynok ephaloi , and as weknow from the Ramayana that the army of Rfimaincluded baboons or Vdnaras, who, however, likethe Kynok ephaloi of Ctesias , understood and spokethe language of the people (p . we see here , too ,som e vague elements from which Ctesias could wellhave framed his fairy-tales . What Is curious is, thatMarco Polo, when describing the Andaman Islanders ,should use the same expression

,and describe them

as people having heads like dogs , and teeth and eyeslikewise ; in fact, in the face they are , he says, justlike big mastiff-dogs— they are no better than wildbeasts.

92 LAST BssArs.

The persistence of these stories is extraordinary .

Not long ago Babu Sohfiri Dds,in his book on the

manners and customs of the Hindus,related that an

old woman once told him that her husband, a sepoyin the British army, had told her that he had himself .

seen a people who slept on one ear and covered themselves with the other 1 . But I must linger no longeron these early travellers’ tales about India, andproceed to those of more recent origin.

One would have thought that after the discoveryof the sea road to India in the sixteenth century

,and

still more after the discovery of the ancient literatureof India

,through Sir William Jones and his fellow

workers, these tales would have ceas ed . And so theydid to a ce rtain extent . We hear no more of raceswith dogs’ heads

,with one eye

,or with one leg on

which they managed to run faster than anybody else ,nor of people with one foot so large that they wereable to use it as a parasol when lying on their backsin hot weather. But a new and equally strange classof fables has taken their place . India continuedto be considered as the home of a people possessedof mysterious wisdom . As it had been proved thatSanskrit, the ancient language of India, was clearlyrelated to Greek , Latin , and the other Aryan languages

,it was supposed that all these languages were

derived from Sanskrit,and came from India ; and,

as some of the Greek deities had been traced backto Vedic deities

,India was believed to have been the

birthplace of all the Greek gods . India was , in fact,

M astic Manners and Customs of theHindus. Benares, 1860. 1nd .

Am‘ (May, p° 133: n

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94 LAST mean s.

were , as usual , in favour of the impossible— viz. ofour possessing at last the original scrolls writtenby the hand of Moses . So it was here. Scholarsmight show that after the Semitic nations had oncebecome Sem itic, and the Aryan nations Aryan , therewas no community of language and religion possiblebetween them . The more incredible things are , themore ready people seem to be to believe them .

However, the Nemesis came at last. The MSS. ofLieutenant Wilford were examined once more , andit was found that the leaves containing the OldTestament stories had all been skilfully foistedOf course

,Pandits are able to write Sanskrit even

now, and far better than our classical scholars canwrite Latin . However, the curious part is, that evenafter the whole matter had been cleared up , afterSir William Jones had openly declared that he hadbeen deceived , after Lieutenant Wilford bad in themost honourable way expressed his regret for whathad happened , these articles crop up again and again ,like Australian rabbits . They continue to be quoted ,they are quoted even now, till it seem s almost impossible ever to exterminate them .

Another more recent case is that of a Frenchman,

M . Jacolliot. He was President of the Court of Justiceat Chandernagore, and, being a j udge, I need notsay how constantly he is quoted by his adm irers asa j udge

,and as the highest authority in judging

of evidence . He has written a number of books :I saw the other day an advertisement of his worksin twenty-five volumes . The best known is his LaBi ble dam l

’

I nde. In it his object is to show thatour civilization , our religion , our legends, our gods,

INDIAN rxsnss AND sso'rsmc BUDDHISM 95

have come to us from India,after passing in succession

through Egypt,Persia, Judaea, Gm , and Italy .

This statement, we are told, has been admitted byalmost all Oriental scholars . This is a strange assertion. I do not know of a single Ori en tal scholarwho has admitted this statement. Even ProfessorWhitney in America calls M . Jacolliot a bungler anda humbug The Old and New Testaments

,we are

told by M . Jacolliot, are found in the Vedas , and thetexts quoted by the French judge in support of hisassertion

“

are said to leave it without doubt . Brahmacreated Adima— Le. Adam— and gave him for companion He

'

va . He appointed the island of Ceylonfor their residence. Then he gives us a most charmingidyll of the life of Adima and Heva in paradise ,extracts from which may be read in Selected Essays,ii . p . 479 .

N0 one acquainted with Sanskrit or Pali litera turecan doubt for a single moment that all the ao-calledtranslations from ancient Sanskrit texts are mereinvention

,whatever M . Jacolliot

’

s friends may sayto the contrary . All that can possibly be said forhim is what I said about Herodotus and Ctesias.He may have m isunderstood what was told him , hemay have received buttered toast instead of potatoes,or he may have been taken in as Ctesias was , nay,as Lieutenant Wilford was. He confesses as muchhim self. ‘One day

,

’ he writes 3,

‘when we were reading the translation of Mann by Sir W . Jones , a noteled us to consult the Indian commentator, Kullfik aBhatta, when we found an allusion to the sacrificeof a son by his father prevented by God Himself

I sis, i . p. 47. Selected Essays, ii. p. 474.

96 LAST sssavs.

after He had commanded it. We then had only oneidle flare — namely, to find again in the dark massof the religious books of the Hindus the originalaccount of that event . We should never have succeeded but for the em plaisance of a Brahm an withwhom we were reading Sanskrit, and who, yieldingto our request, brought us from the library of hispagoda the works of the theologianRamatsariar, whichhave yielded us such precious assistance in thisvolume.’

Now I say again there is no scholar who knowsSanskrit or Pali , whether he has lived in India or not,who would not simply smile at all this . I said sowhen Jacolliot’s book first appeared , and I am sorryto say I was in consequence insulted and almostassaulted in my own house by an irate adm irer ofJacolliot’s . However, even Jacolliot has been outbidby M . Edouard Schuri, whose eloquent arti cle on theLegend of Krishna was actually accepted and published by the Revue des Dew : Mond es of 1 888 ,

pp. 285 - 32 1 .

You can easily understand that it is represented ‘as the height of professional conceit that scholars likemyself

,who have never been in India

,should venture

to doubt statements mad e by persons who have spentmany years in that country . This has always beena very favourite argument. If Sanskrit scholarsdiffer from writers who have been twenty years inIndia

,they are told that they have no right to speak ;

that there are MSS . in India which no one has everseen

,and that there are nati ve scholars in possession

of mysteries of which we poor professors have noNineteenth Cenmry, May , 1893.

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98 m ar sssars.

were not allowed to learn the Veda by heart, thisarose from a social far more than from a religiousprej udice . Again, it is quite true that the doctrinesof the Vedanta or the Upanishads were sometimescalled Rahasya, that is, secret ; but this , too, meantno more than that teachers should not teach theseportions of the Veda except to persons of a certain ageand properly qualified for these higher studies . Whenwe hear Aristotle called the Smaller Mysteries andPlato the Greater Mysteries

,this does not mean that

their writings were kept secret. It only meant thatstudents must first have learnt a certain amoun t ofGreek and have qualified themselves for these moreadvanced studies , j ust as students at Oxford advancestep by step from the smaller to the greater mysteries

,

that is , from Smalls to Mods , and from Mode. toGreats. Greats may be great mysteries to a freshman , but no one is excluded from participation inthem , if only he feels inclined to he initiated.

But if there was nothing mysterious about Brahmanism , it is sometimes thought there m ight be somemysteries hidden in Buddhism . A scholarlike studyof Buddhism came later in Europe than a scholarlikestudy of Brahmanism

,and the amount of rubbish that

was written on Buddhism before the knowledge ofPali and Sanskrit enabled scholars to read the sacredtexts of the Buddhists for themselves is sh ply appalling . Buddhism was declared to be the originalreligion of mankind , more ancient than Brahmm sm ,

more ancient than the religion of the Teutonic races ;for who could doubt that Buddha was the same nameas that of Wodan

’

l Christianity itselfwas representedas a mere plagiarism , its doctrines and legends were

INDIAN rABLss AND ssorsme BUDDH ISM. 99

supposed to have been borrowed from Buddhism,and

we were told that the best we could do in order tobecome real Christians was to become Buddhists .There exists at present a new sect of people who callthemselves Christian Bud dhists , and they are said tobe numerous in England and in France . The Journaldes De

’

bats of the roth of May,1 890, speaks of

ticularly in Ceylon, their number is supposed to bemuch larger.These are serious matters

,and cannot be treated

merely as bad jokes or erases. It is , indeed, veryimportant to observe that there is some foundationfor all these erases , nay, that there is method in thatmadness . There is , for instance, a tradition of aDeluge in the Veda as well as in the Old Tes tamentthere is in the Veda the story of a father willing, atthe command of the god Varuna, to sacrifice his son .

Nor can it be denied that there is a very great likenessbetween some moral doctrines and certain legends ofBuddhi sm and Christianity. We ought to rejoice atthis with all our heart, but there is no necessity foradmitting anything like borrowing or stealing on oneside or the other. A comparative study of the t e

ligions of antiquity has widened our horizon so much ,and has so thoroughly established the universality ofa certain amount of religious truth , that if we foundthe Ten Commandments in the sacred books of theBuddhists we should never think of theft and robbery ,but simply of a common inheritance. We actually findthe Dasasila, the Ten Commandments, in Buddhism ,

but they are not at all the Ten Commandments ofMoses. It is different when we come to facts and

H 2

100 LAM ESSAYS.

legends . When it is pointed out that with regard tothese also there are great sim ilarities between the lifeof Christ and the life of Buddha

,I feel bound to

acknowledge that such similarities exist,and that ,

though many may be accounted for by the commonsprings of human nature , there are a few left whichare startling

,and which as yet remain a riddle.

It is owing, no doubt, to these coincidences thata very remarkable person , whose name has latelybecome familiar in England also , felt stronglyattracted to the study of Buddhism . I mean

,of course

,

the late Madame Blavatsky, the founder of EsotericBuddhism. I have never met her , though she ofien

prom ised, or rather threatened , she would meet me

face to face at Oxford . She came to Oxford andpreached , I am told, for six hours before a numberof young men

,but she did not inform me of her

presence . At first she treated me almost like aMahat ma , but when there was no response I became ,like all Sanskrit scholars , a

°

very untrustworthyauthori ty. I have watched her career for many yearsfrom her earliest appearance in America to her deathin London last year. She founded her N ameplate

Society at New York in 1 875 . The object of thatsociety was to experiment practically in the occultpowers of Nature , and to collect and disseminateamong Christians information about Oriental religiousphilosophies . Nothing could be said against suchobjects , if only they were taken up honestly, andwith the necessary scholarly preparation. Later on ,however

,new objects were added

,namely to spread

among the benighted heathen such evidences as to thepractical results of Christianity as will at least give

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102 LAM xssArs.

Madame Blavatsky was one of those who wantmore than a merely traditional and formal faith , and ,in looking round

,she thought she could find what

she wanted in India . We are ready to give MadameBlavatsky full credit for deep religious sentiments

,

more parti cularly for the same strong craving fora spiritual union with the Divine which has inspiredso many of the most devout thinkers among Christians

,

as well as among so-called heathen. Nowhere hasthat craving found fuller expression than am ong thephilosophers of India, particularly among the Vedantaphilosophers . Like Schopenhauer , she seems to havediscovered through the dark mi sts of imperfect translations some of the brilliant rays of truth which issuefrom the Upanishads and the ancient Vedanta philosophy of India.

To India, therefore, she went with some friends ,but, unfortunately. with no knowledge of the language , and with very little knowledge of what shem ight expect to find there, and where she ought tolook for native teachers who should initiate her inthe mysteries of the sacred lore of the country. Thatsuch lore and such mysteries existed she never doubtedand she thought that she had found at last what shewanted in Dayfinanda Sarasvati , the founder of theArya-Samaj . His was , no doubt, a remarkable andpowerful mind , but he did not understand English ;nor did Madame Blavatsky understand either themodem or the ancient languages of the country. Stillthere sprang up between the two a mutual thoughmute admiration , and a number of followers soongathered round this interesting couple . However, thismute admiration did not last long, and when the two

INDIAN FABLES AND ssorasrc BUDDH ISM . 103

began to understand each other better they soon discovered that they could not act together . I am afraidit can no longer be doubted that Dayfinanda Saras vatiwas as deficient in moral straightforwardness as his

American pupil . Hence they were both disappointedin each other

,and Madame Blavatsky new determined

to found her own religious sect— in fact, to founda new religion , based chiefly on the old religions ofIndia .

Unfortunately , she took it into her head that it wasincumbent on every founder of a religion to performmiracles , and here it can no longer be denied that sheoften resorted to the most barefaced tricks and impositions in order to gain adherents in India. In thisshe succeeded more than she herself could have hopedfor. The natives felt flattered by being told that theywa s the depesitaries of ancient wisdom ,

far morevaluable than anything that European philosophy orthe Christian religion had ever supplied . The nativesare not often flattered in that way

,and they naturally

swallowed the bait. Others were taken aback by theassurance with which this new prophetess spoke ofher intercourse with unseen spirits , of letters flyingthrough the air from Ti bet to Bombay , of showers offlowers falling from the ceiling of a dmingm m

,of

saucers disappearing from a tea-tray and being foundin a garden , and of voices and noises proceeding fromspirits through a mysterious cabinet. You may askhow educated people could have been deceived bysuch ordinary jugglery ; but with some people thepower of believ ing seems to grow with the absurdityof what is to be believed . When I expressed myregret to one of her greatest admirers that Madame

104 LAM sssArs.

Blavatsky should have lowered herself by these vulgarexhibitions

,I was told, with an almost startling

frankness , that no religion could be founded withoutmiracles , and that a religion, if it was to grow, must

be nwmured . These are the fipswsrlma verba of onewho knew Madame Blavatsky better than anybodyelse ; and after that it was useless for us to discussthis subject any further.But

,as I said before, I am quite willing to allow that

Madame Blavatsky started with good intentions,that

she saw and was dazzled by a glimmering of truth invarious religions of the world, that she believed in thepossibility of a mystic union of the soul with God

,and

that she was most anxious to discover in a large numberof books traces of that the080phic intuition which re

unites human nature with the Divine. Unfortunately,

she was without the tools to dig for those treasures inthe ancient literature of the world , and her m istakesin quoting from Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin would beama if they did not appeal to our sympathyrather for a woman who thought that she could flythough she had no wings , not even those of Icarus.Her book

,called I sis Unveiled , in two volum es of

more than 600 pages each , bristling with notes andreferences to every kind of authority

,both wise

and foolish , shows an immense amount of drudgeryand m isdirected ingenuity. To quote her blunderswould be endless . Of what character they are willbe seen when I quote what she says about the serpentbeing the good or the evil spirit ‘. In this case ,

’ shewrites

,

‘the serpent is the Agathoda imon , the good

spirit ; in its opposite aspect it is the Kakothodai‘ i ow as

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106 LAST BssAYS.

would never have failed to con tain a few hymns on the terribledisaster which

,of all other natural man ifestations, must have

struck the imagination of the people who witnessed it.

’

Such hymns could only have been written by Noahor by Menu , and we possess , unfortunately, no poeticrelics of either of these poets

,not even in the Veda .

I must quote no more, nor is more evidence wanted ,

to show that Madame Blavatsky and her immediatefollowers were simply without bricks and mortarwhen they endeavoured to erect the lofty structurewhich they had conceived in their m inds . I give fullcredit to her good intentions , at least at first . I readilyacknowledge her indefatigable industry. She beganlife as an enthusiast but enthusiasts , as Goethe says ,after they have come to know the world , and havebeen deceived by the world

,are apt to become

deceivers themselves .The number of her followers

,however, has become

so large in India , and particularly in Ceylon , that themovement started by her can no longer be ignored.

There are Esoteric Buddhists in England also , inAm erica , and in France ; but I doubt whether in thesecountries they can do much harm . To her followersMadame Blavatsky is a kind of inspired prophetess .To me it seems that she began life as an enthusiast,though not without a premature acquaintance withthe darker sides of life , nor without a feminine weakness for notoriety . After a time, however, she ceasedto be truthful both to herself and to others . Butalthough her work took a wrong direction , I do notwish to deny that here and there she caught a glimpseof these wonderful philosophical intuitions which aretreasured up in the sacred books of the East . U n

INDIAN m amas AND ssorsmc BUDDH ISM . 107

fortunately she had fallen an easy prey to somepersons whom she consulted

,whoever they were,

whether Mahatmas from Tibet, or Panditammanyasin Calcutta, Bombay , or Madras. Disappointed inDaydnanda Sarasvati and his often absurd interpretations of the Veda

,she turned to Buddhism , though

again without an idea how or where to study thatreligion.

No one can study Buddhism unless he learns Sanskritand Phil, so as to be able to read the canonical books,and at all events to spell the names correctly. MadameBlavatsky could do neither, though she was quite cleverenough , if she had chosen , to have learnt Sanskrit orPali . But even her informants must have been almostentirely ignorant of these languages , or they musthave practised on her credulity in a most shamelessm anner. Whether she herself suspected this or not

,

she certainly showed great shrewdness in withdrawing herself and her description of Esoteric Buddhismfrom all possible control and contradiction . HerBuddhism , she declared, was not the Buddhism whichordinary scholars might study in the canonical books ;hers was Esoten

'

e Buddhi sm It is not in the deadletter of Buddhistical sacred literature ,

’ she says,that

scholars may hope to find the true solution of the metaphysical subtleties cf Buddhism . The latter weary thepower of thought by the inconceivable profundity ofits ratiocination : and the student is never fartherfrom truth than when he believes him self nearest its

We are told, also 3, that there was a prehistoric Buddhism which merged later into Brahmanism , and that this was the religion preached by Jesus

i . p. 289. u. p . 1 23.

108 LAST ESSAYS.

and the early Apostles . After we have been told thatthere was a 3 11d older than the Vedas—andwe m ight say with the same right that there wasa Christianity older than Moses—we are told nextof a pra Vedic Brahmm , and , to make all controversy impossible, Madame Blavatsky tells us thatwhen she uses the term Buddhism she does not meanto M ply by it either the exoteric Buddhism institutedby the followers of GauM a Buddha, nor the modernBuddhistic religion , but the secret philosophy ofSakyamuni , which, in its essence, is identical withthe ancient wisdom religion of the sanctuary, the preVedic Brahmanism .

’ Gautama,’ we are assured

,had

a doctrine for his elect,” and another for the outside

masses .’ Then she adds apologetically, ‘ If bothBuddha and Christ, aware of the great danger offurnishing an uncultivated populace with the doubleedged weapon of knowledge which gives power

,left

the innermost corner of the sanctuary in the profoundest shade , who that is acquainted with humannature can blame them for it i

’ Then why did she,being evidently so well acquainted with human nature ,venture to divulge these dangerous esoteric doctrines ?Though I must say what she does divulge seems veryharmless .With such precautions Madame Blavatsky

’

s EsotericBuddhism was safe against all cavil and all criticism .

As no one could control the statements of Ctesias asto a race of people who used their ears as sheets tosleep in , no one could control the statements of theMahatmas from Tibet as to a Buddhism for MadameBlavatsky to dream in. I do not say that no Mahatmasexist in India or in Tibet. I simply say that modern

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110 LAST sssu s.

asked why outsiders were always told that theMahMma sages dwelt beyond the Himalayan mountains. MI . Judge

,who is now the head of the

American Theosophists , replied that it was for seclusion .

‘ If they were anywhere in the United States ,’

he said,

‘ they would be pestered and interviewed byreporters.’ This admitted of no reply

,particularly in

America.

We,the pretended authorities of the West

,are told

to go to the Brahmans and Lamaists of the Far Orient,

and respectfu lly ask them to impart to us the alphabetof true science . But she gives us no addresses, noletters of introduction to her Tibetan friends

,though

in another place she tells usthat travellers have met these adapts on the shores of the sacredGanges, brushed against them in the silent ru ins of Thebes, andin the myste rious deserted chambers of Luxor. With in the hallsupon whose blue and golden vaults th e weird signs attract attention

,

bu t whose secret meaning is never penetrated by the idle gazers,they have been seen , but seldom re cognized Hi storical m emoirshave recorded their presence in the brilliantly illuminated salonsof European aristocracy. They have been encoun tered again on

the arid and desolate plains of the (h eat Sahara, as in the cavesof Elephan ts . They may be found everywhere, but make themselves known only to those who have devoted their lives to unselfishstudy, and are not likely to turn back (p.

We see that Madame Blavatsky might have achievedsome success if she had been satisfied to follow inthe footsteps of Rider Haggard , Sinnet, or MarionCrawford ; but her ambition was to found a religion ,not to make money by writing new Arabian Nights.

But when we come to examine what these depositaries ofprimaeval wisdom , the Mahatmas of Tibet andof the sacred Ganges, are supposed to have taught herwe find no mysteries, nothing very new, nothing very

INDIAN rAsLEs AND sso'

rs s rc BUDDH ISM. 1 11

old, but simply a medley of well-known thoughgenerally m isunderstood Brahmanic or Buddhisticdoctrines . There is nothing that cannot be trw ed

back to generally accessible Brahmanic or Buddhisticsources , only everything is muddled or m isunderstood .

If I were asked what Madame Blavatsky'

s Es otericBuddhism really is , I should say it was Buddhism misunderstood , distorted , caricatured . There is nothingin it beyond what was known already, chiefly frombooks that are now antiquated . The most ordinaryterms are mi sspelt and m isinterpreted . Mahd i/ma ,

for instance,is a well-known Sanskri t name applied

to men who have retired from the world, who, bymeans of a long ascetic discipline , have subdued thepassions of the flesh and gained a reputation forsanctity and knowledge . That these men are ableto perform most startling feats and to suffer the mostterri ble tortures is perfectly true. Some of them

,

though not many,are distinguished as scholars also ;

so much so that Mahatma— literally ‘ great-souled ’

has become an honorary title . I have myself had thehonour of being addressed by that name in manyletters written in Sanskrit

,and sent to rue— not,

indeed,through the air

,but through the regular post

othee— from Benares to Oxford . That some of theseao-called Mahatmas are impostors is but too wellknown to all who have lived in India. I am quiteready

,therefore

,to believe that Madame Blavatsky

and her friends were taken in by persons who pretended to be Mahfitmas , though it has never been

112 LAST ESSAYS.

to her own showing, quite unable to gauge thei rknowledge or to test their honesty

,and she naturally

shared the fate of Ctesias,of Lieutenant Wilford

,and

of M . Jacolliot.

That there are men in India,knowing a certain

amount of Sanskrit and a little English,who will say

yes to everything you ask them , I know from sadexperience ; and it would be very unfair to say thatsuch weaklings exist in India only. If people wishto be deceived , there are always those who are readyto deceive them . This , I think, is the most charitableinterpretation which we can put on the beginnings ofthat extraordinary movement which is known by thename of Esoteric Buddhism , nay , which , on accountof the similarities which exist between Buddhismand Christianity, claims in some places the name ofChristian Buddhism. On this ao-called ChristianBuddhism , and on the real similarities betweenBuddhism and Christianity , I may have somethingto say at another time. At present I only wish toshow that if there is any religion entirely free fromesoteric doctrines it is Buddhism . There never wasany such thing as mystery in Buddhism . Altogether,it seems to me that mystery is much more of a modernthan of an ancient invention . There are no realmysteries even in Brahmanism , for we can hardlyapply that name to doctrines which were not com

municated to everybody, but only to people who hadpassed through a certain preparatory discipline . Thewhole life of a Brahman In ancient India was undera certain control. It was divided into four stagesthe school, the household , the forest, and the solitude.Up to the age of twenty-seven a young man was

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1 14 LAM BssArs.

treated of Brahman and its relation to the individualsoul. This only, and more particularly the Upanishads, continued to be considered as really necessaryfor salvation. For salvation was by knowledge only ,or, as we should say , by faith, and not by works .The highest object of this contemplative life in the

forest was the finding of one ’s own soul, the savingof one ’s soul alive

,the discovery of the Atman, the

self, and not the mere Ego. This was no easy matter.Even in those early days the existence of a soul hadbeen denied . Some held that body and soul were thesame ; others, that the soul was the breath ; others,again,

that it was the Ego or the mind with all its

all the rest. The hermits in the forest,after they had

subdued all the passions of the body and wrenchedthemselves free from all its fetters , had now to learnthat the soul was something that according to its verynature could never be seen, or heard , or perceived likethe objective world which was visible and perishable ;because , if perceived , it would at once become something objective

,something totally different from the

perceiving subject. It would no longer be the soul .The unseen and unperceivable something which wasformerly called the soul was now called the self

,

Atman. Nothing could be predicated of it exceptthat it was

,that it perceived and thought, and that it

must be blessed . When they had once discoveredthat the Atman, the self within us , shared its onlypossible predicates with the Brahman, the invisibleself behind nature and behind the ao-called gods ofnature, the next step was easy enough— namely, thediscovery of the original identity of the self and of

INDIAN FABLES AND Bsorxs rc BUDDHI SM. 1 15

Brahman , the eternal oneness of man and God , thesubstantial identity of human and divine nature. Torestore that identity by removing the darkness ofignorance by which it had been clouded— to become

,

as we should say , one with God and He with us, orrather to lose our self, and find our self again in

God— that was henceforth the highest goal of theremaining years of the old man’s life in the forest.Was it not natural that these doctrines , which werecontained in the Upanishads , and which were afterwards minutely elaborated in the Vedanta-stitras,

should have been kept secret from the young andfrom those who had still to perform the practicalduties of life ? Nor was there much difficulty inkeeping them secret. For as in ancient India therewere no books

,and as all teaching was oral, a teacher

had to be found to communicate the doctrines of theUpanishads , and it was almost self-interest, if nohigher motive, that would have kept the teachersfrom communicating these ao-called mysteries. Still,whoever was fit to receive them had a right to becomeonce m ore a pupil in his old age

,and in that sense

the Upanishads were no more mysteries than anyother book which it is not good for young people toread . Nevertheless

,what happened to all mysteries

happened to the Upanishads also . Not that therewas any wish on the part of the young to share inthe ascetic life of their elders

,or any idle curiosity

to discover what enabled these solitary sages to preservesuch serenity of mind, such freedom from all desire s,and such perfect happiness during the last period oftheir life, spent in the peaceful shade of the forest.But the time came when those who had passed

1 2

1 16 LAST ESSAYS.

through all the trials and miseries of life , and whoafter a sto rmy voyage had found a refuge in theharbour of true philosophy, whose anchors were nolonger dragging, but resting firmly on the rock oftruth— the time came when these men themselves

,

conscious of the bliss which they enjoyed , said tothemselves , ‘What is the use of this dreary waiting

,

of all the toil of youth , of all the struggle of life, of allthe trouble of sacrifices , of all the te rrors of religion ,when there is this true knowledge which changes usin the twinkling of an eye , discloses to us our realnature , our real home , our real God i Th is thoughtI do not mean the belief in a union between the humanand the divine

,but this conviction that the preparatory

stages of student life and married life were useless ,and that it was better at once to face the truthhas always seemed to me the true starting -point ofBuddhism as an historical religion. Buddhism hascome to mean so many things that I always feela kind of shiver when people speak of Buddhism asteaching this or that. Buddhism had , no doubt, anhistorical origin in the fifth century B. O. , and therewere many causes which led to its rapid growth atthat time . But from a social point of view, the firstand critical step consisted in Buddha’s opening thedoors of a forest life to all who wished to enter,whatever their age , Whatever their caste . That lifein the forest, however, is not meant to be what itused to be In former times, a real retirement from thevi llage , and a retreat into the solitude of the forest ,but simply a retirement from the cares of the world ,a life With the brotherhood

,and a performance of the

duties imposed on the brotherhood by the founder of

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1 18 LAST ESSAYS.

almost impossible to conceive the possibility ofan entirely new religion quite as much as of anentirely new language. Mohammedanism presupposesChristianity, Judaism , and a popular faith prevailingamong the Arab tribes. Christianity presupposesJudaism and Greek philosophy ; Judaism presupposesan earlier and more widely spread Semitic faith, tracesof which appear in the inscriptions of Babylon andNineveh . Beyond the religion of the Mesopotamiankingdoms there sseems to have been an Accadianreligion, and beyond that our knowledge comes to anend. The ancient religion of Zoroaste r

,again , pre

supposes the Vedic religion, while the Vedic religionpoints to a more ancient Aryan background. Whatlies beyond that common Aryan religion is againbeyond the reach of history , nay, even of conjecture .

But it may certainly be stated that, as no human racehas ever been discovered without any language at all

,

neither do we know of any human tribe withoutsomething like a religion , some manifestation of aperception of a Beyond , or that sense of the Infinitebeneath the Finite , which is the true fountain head ofall religion .

Much as Buddhism in its later development differsfrom Brahmanism , Buddha

’s teaching would be quiteinconceivable without the previous growth of Brahmanism . This is too ofien ignored

,and many words

and concepts are treated as peculiar to Buddhismwhich were perfectly familiar to the Brahmans . Inmany cases , it is true, Buddha gave a new meaningto them , but he borrowed the substance from thosewho had been the teachers of his youth . It is generallyimagined , for instance , that N i r van a, about which so

INDIAN ru nes AND sso'

rxmc BUDDHISM. 1 19

much has been written , was a term coined by Buddha.

But Nirvana occurs in the Bhagavad-gita,and in

some of the Upanishads . It meant originally no morethan the blowing out or the expiri ng of all passion

,

the calm after the storm , the final emancipation andeternal bliss

,reun ion with the Supreme Spirit (Brahms.

nirvana), till in some of the Buddh ist schools, thoughby no means in all , it was made to signify completeextinction or annihilation. Whatever Nirvana mayhave come to mean in the end , there can be no doubtas to what it meant in the beginning— the extinctionof the fire of the passions . But that beginning liesoutside the lim its of Buddhism it is still within theold domain of Brahmanism .

The name, again , by which Buddha and his followerscalled themselves, and by which they first becameknown to Greeks and other nations— Sam ana— islikewise of Brahmanic growth . It is the Sanskri tS ram an a

,an ascetic or mendicant, derived from the

word cram,

‘ to toil, to weary.

’ Buddha was oftencalled ‘ Samano Gotamo,

’ the ascetic Gotamo, thoughit was he who put down the extreme tortures whichBrahmanic ascetics inflicted on themselves during thethird stage of their lives , the retreat to the forest.With the Buddhists everybody who has left house

,

home,fam ily, to whatever caste he may have belonged

before, may become a Samari a, but the word soonassumed the more general sense of a saint

,so that

a man may be called a Samana even though he hasnot assumed the humble dress of an ascetic. Thus weread in the Dhammapada , 142

He who, though dressed in fine apparel, exercises tranquilli ty,isquiet, subdued , restrained and chaste, and has M d to find

120 LAM ESSAYS.

fault with other beings—he is indeed a Brahmans , a Sramana(Samaria) , a Bhikshu.

’

Here we see at the same time what a high ideaBuddha, who used to be represented as the enemy ofthe Brahmans and of Brahmanism , assigns to the nameof Brahmans , and how entirely he remains the childof his time . With him a Brahman is a saint, anda Bhikshu a mendicant not far removed from a saint.The Greeks changed S am an a into Saw d m and

sometim es into Brawl. Shamwn ,however, the Tun

gusian name for a priestly sorcerer ‘, is not derivedfrom Same/as , but Is a word of Tungusian origin.

Many more words .might be mentioned which to usseem Buddhistic

,but which are really of Brahmanic

workmanship . There are, in fact , few Buddhisticwords and few Buddhistic concepts which , if we treatthem historically , do not disclose their Brahmanicantecedents

,more or less modified in the later schools

of the Buddhists . Scholars begin to see that, as wecannot fully appreciate Pfili, the sacred language ofBuddhism

,without knowing Sanskrit, we cannot

fully understand the teaching of Buddha withoutknowing the antecedent peri ods of Brahmanicthought.Even when Buddha

,the young prince ofKapilavastu ,

determined to leave his family, wife, son, father, andfriends

,and to embrace the state of homelessness

,he

followed the example set to him by the BrahmanicSramanas , and submitted to all the cruel tortures towhich the dwellers in the forest thought it rightto subject themselves . It took him several yearsbefore he perceived their utter useleesness, nay, their

Kappan , Die Religion “ Buddha, i . p. 330, n .

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122 LAM assAvs.

esoteric teaching there may have been in other religions,there was none in the religion of Buddha. Whateverwas esoteric or secret was ipso facto not Buddha

’steaching ; whatever was Buddha

’s teaching was ipsofacto not esoteric. Buddha himself

,though he knows

well that there is, and that in every honest religionthere always must be , a distinction between the fewand the many , would approve of no barriers betweenthem except those which they made for themselves .

He speaks with open scorn of keeping any portionof the truth secret . Thus he says in one of his shortsermonsO disciples, there are three to whom secrecy belongs and not

openness. Who are they ? Secrecy belongs to wom en, not openness ; secrecy belongs to priestly wisdom ,

not openness ; secrecybelongs to false doctrine, not openness. To these three belongs

But there are three things that sh ine before all the world, andnot in secret . Which are they The disk of the moon

, 0 disciples,shines before all the world, and not in secret the disk of the sunshines before all the world, and not in secret ; the doctrines andrules proclaimed by the perfect Buddha sh ine before all the world ,not in secret. These three things shine before all th e world, andnot in secret .’

And this is by no means a solitary occasion onwhich Buddha condemns anything like mystery inreligion

,or what is meant by Esoteric Buddhism .

There is a memorable dialogue between him and hisdisciple Ananda shortly before his death , in which hecondemns not only mystery in religion

,but any appeal

to external authority , any obedience to anything butthe voice within . We read in the MakdpartnibbdnaSutta (p . 35 ) z

3 8. Now when th e Blessed One had thus entered upon the rainyseason (when the monks go into retreat) there fell upon h im a dire

1 AW Nad ya, pp. 1, 3, 1 29.

INDIAN rAs Lss AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 123

sickness, and sharp pains came upon him,ev en un to death. But

the Blessed One, m indful and self-M ed, bore them withoutcom plain t.

29. Then th is thought occurred to the Blessed One : I t wouldnot be right for me to pass away from exis tence wi thou t addressingthe disciples, wi th out tak ing leave of the order. Let me now,

bya strong effort of the will, bend th is sickness down again , and keepmy hold on life till the allotted time be com e.30. And the Blessed One

,by a strong efl’ort of the will, bou t

that sickness down again, and kept h is hold on li fe till th e time

he fixed upon should com e. And the sickness abated upon h im.

3 1 . Now very soon after, the Blessed One began to recov er.

When he had quite got rid of the sickness,he went out from the

monastery, and sat down behind the m onastery on a seat spreadout there . And the venerable Ananda went to the place wh erethe B lessed One was and saluted h im , and took a seat respectfullyon one side, and addressed the Blessed One and said : I havebeheld

,Lord, how the B lessed One was in health, and I have beheld

how the B lessed One had to sna'er. And though at the sight of thesickness of the B lessed One my body became weak as a creeper,and the horizon became dim to m e

,and my faculties were no

longer clear, yet notwi thstanding I took some li ttle com fort fromthe th ought that the Ble ssed One would not pass away fromexistence until at least he had left instructions as touching the

32. What then, Anands (he replied) ? Does the order expect thatof me I have preached the Truth without making any distinctionbetween esoteric and esoteric m m : for in respect of the truths,Ananda, the Tathagata has no such thing as the closed fist ofa teacher , who keeps some thing back. ’

Then he inveighs against the idea that after his deathhis disciples should be guided by anything

°

but theSpirit of Truth within them .

‘Surely, Ananda (he says) , should there be any one who harboursthe thought

,I t is I who will lead the brotherhood, or, The order is

dependent upon m e,it is he who sh ould lay down instructions in

any m atter concerning the order. Now the Tathagata, O Ananda,thinks not that he should lead the brotherhood, or that the order isdependent upon him. Why then should he leave instructions inany matter concerning th e order ? I too, O Ananda, am now grownold and full of years ; my journey is drawing to its close, I havereached my rum of daya l am turning eighty yem of aga and just

124 LAST assay s .

as a worn oout cart, finanda, can only with much additional care bemade to m ove along, so, m ethinks, the body of the Tathagata can

on ly be kept going w ith much addit ional care.33. Therefore, 0 h ands , be ye lam ps unto yourselves. Be yea refuge to yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge.Hold fast as a refuge to the Truth . Look not for refuge to any one

besides yourselves.35 . And whosoever, Ananda, ei ther nowor after I am dead, shallbe a lamp unto themselves, and a refuge un to them selves, shallbetake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to theTruth as their lanm, and holding fast as their refuge to the Truth ,shall not look for refuge to any one besides them selves— it is they

,

0 Ananda, among my Bh ikkh us , who shall reach th e very highestheight, provided they are willing to learn.

’

Can anything be more outspoken ,more determ ined ?

instruction as to the future rule of the Church,no one

is to claim any exceptional authority . But the highestseat of authority is always to be with the man himselfand with the voice of truth within .

And this is the religion , of all others , chosen byMadame Blavatsky as an esoteric religion . Buddha,who would have no secrets , whether for the laityor for his own beloved disciples

,is represented as

withholding the double-edged weapon of knowledgefrom the uncultivated populace and keeping the

innermost corner of the sanctuary in the profoundestshade . No traveller’s tale was ever more audaciousand more incongruous than this misrepresentationof the character of Buddha and his doctrine .

I repeat that I do not think that Madame Blavatskyinvented Esoteric Buddhism . I am quite wi lling tobelieve that

,as in her first intercourse with Brah

manism in the person of Satyananda Sarasvati , shewas, when face to face with Buddhist Mahatmas , verymuch like Goethe’s fisherman who was drawn into

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1 26 m ar ESSAYS.

of other people,and of rem em bering their own former

existences, but again he denies that such things cancarry conviction. The greatest miracle with Buddhais teaching, by which an unbeliever is really convertedinto a believer, an unloving into a loving man . Andwhen his own disciples come to him asking to beallowed to perform the ordinary magic miracles , heforbids them to do so, but allows them to performone miracle only , which everybody could, but nobodydoes

,perform ,

nam ely, to confess our sins, and againnot in secret, not in a confessional, but publicly andbefore the whole congregation.

If Madame Blavatsky would have tried to perform

confess openly her small faults and indiscretions,

instead of attempting thoughto reading, levitation, orsending letters through the air from Ti bet to Calcutta,and from Calcutta to London

, or if those who willinglyor unwillingly allowed themselves to be deceived byher would openly renounce all these childish tricksand absurdities , they might still do much good , andreallymanure a vast neglected field for a new and richharvest. I must say that one of Madame Blavatsky

’

s

greatest adm irers,Colonel Olcott, has of late years

entered on a much more healthy sphere of activity,one in which he and his friends may do some realgood. He has encouraged and helped the publicationof authentic texts of the old Brahmanic and Buddhistreligions . He has tried to inspire both Brahmans andBuddhists with respect for their old religions , and hashelped them to discover in their sacred books somerays of truth to guide them through the dark shadowsof life. He has shown them how, in spite of many

INDIAN rAsLEs AND ssors arc BUDDHISM. 127

differences, their various sects share much in common,and how they should surrender what is not essentialand keep what is essential as the true bond of a widereligious brotherhood 1 . In all this he has my fullestsympathy. It is because I love Buddha and admireBuddhi st morality that I cannot remain silen t whenI see his noble figure lowered to the level of religiouscharlatans, or his teaching misrepresented as esoterictwaddle . I do not mean to say that Buddhism has

never been corrupted and vulgarized when it becamethe religion of barbarous or semi-barbarous peoplein Tibet, China, and Mongolia ; nor should I wishto deny that it has in some places been representedby knaves and impostors as something mysterious ,esoteric, impenetrable, and unintell igible . It is true ,also

,that, particularly in the so-called Mahayana

Buddhism,there are certain treatises which are called

secret— for instance, the Tathdgatagukyaka ,the hidden

doctrines of the Tathagatas or the Buddhas ; but theyare secret

,not as being withheld from anybody, but

simply as containing more difi cult and reconditedoctrines . Even the Secret of Hegel is no longera mystery, as Mr. Hutchinson Sterling has shown ,though it requires a certain amount of preparation .

If Madame Blavatsky had appealed to any one of thecanonical books of the Mahayana Buddhists , we shouldhave known what she meant by Esoteric Buddhism .

As it is , it is impossible to discuss any one of thedoctrines which she and her followers present to the

H . S. Olcott (Madras,

128 LAST ESSAYS.

public as esoteric, because they have never given us

chapter and verse for what they call Buddhism ,

whether esoteric or exoteric.I have already alluded to the difficulty of speaking

of Buddhism in general, or laying down what doc

trines are considered as orthodox or as heterodox byBuddha and by his numerous. disciples and followers.Buddhism , we must remember, was , from the verybeginning, but one out of many philosophical andre ligious systems which abounded in India at all

times. We know that the same freedom of thoughtwhich Buddha claimed for himself in forsaking theold Brahmanic traditions was claimed by several ofhis contemporaries who became founders of new

Schools . There was very little of what we Shouldcall dogma in Buddha’s teaching. He professed todeliver man from suffering by Showing th em theunreal and transitory character of the world . Butwith regard to some of what we call the fundamentalquestions of religion— the existence of a deity

,the

reality and imm ortat of the soul, the creation andgovernm ent of the world— he allowed the greatestfreedom : nay , it seems to be his chief object to protestagainst any positive dogma on these points . Hencethere arose from a very early time a large numberof what have been called sects among the Buddhists,though they seem to have been hardly more thaneither philosophical schools or small congregationscomm itted to the observance of certain m inute pointsof discipline .We read in the chronicles of Ceylon, the Dipavansa

(v. 53) and Mahavansa (v. of eighteen sects theorigin of which is referred to the second century after

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130 LAST assArS.

Councils. The number of these sects seems alwaysto have been on the increase , and when in the fifthand the seventh centuries Chinese pilgrims visitedIndia. their number had become so great that one

can hardly understand how any unity could havebeen preserved among them.

If all these points , and many more, were left openquestions between the Buddhist sects , we can wellunderstand how there Should be so much disagreementamong those who undertook to write a history ofBuddhism . We know that on some of the most important points Buddha himself declined to pronounceit decided opinion , and, in this sense , Madame Blavatskywould be quite right m Saying that we do not knowfor certain what Buddha taught his disciples, and hisdisciples their followers

,who became the founders

of these numerous sects . Still , whatever we knowof Buddha and Buddhism , we must try to know atfirst hand— that is to say , we must be prepared togive chapter and verse in some canonical or authoritative book we must not appeal to t as on theother side of the Himalayas . Various attempts havebeen made to show that the Canon of the SouthernBuddhists , the ao-called Tripitaka

,the Three Baskets ,

was more modern than the Buddhists themselvesrepresent it to be. Some scholars have gone so faras to assign to it a date more recent than that ofthe New Testament. I have always admitted thatthe tradition of its being the work of the immediatedisciples of Buddha, at the first Council, held in thevery your of Buddha

’

s death , is untenable, or at allevents doubtful . But I have never doubted that areal Canon of sacred texts was settled at the Council

INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 131

held under Asoka in the third century before ourera. This date has now been confirmed by inscriptions . Asoka’s well-known inscriptions refer to Singleportions of the Canon only, but Dr . Hultzsch haspointed out that in one of the smaller Bharhutinscriptions ’ there occurs the word ‘

pakanekayika’

—a man who knows the five Nikayas . These fiveNikayas are the five divisions of the Suttapitaka ,and as the inscription dates from the third centuryB . we may rest assured that at that time the mostimportant part of the Buddhist Canon

,the Suttapitaka

,

existed as we now have it , divided into five portions— the Digha-nikfiya, the Magghima-nikAya, the Samyotta-nikfiya, the Anguttara-nikAya, and the Khud

2

However , with all that has been done of late forthe study of Buddhism,

no honest scholar would denythat we know as yet very little, and that we see butdarkly through the immense mass of its literatureand the intricacies of its metaphysical speculations.This is particularly true with regard to what is calledthe Mahayana, or Northern Buddhism. There are stillseveral of the recognized canonical books of theNorthern Buddhists

,the N ine Dharmas, of which

the MSS . are beyond our reach, or which frighteneven the most patient students by their enormousbulk . In that sense Madame Blavatsky would bequite right— that there is a great deal of Buddhismof which European scholars know nothing. But weneed not go to Madame Blavatsky or to her Mahatmasin Tibet in order to know this , and it is certam not

No. 144, Z. D. M. G.,xl. 75 .

See Neumann, Buddhist. Amway“, p . xn , 11 .

K 2

132 LAM ESSAYS.

from her books that we Should derive our informationof the Mahayana literature . We Should go to theMSS. in our libraries, even in the Bodleian , in orderto do what all honest Mahatmas have to do, copythe MSS . ,

collate them ,and translate them . In the

translations of the Sacred Books of the East whi chthe U niversity of Oxford has entrusted to my editorship, and to which I have devoted the last sixteenyears of my life , any one who takes a serious interestin the Science of Religion wi ll find ample materials ,and

,what is more , important authentic materials,

translated , as well as they can be translated at present,by the best scholars in England, France , Germany ,and India. Deeply grateful as I feel to the U niversityof Oxford

,and to the Secretary of State for India , for

having allowed me t he leisure and the funds necessaryfor carrying out so large an undertaking, I cannotbut regret that

,like all the work we undertake in

this life,this too must be left imperfect. It is true

,

a series of forty-eight volumes is a small library byitself, but, compared with what ought to have beendone, it is but a beginning. I have often been blammfor not having included in my series a number ofbooks every one of which seems to this or that scholarof supreme importance . No doubt I ought to havegiven a translation of one at least of the eighteenParanas, but my critics have evidently no idea howdifi cult it is to find at the right time the right translator for the right book . My correspondence aboutthe translation of the Vayu-Purana would fill a littlevolume by itself. The Vedic literature , also , is as yetvery imperfectly represented . But Vedic scholarshipis in a period of transition, and no Vedic scholar is

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BSOTEBIU BU DDHISM ‘

(A REPLY TO Psorsssos MAx MULLER BY

MB . A . P. SINe r .)

N any subject connected with the sacred literatureof the East Professor Max Miiller writes— for

English readers— with great authority . His articletherefore on Esoteric Buddhism will , no doubt, havebeen accepted but too widely as fatal to the systemof thought identified with that expression . He findsnothing in the Buddhist books about any interiorteaching behind that plainly conveyed , and confidently declares that nothing of the kind exists. For

people altogether ignorant of theosophical doctrinethis will be conclusive ; others, acquainted in somemeasure with theosophical literature , will be puzzledat the professor’s attitude. He refrains from comingin any way to close quarters with the body of beliefhe seeks to discredit, ignoring it so entirely that onecannot make out whether he has taken the troubleto look into it at all. And , summed up in a fewwords

,his argument is that Buddhism cannot contain

any teaching hitherto kept secret,because the books

hitherto published do not disclose any secrets of thekind . If they had done so, where would have beenthe secrecy? Whenwe know what the esoteric teachingReprinted by perm ission from the Nineteenth Century, June, 1893.

BSorBBIc BUDDHI SM. 135

is we may indeed find evidence in the published booksto Show that it was known to their authors ; but whenany one says There is an esoteric Side to Buddhism

,

’

that is equivalent to saying there is a view of thissubject which is not found in the books . How is heshown to be wrong by the fact that the books do notcontain it ?But the present attack is further embarrassing in

this way : it rests chiefly on an unfavourable surveyof Madame Blavatsky

’

s career,associated with criti

cisms of her book I sis Unveiled . That was writtensome years before Esoteric Buddhism was formulated ,and Madame Blavatsky was not the writer who formu

lawd that system . All students of theosophy are underdeep obligations to her. But Professor Max Mullergives us the history of the movement upside down .

Before I can vindicate the ideas he seeks to disparage ,I must comb out the facts which he has left in suchcurious confus ion.

In 1 883 I was enabled to bring into intelligibleshape a view of the origin and destinies of manderived from certain teachings with which I wasfavoured while in India. It challenged the attentionof Western readers because it seemed to furnish amore reasonable interpretation of man’s Spiritualconstitution and of the world ’

s purpose , than anywith which European thought had previously beenconcerned . It provided something like a scientificabstract of all religious doctrine, by the help of whichit was easy to separate the wheat from the chaff invarious eccles iastical creeds. Allowing for symbolicalmethods of treatment as entering largely into popularreligions, the new teaching showed that Brahmanism ,

136 LAST ESSAYS.

Buddhism,and Christianity could be accounted for as

growing up at various periods in India and Europefrom the same common root of spiritual knowledge.But Since Buddhism had apparently separated itselfless widely than other religions from the parent stem

,

I gave my book the title Esoteric Bud dhism ,partly

in loyalty to the exterior faith preferred by those fromwhom my information had come , partly because evenin its exterior form that religion was already attractinga great deal of sympathetic interest in Europe, andSeemed the natural bridge along which Europeanthinking might be conducted to an appreciation ofthe beautifully coherent and logical view of NatureI had been enabled to obtain .

The name of the book clung to the system it described , and no one was more surprised or amusedthan its author when people , attracted by its m eansto become theosophists , or students of Divine science,were first spoken of by newspaper writers

,dealing

hastily with the new departure of thought,as Esoteric

Buddhists . ’ In that form the term was a m isnomer.

Theosophists might just as well have been calledEsoteric Christians or Esoteric Brahm ins . But it isone thing for reviewers, dealing on the Spur of themoment with a new school of philosophy

,to appre

hend it imperfectly ; it is another for a leam ed professor, attacking it ten years later

,to eclipse their

worst m istakes.To begin with , Professor Max Muller calls Madame

Blavatsky the formder of Esoteric Buddhism , and

describes her as a clever, wild , and excitable girl , 1n

search of a new religion she could honestly embrace .Her clever girlhood had ripened till she was close on

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138 LAST ESSAYS.

rapid sketch of Madame Blavatsky’

s career is , for thereasons I have pointed out, irrelevant from A to Z.

But the careless plan he has followed in dealing withthe subject itself is in keeping with the personalnotice . People

,

’ he says , were taken aback by theassurance with which this new prophetess spoke ofher intercourse with unseen spirits ; of letters flyingthrough the air from Tibet to Bombay ; of showers offlowers falling from the ceiling of a dining-room ; ofsaucers disappearing from a tea-tray and being foundin a garden, and of voices and noises proceeding -fromspirits through a mysterious cabinet. You may askhow educated people could have been deceived by suchordinary jugglery ; butwith some people the power ofbelieving seems to grow with the absurdity of what isto be believed .

’ There is no item in this catalogue ofwonders that correctly quotes any single incident rew rded in any original narrative of Madame Blavatsky

'

s

doings . My own book, The Occult World , is the principal reservoir of all such records, but, as usual withpeople who wish to ridicule its testimony , ProfessorMax M ‘

uller prefers to deal not with the book itself,but with some third-t caricature of its contents .Modern psychic investigation has already harmonizedwi th subtle forces of nature, some of the surprisingpowers which Madame Blavatsky exhibited . Intalking of jugglery, Professor Max Muller 18 probablyunaware that the leading ‘juggler ’

or conjuror ofAmerica, Mr. Kellar, has recently written an articlein the North American Review acknowledging thathis experience of wonder-work ing in India has introduced him to some performances that lie quite outside the domain of the art he professes . That which

ssorsnrc BUDDHISM. 189

is really absurd in this connexion is the power a goodmany people still show of d isbelieving facts supportedby overwhelming evidence if these fail to fit in withtheir own narrow experi ence . Credulity is sometimesstupid , no doubt, but irrational incredulity may occasionally be even more so. On that tempting theme,however, I must not dilate for the moment. MadameBlavatsky

’

s achievements in connexion with psychicfaculties and forces not yet generally understood ,have nothing to do with the really important questionwhether theosophical doctrine constitutes an acceptable solution of the mysteries of life and death .

Still , paying no attention to that question , ProfessorMax Miiller says

,No one can study Buddh ism unless

he learns Sanskrit and Pali.’ No one can comprehendBuddhism , he goes on unconsciously to show us, byvirtue merely of scholarship in those tongues. Hemay do useful work in the preparation of translationsfor students who deal with living thought rather thanwith dead language , but Madame Blavatsky with allher literary inaccuracy has done a great deal morethan the Sansk rit professor to interpret Easternthinking

,and what are her verbal blunders beside

the confusion of the who le attack now made uponher ? She certainly showed great shrewdness inwithdrawing herself and her description of EsotericBuddhism from all possible control and contradiction.

Her Buddhism , she declared , was not the Buddhismwhich ordinary scholars might study in the canon icalbooks hers was Esoteric Buddhism.

’ She did nothingof the sort . She never used the term Esoteric Buddhism except in her Secret Doctr ine to find faultwith my use of it

,on the somewhat technical ground

140 LAST ESSAYS.

that,meaning what I did

,I ought to have spelled the

word wi th one ‘ d .

’ In I sis , she wrote, ‘ it is not inthe dead letter of Buddhistical sacred literature thatscholars may hOpe to find the true solution of themetaphysical subtleties of Buddh ism ,

’ but she wasnot then engaged in developing the system now calledEsoteric Buddhism . She was simply pouring outa flood of miscellaneous information concerning theinner meaning of old-world religions and symbologies ,the mysteries of Egypt and Greece

,the modern initia

tions of the East, and the teaching she had acquiredthere with reference to super-physical planes of naturealready beginning to be recognized in the Westernworld as connecting our phase of existence , howevervaguely and cloudily, with other conditions of being.

The book was not designed to teach anything inparticular, but to stir up interest in an unfam il iarbody of occult mysteries . For many people it didthis effectually . The Theosophical Society was seton foot ; it came to pass that I was entrusted withthe task of putting into intelligible shape the viewsof life and natule entertained by certain Easterninitiates who were interested in the TheosophicalSociety , and the movement gradually as sumed itspresent character. Nothing is further from my wishthan to claim—at Madame Blavatsky

’

s expense—anypeculiar merit for myself in the matter. I took chargeof a message and carried it to Western readers . ButIwas amessenger from those whom Madame Blavatskyalso to the best of her ability endeavoured to represent— not from herself. This is the important fact for allto remember who wish to understand the presentposition of Theosophy. All of us who have been

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142 LAST assu s

drawn Professor Max Muller into some appreciationof the inner significance of that Oriental literature tothe translation of which he had devoted so muchindustry. He spoke then of the U panishads and ofthe ancient philosophy of the Vedanta as throwing‘new light even to-day on some of the problemsnearest to ourown hearts .

’

This was a great advance onearlier utterances, in which he dealt with the Vedas ,at all events , as the prattling of huinanity

’

s babyhood— or in words to that effect. But now he hasagain relapsed , and declares there are no mysteriesand nothing esoteric either in Bhddhism or Brahmanism ,

though again,later on, he says , No honest

scholar would deny that we know as yet very little

[of Buddhism] , and that we see but darkly throughthe immense mass of its literature and the intricaciesof its metaphysical speculations . ’ This admission isopposed to the force of the bold statement with whichhe sets out, that there is no longer any secret aboutSanskrit literature

,and that we in Eng land know

as much about it as most native scholars . ’ In view ofinformation on the subject I have had from nativescholars the contention is ludicrous

,but the question

whether there are or are not hidden records bearingon the secrets of Eastern initiation has nothing todo with the main point. Over and above whateverwritten records exist, there are traditional beliefs andviews of nature amongst certain people in India thathad not been published anywhere till the currenttheosophical movement began . I got at these byliving in India and coming into relations with thosewho entertained them

,and were willing at last that

they should in some m easure be made public . Professor

ssornsro BUDDHISM. 143

Max Muller, without stopping to think how his owntestimony corroborates my position , says there isnothing of all this in the sacred books. Of course not ;but, to a greater extent than Professor Max Miillerimagines, all this is darkly hinted at in the sacredbooks. Nobody could pick up these hints unless hehad first been instructed in the esoteric doctrine

,but

to any one who knows something of this the allusionsare apparent . From the proper theosophical pointof view they are not very important. The theoSophical teaching is valuable for its intrinsic worth .

It ought not to be recommended to European readersbecause there is authority behind it. For us theauthority from which it emanates need only beginto command respect when we understand the teaching.

If it had not been found worthy of respect for its ownsake, it would have fallen dead . Instead of that,Esoteric Buddhism is read in a dozen editions andlanguages all over the world . And in time peoplewho read, acquiring from the teaching itself a comprehension of the sources from which it is now derived,grow interested in quest ions of authority. Aroundthese a considerable theosophic literature grows up .

Profemor Max Muller does not even glance at it . Hehammers away at the single notion— I do not find yoursecret teachings in the public Buddhist writings . Whydoes not he argue— there cannot be any ore in them ine for there is none lying on the surface ? But,coming back to the traces on the surface that mayshow those who can interpret them where thereis ore lying below, let me offer an illustration ofesoteric canonical records that are mere nonsensetaken as the scholar takes them— literally— but full

144 LAST ESSAYS.

of luminous significance read in the light of esoteric

Rarely have the scholars blundered more absurdlythan in dealing with the records of Buddha ’

s death.and 1D reading cm pied de la lettre the story of hisfatal illness supervening on a meal of ‘ dried boar’sflesh served to him by a certain Kunda— a coppersmith at Pava. Laborious students of Orientallanguage— never concerning themselves with Orientalthought—4 ccept this as meaning, in words quoted byAlabaster in the Wheel of the Law, that Buddha di edof dysentery caused by eating roast pork.

’

Dr. RhysDavids gives currency to this ludicrous m isconception.

Common sense ought to have been startled at thenotion that the diet of so ultra-confirmed a vegetarianas a Hindoo religious teacher could not but he, couldbe invaded by so gross an article of food as roastpork. But worshippers of the letter which killethare apt to lose sight of common sense. In realityboar's flesh is an Orienta l symbol for esoteric knowledge

,derived from the boar avatar of Vishnu— an

elaborate allegory which represents the incarnate godlifting the earth out of the waters with his tusks—a

transaction which Wilson explains i n his translationof the Vishnu Purana as representing the extricationof the world from a deluge of iniquity by the rites ofreligion.

’ Dried boar’s flesh clearly stands in the‘Book of the Great Decease ’

for esoteric knowledgeprepared for popular use— reduced to a form in whichit could be taught to the multitude . It was throughtoo daring an attempt to carry out this policy thatBuddha’s enterprise came to an end . That is the truemeaning of the allegory so painfully debased when

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146 LAST nssars .

ing makes it all intelligible. The whole passag e relatesto the capacities which are possible for the esotericallytrained and initiated disciple who can live in fullconsciousness in the astral body, who can render thatperceptible (or visible) to ordinary senses if he chooses,to whom the solid matter of the physical plane is noimpediment , nor distance an embarrassment. TheSutta in which it occurs points to hidden methods ofteaching and train ing from beginning to end . Andthe White Lotus of Dharma, edited by ProfessorMax Miiller

,refers also to the magical faculties of the

Buddhist adept, while Ananda was not allowed to sitin the first convocation till he had performed the‘m iracles ’

recognized asqualifying him to be regardedas an Arhat. Certainly the public writi ngs do notsay m inutely how an aspirant is to acquire theabnormal knowledge and powers necessary for suchachievem ents . The real esoteric knowledge , neverwritten down, but handed from master to pupil in theprocesses of initiation

,is alone competent to give

practical guidance in such matters . But , as we see:the authority of the canonical books can be quotedas showing that the achievements are recognised asattainable. Does Professor Max Miiller regard themas the logical outcome of m ere virtuous practice ?If not

,the old writers clearly supprm ed some branch

of their teaching in addressing the world at large .

It is not enough for Professor Max Milller to say thatin describing Arhat powers they were talking nonsense .

For the moment that is not the question. Had theyin their minds the belief that certain processes oftraining might lead to those powers ? If they had,they were conscious of an esoteric side to their teaching,

BsorBBIc BUDDHISM. 147

and it is obvious beyond dispute that they did entertainsuch a belief.Worship of the letter in dealing with sacred writings

has been the curse of modern religion , stultifying thespiritual meaning of more books than those underconsideration. It is hardly probable that ProfessorMax Muller would be fettered to that system indiscussing Western scriptures , so that it is doublyamazing he should apply that disastrous method ofinterpietation to the Sacred Books of the East, onwhich he has bestowed so much of his time andenergy.

He tells us that ‘Buddhism was the highestBrahmanism popularized , everything esoteric beingabolished.

’ This is a misreading even of the exotericrecords . Buddhism popularis ed Brahmanism in thesense of showing that the attainm ent of high spiritualbeatitude was open to all men who trod the rightpath— not m erely, as Brahmanism taught

,to the

Brahm ins . The esoteric initiations were not abolished—merely held out to all who should become worthy.

That is the real meaning of the phrase attributed toBuddha, ‘The Tatagatha has no such thing as theclosed fist of a teacher who keeps some things back .

’

Again,Professor Max Miiller says, ‘Whatever we

know of Buddha and Buddhism we must try to knowat first hand— that is to say, we must be prepared togive chapter and verse in some canonical or authori

tative book ; we must not appeal to Mahatmas on theother side of the Himalayas .

’ But whether I obtainedthe teaching on which E soteric Buddhism rests froma Mahatma on the other side of the Himalayas or

evolved them out of my own head need only interestL 2

148 LAST sssars.

people who begin to be seriously interested in theteaching on its own prima facie, intrinsic claims.It is childish to condemn a doctrine as wrong becauseit emanates from somebody unk nown to the reader .

It may be rationally ignored by any one bold enoughto say

,

‘ I never trust my own judgement ; I onlyconsider ideas when they are hall-marked as fit foracceptance by some acknowledged authority.

’ It maybe rationally attacked by any one prepared to assail iton its m erits,— if it interests the world in spite of itsunknown source . But it can only be irrationallyattacked by a writer who neglects the thing said

,and

yet denounces it because he does not know anythingabout the person who says it. ‘What I know not

is not knowledge,

’ as one disti nguished professor isissupposed to have put the idea . Professor Max Mullerimproves on the epigram :

‘Philosophers I know not

have no existence .

’ He tells us Mahatma is a wellknown Sanskrit word applied to men who have retiredfrom the world as great ascetics . ‘That these menare able to perform most startling feats and to suEermost terrible tortures is perfectly true.’ But the termmeaning great-souled has become an honorary title .

He himself has had letters from Benares addressedto him as Mahatma. Wi th the recollection of thetone in which I have heard Professor Max Muller’scomments on Indian philosophy discussed by nativepundits at Benares and elsewhere, it seems just pou iblethere may have been a touch of irony in such a modeof address ; but India is, of course , a land of hyperbolical compliment. The servants of any Europeanwill call him ‘Huzoor

,

’

or‘your Majesty ’ everybody

is a lord to the man next below him, and, in a spirit

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INN“it IIIIIIit “M ? ii“ WtWish (3?”he M I». 0 that makes

334M WM slates mast relates to transitory or ignobleMW A death. th tore.

WWW cusnflamam WW“! the soul for a time on theSW“NW“.tritiumwhichperiodunder some conditionsit “M as sumes M aine I I isahle to stilllivingitsWitlchWNWat cladmixto the I II I I I confi tionWNW! MI.and the “N BSpiritual soul or in other wordsthe original man. with only the lohier side of hischaracter or nature in activity , passes on to a stateof spii itual beatitude analogous toto the heaven ofes oteric icligious teaching There the person wh

ohas passed away is still himaclt’

; his own I I

is at wmk , and for a long time heof blissful rest, the correct appreciationof whichclaims a great deal of attention to many collaW al con

s iderations. When after a protracted period the specificpersonal memories of the last life have faded outthough the spiritual soul still retains all its capacitim ,

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM . 15 1

all the cosmic progress that it has earned, it is drawnback into re incarnation . The process is accomplishedby degrees . The whole entity is not at once consciouswithin, or expressed by, the body of the young child .

But as this grows it becom es more and more qualifiedto express the original consciousness of the permanentsoul, and when it is mature, it is once more theoriginal Ego , minus nothing but the specific memoriesof its last life.Why does it not remember ? is always the first

question of the beginner in theosophic study. Becausewewho do not remember are asyet but nature’

schildren.

Those who are further advanced along the line ofcosmic progress do remember. But the science of thematter meanwhile is this . The higher spiritual soulis the permanent element in the Ego , and if sufficientlygrown

, can infuse each new personality which itdevelops with memories which it

,in that case , can

retain. But the lower side of ordinary human consciousness

,taking the race at its present average

development,is a good deal more vigorous than the

spiritual nature. The higher soul, immersed againin a material manifestation, Is choked as to its consciousness for the time being by the weed growtharound it. There is plenty of time, however, in thescheme of nature . Aftermany incarnations the highersou l may get strong enough to bear down the accumulated tendencies gathering round it during itsearth-lives. Then an opportunity will come forremembering past lives , and for many other achievements .

The laws which determ ine the physical attributes,condition of life , intellectual capacities , and so forth

152 LAST sssars.

of the new body, to which the Ego is drawn byaffinities even more complicated than those of chemicalatoms

,are known to esoteric and less accurately to

ordinary Buddhism as Karma. As you sow so shallyou reap. The acts of each life build up the condi tionsunder which the next is spent. In regard to hishappiness, and all that has to do with his well-beingon this earth

,every man has been , in the fullest sense

of the term,his own creator

,creating the conditions

into which he passes in accordance with the Divinelaw that determ ines the nature of good and evil , andthe consequences of devotion to the one or the other.

As the earth-life is thus the school of humanity, it isnot an end in its elf. To achieve h igher spiritualconditions of being is to escape beyond the necessityfor re-incarnation. Thus exoteric Buddhism talks ofescaping the perpetuation of life—meaning incarnatelife— as something desirable, in a way which leadsthose who imperfectly grasp the esoteri c significanceof the idea to suppose that the extinction of consciousness is the object treated as desirable. The endreally contemplated is the permanent elevation ofconsciousness to spiritual conditions . In the vastscheme of nature , comprehended by the esoteric teaching as that on which the world is planned, the ultimaterealim tion of such spiri tual beatitude is regarded asthe destiny in reserve for the majority of mankind

,

after immensely protracted schooling. But by greatefforts at any time after a certain turning-point inevolution has been pas sed , those who realize thepotentialities of their being may enter at a relativelyearly date on their sublime inheritance . To showmankind at large the path which leads to this goal

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15 4 LAST ESSAYS.

m inded thinker , speculating on the infinite mysteriesof nature

,feels sure of is that no one body of priests

can have a monopoly of the truth. Theosophy showsthat scarcely any of them have even a monopoly offalsehood . It gives us religion in the form of abstractspiritual science which can be applied to any faith

,

so that we may sift its crudities from its truth. Itprovides us in the system of rei ncarnation— clearedof all fantastic absurdities associated with the idea inages before the esoteric view was fully disclosed—witha method of evolution that accounts for the inequaliti esof human life . By the doctrine of Karma, attachingto that system

,the principle of the conservation of

energy is raised into a law operative on the moral aswell as on the physical plane , and the Divin e elementof j ustice is brought back into a world from which ithad been expelled by European theologians. In explaining the psychic constitution of man

,Theosophy

as developed by the Theosophical Society , not in thesoulless condition to which Professor Max Mullerwouldreduce it , puts on a scientifi c basis—that is to say, ona footing where law is seen to be un iformly operative— the heterogeneous and bewildering phenomena ofsuper-physical experience . Every advance of knowledge leaves some people aground in the rear

,and

there are hundreds of otherwise distinguished men

other inquirers besides theosophists are now bent .But their immobility will be forgotten in time.Knowledge will advance in spite of them , and viewsof nature, at first laughed at and discredited

,will be

taken after a while as matters of course, and , emerging

ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 15 5

from the shadow of occultism , will pass down the

main current of science . Those of us who are earlyin the field with our experience and information wouldsometimes like to be more civilly treated by therecognized authorities of the world ; but that is a verysubordinate matter after all, and we have our rewards ,of which they know nothing. We are well contentto be in advance even at the cost of some disparagingglances from our less fortunate companions .

ESOTERIC BU DDHISM “

A REJOINDBB.

N giving an account of the religious movementwhich was originated by Madame Blavatsky , and

which in England is best known under the name ofE soteric Buddhism , I could not help saying somethingabout the antewdents of that remarkable woman

,

though I knew that I should give pain to her numerousfri ends and admirers and expose myself to rejoindersfrom some of them . I should have preferred sayingnothing about her personally, and in order to avoidentering into unpleasant detai ls I referred my readersto the biographical articles written in no unfriendlyspirit by her own sister, and published not long agoin the Nouvclle Ram s . But the movement whichbears her name is so intimately connected with herown history, and depends so much on her personalcharacter and the validity of the claims which shemade for herself

, or which were made for her by herdisciples

,that it was quite impossible to speak of

Esoteric Buddhism without saying something alsoof Madame Blavatsky and her antecedents . ThoughI tried to take as charitable a view as possible of herlife and character, yet I was quite prepared that , evenafter the little I felt bound to say, some of her friends

Nineteenth Century, August, 1 893.

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15 8 LAST ESSAYS.

by'

her disciples , I was not prepared to see one of herfavourite pupils com ing forward so soon after herdeath to throw her over and claim for himself thewhole merit of having originated and named andformulated Esoteric Buddhism. and all that i s impliedby that name. I knew indeed that a fierce struggle

going on for the mantle of Mad ame Blavatsky ,and that Colonel Olcott had not yet decided whowas to be recognized as her legitimate successor.Few people outm

'

de the inner circle would grudgeMr. Sinnett the exclusive paternity of Es otericBuddhism , but history is history, and I ask all whohave watched the origin and growth of Esoteric'

Buddhism , what would Mr. Sinnett have been withoutMadame Blavatsky ? It is true that Zeus gave birthto Athens without the help of Hera ; but did EsotericBuddhism Spring full-armed from the forehead ofMr. Sinnett ? Though he assures us that he claimsno merit at the expense of Madame Blavatsky

,yet he

Says in so many words that she was not the writerwho formq the system of Esoteric Buddhism .

He adm its that she founded the Theosophical Society,but he adds that with Theosophy itself her own meritsand demerits have nothing to do. He adm its thatit was through Madame Blavatsky that he himselfcame into relation with the fountains of informationfrom which his own teaching has been derived. Hesays that he cannot be sufficiently grateful for her aid.

But he boldly claims to be an independent th inker ,a new messenger from the same Mahatmas whomMadame Blavatsky also endeavoured to represent.He repudiates the idea that he was a mere messengerfrom her. It was he, not she, who was entrusted with

sso'

rs sro BUDDHISM. 1 5 9

the task of putting into intelligible shape the viewsof life and nature entertained . by certain Eas terninitiates. Nay

,as if afraid that those whose messenger

he professes to be might hereafter appear at Sim la,

and claim the credit of being the real originatorsof Esoteric Buddhism

,he puts in a caveat and says ,

‘Whether I obtained Esoteric Buddhism from a Mahfitma on the other side of the Himalaya or frommy own head is of no consequence. ’ This soundsominous

,and very much like a first attempt to throw

over hereafter, not Madame Blavatsky only, but likewise the trans-Himalayan Mahatmas . Very few peoplewill agree withMr. Sinnett that it is of no consequencewhether he obtained his transcendent philosophy fromultra-montane Mahatmas or from his own inner consciousness . If he had ever crossed from India to theother side of the Himalayan mountain range , he wouldhold a place of honour among geographical discoverers .If

, when arrived at the snowy heights soWell describedby Hiouen-tsang and others

,he had made the acq

tance there of one or several Mahatmas, and beenable to converse with them ,

whether in Tibetan or inSanskrit or even in Hindustani, on the profoundestproblems of philosophy

,he would rank second only

to Csoma Korosi ; and if, moreover, he could provethat such doctrines as he himself comprehends underthe name of Esoteric Buddhism were at present taughtthere by people

,whether of Tibetan, Chinese , or Indian

origin,he would have revolutionized the history of

human thought in that part of the world. But if headdressed the Geographical or the Asiatic or the RoyalSociety

,the first questions which he would have to

answer would surely be, By what route did you cross

160 LAST ESSAYS.

the Himalaya ? What were the names of your Mahatmas , and where did they dwell ? In what languageor through what interpreters did you convers e withthem on such abstruse topics as those which you callEsoteric Buddhism ? I have no doubt that Mr. Sinnetthas a straightforward answer to all these questions.He probably possesses geographical maps

,meteoro

logical observations, and ample lingu istic notes, madeduringhis long and perilous journeys . But it is carryingmodesty too far to say , as he does, that it makes nodifference whether he obtained what he calls EsotericBuddhism from Mahatmas on the other side of theHimalaya

,or, it may be, from his own head . To

the world at large, the only question of real interestis whether the Himalaya has been crossed by himfrom the Indian side , whether such doctrines asMadame Blavatsky and Mr . Sinnett have publishedas Esoteric Buddhism are taught by Mahatmas on thesnowy peaks of the Himalayan chain , and1 if so, inwhat language Mr. Sinnett was able to converse withh is teachers . Mr. Sinnett

’

s own head and Mr. Sinnett’

s

own philosophy do not concern us,at least at present.

I was concerned with Madame Blavatsky and withthe movement to whi ch she had given the first impulse

,

a movement which seemed to me and to many othersto have assumed such large proportions

,and to cause

such serious m ischief,that it could no longer be

ignored or disregarded . That Hegel's Logic shouldhave been written in Germany in the nineteenthcentury, after Kant and after ‘Schelling, is perfectlyintelligible

,at least quite as much as that Buddha ’s

new doctrine should have originated in India in thes ixth century a c

,and after the age of the U panishads .

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162 LAST assay s.

by better evidence than his own ipse dimit. If, as hetells us, Madame Blavatsky professed to write EsotericBuddhism with one d instead of two , this only showsthat she was ignorant of Sanskrit grammar, whileMr . Sinnett, as a bona fide Sanskrit scholar, is wellaware that in past participles the final dh of budhfollowed by t becomes ddk . But considering howMadame Blavatsky declares again and again that herBuddhism was not the Buddhism which ordinaryscholars might study in the canonical books , thatit is not in the dead letter of Buddhistical sacredliterature that scholars may hope to find the truesolution of the metaphysical subtleties of Buddhism ;

when she adds that in using the term Buddhism shedoes not mean to imply by it either the exotericBuddhism instituted by the followers of GautamaBuddha, nor the modern Buddhistic religion , but thesecret philosophy of Sakyamuni ; when she maintainsmoreover, that Gautama had a doctrine for his elect,and another for the outside

.

masses , what is herBuddhism if not non -es oteric, i . s. esoteric ? Why thenshould it not be called so ? Why should Mr. Sinnettwish to repudiate his spiri tual wife, if not his spiritualmother ? That Mr. Sinnett may have written a bookon Esoteric Buddhism , that he may have formulateddoctrines which in I sis Unveiled are, as he says ,poured out in wild profusion

,that he too holds

a commission from some unknown Eastern initiates,that his book has been translated into a dozen languages— all this may be pm'fectly true . All I haveto say for myself is that, in criticizing MadameBlavatsky and her own Esoteric Buddhism

,I did

not feel bound to criticize him and his theosophy.

Esorsarc BUDDHISM . 163

I have now at the end of his ‘Rejoinder ’ seen forthe first time an abstract of what he calls his ownformulated system of philosophy

,and I have humbly

to confess that it is quite beyond me . ThoughI flatter myself that I understand Plato and Aristotle,Spinoza and even Hegel , I am quite unable to followMr. Sinnett in his theosophical flights. PerhapsI need not be ashamed of this

, for he tells us in so

many words that he is in advance of all of us, andthat he does not mind

,therefore

,some disparaging

glances from his less fortunate companions. Till ,therefore , he condescends to adapt his teaching tothe more lim ited capacities of his less fortunatecompanions

,it would be in vain for us to attempt to

comprehend or to criticize his new philosophy,whether

it springs from trans-Himalaya Mahatm as or fromh is own head . We must accept our fate among then us pro awwm ‘ left aground in the rear, andnever able to realize the importance of new re

searches on which inquirers besides theosophists

As I had never, in the whole of my article onMadame Blavatsky and her own Esoteric Buddhism ,

ventured to criticize Mr . Sinnett s Esoteric Buddhism ,

I did not see that I was bound to answer his‘Rejoinder ’

in the June number of this Review.

If his ‘Rejoinder ’

had been inspired by a wish todefend his once revered m istress , I should have feltin duty bound to reply to it . But as his Rejoinder,

'

so far from being a defence of Madame Blavatsky ,is in fact nothing but a plea for Mr. Sinnett himself,whom I had never attacked, it was only out of respectfor the Editor of the Nineteenth Century that I was

M 2

164 LAST assays.

induced to write down a few remarks in reply towhat he had allowed to appear in the June numberof this Review.

Mr. Sinnett has summed up my argument againstEsoteric Buddhism in the following words : Buddhismcannot contain any teaching hitherto kept secret,because the books hitherto published do not discloseany secrets . It is not a favourable summing up ofmy argument, but even thus I willingly accept it .

My argument, as represented by Mr. Sinnett, has theweak point of all inductive arguments . We say

,for

instance, that the sun will never rise in the west,but

we can produce no other proof but that hitherto thesun has always risen in the east. Strict reasonersmay say, and may truly say , that it may , for all that,rise in the west to-morrow ; and if that concessionis any comfort to the logical conscience of Mr. Sinnettor anybody else, no one would wish to deprive themof it. Mr. Sinnett takes me to task on the sameground once more . Why

,he asks, do I not argue

that there cannot be any ore in a mine because thereis none on the surface ? Has Mr. Sinnett never heardof a deserted m ine with unused W indlass and danglingrope ? Has he never heard what happened to specuslators who would bore and bore, though geologistsassured them that there was and that there could beno coal in the stratum which they had chosen ? Whatgeology can do for the m iner , philology can do forthe student of literature and religion. Whoeverknows the successive strata of Greek literature ,knows that it is useless to look for Homeric poetryafter the age of Pericles . No scholar would hesitateto say that whatever new papyri of Aristotle’s

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166 LAsr ESSAYS.

This is rather severe onMadameBlavatsky, and di fficultto reconcile with the solemn statement made byanother friend of hers , who assures us that she wasa scholar and had actually acquired a knowledge ofPali . But, as if conscious of having been ratherunkind to Madame Blavatsky, Mr. Sinnett adds

‘To understand how it came to paes that under those ci rcumstancesthe M88 . she wrote with her own hand were freely embellishedwith Greek quotations, would require a comprehension of manycurious human capacities outside the scope of that scholarship of

which Professor Max Mirller is justly proud , but unfortunatelytoo often inclined to mistake for un iversal knowledge .

’

Mr. Sinnett evidently imagines that this assumptionof universal knowledge is a common failing of professors , and he triumphantly quotes against me thewell-known lines

I am the master of my college,What I know not is not knowledge.

’

I f,then

,for once I may be allowed to claim universal

knowledge and speak in the language of esotericomniscience

,I maintain that it would be by no means

difficult to understand these Greek embellishments inMadame Blavatsky

’s publications . May not Madame

Blavatsky ina former birth have been a Greek Sibylla'

l

And are not those who are further advanced along theline of cosmic progress , and familiar with superphysicalphases of nature , able to recall their former experiences 3Did not Buddha himself, at least according to the testimony of his followers

,claim that faculty

,and was not

Madame Blavatsky so far advanced in Arhatship asto be able to remember what in a former Kalpa sheknew as Madame BMfiaraxfa

’

l Let others suggestother solutions a true Buddhist, like myself, ac

aso'

rnsm BUDDH ISM. 167

quainted with the iddhis, and the mysterious workingof psychic faculties and forces

,can have no difficulty

in accounting for the presence of the Kakothoda'i/mon

in Madame Blavatsky'

s books .As Mr. Sinnett seems to find it hard to deny any

of my facts or controvert any of the arguments basedon them

,he has recourse to the favourite expedient of

discrediting or abusing the counsel for true Buddhism .

He says that I have no right to speak with authority.

I have never claimed to speak with authority. Far

from it ! I simply speak with facts and arguments .

Facts require no authority nor laws of logic, whetherinductive or deductive . In my article on

‘EsotericBuddhism ,

’ I have based my case on nothing but factsand arguments . If Mr . Sinnett will prove my factswrong, I shall be most grateful and surrender themat once . If he can show that my arguments offendagainst the laws of logic

,I withdraw them without

a pang. I never claimed to be a Pope or a MahAtma.

Mr. Sinnett appeals to the authority of ‘native scholarsand he assures us that he has heard ‘native scholarsat Benares and elsewhere discussing my comments onIndian philosophy . Of course he means that theywere discussing them unfavourably. I do not doubtthe fact, but Mr. Sinnett does not give us the namesof the native scholars,

’

nor inform us in what languagetheir discussion took place. Now there are ‘ nativescholars and native scholars ,

’ but even the most learnedamong them would not claim any infallible authori ty .

I know many native scholars and have had frequentcommunications with them by letter. I have oftenexpressed my admiration for the knowledge of someof them

,particularly of those who are specialists and

168 LAST ESSAYS.

know one book or one subject only, but thoroughly.

I have had controversies with some of them , andnothing could be more pleasant and courteous thantheir manner of arguing. I differ from them on somepoints

,and they differ from me. I must therefore leave

it to a Sanskrit scholar like Mr. Sinnett to judgebetween us, and to determine who is right and whois wrong ; but he must not imagine that he can frightenme or my readers by appeals to unknown and anonymous native scholars .

’ If ‘native scholars ’ havedeclared my contention that there is nosecret about Sanskrit literature to be lud icrou s, mayI remind Mr . Sinnett that he has accidentally forgottento prove his major premise that anything that seemsludicrous to any native scholar is 7339w untrue .

Mr. Sinnett has taken the opportunity of giving , atthe end of his ‘Rejoinder,

’ a specimen of what hemeans by Esoteric Buddhism . This is a grave indiscretion on his part

,and if any native scholar or

Mahatma confided it to him , and it did not rathercome from his own head , the consequences of such anindiscretion may become very serious to him and hisfollowers, whoever they may be .

It is a well-known and to my m ind a very significantepisode in Buddha ’s life that he dies as an old manafter having eaten a meal of boar’s flesh offered himby a friend . With a man like Buddha

,who was

above the prejudices of the Brahmans,there is no

harm in this, but as it lends itself to ridicule it hasalways seemed to me to speak very well for theveracity of his disciples that they should have statedthis fact quite plainly . But Mr. Sinnett has beeninitiated by Mahatmas

,and he tells us that the roast

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170 LAST ESSAYS.

greater penalties, particularly if, with most Sanskritscholars, native or otherwise, he should commit thestill greater heresy of maintaining that the VishnuPurana did not even exist in Buddha’s time

,and that

therefore Buddha must have swallowed boua fide

pork, and not a merely esoteric boar.

THE ALLEGED SOJOU RN OF CHRIST

IN INDIA 1.

NEAS SYLVIU S, afterwards Pope Pius theSecond

,1 458

- 64, when on a visit to England,was anxious to see with his own eyes the barnaclegeese that were reporwd to grow on trees , and , beingsupposed to be vegetable rather than animal, wereallowed to be eaten during Lent He went as far asScotland to see them , but arrived there he was toldthat he must go further, to the Orchades, if he wishedto see these miraculous geese . He seemed ratherprovoked at this , and , complaining that m iracles wouldalways flee further and further, he gave up his goosechase (did ici/mus m iracula sm per remotius fugere).Since his time, the number of countries in which

m iracles and mysteries could find a safe hiding-placehas been much red uced . If there were a singlebam uele goose left in the Orchades, i . e. the OrkneyIslands

,tourists would by this time have given a good

account of it. There are few countries left now beyondthe reach of steamers or railways

,and if there is

a spot never trodden by a European foot,that is the

very spot which is sure to be fixed upon by someadventurous members of the Alpine Club for theirnext expedition. Even Central Asia and Central

Nineteen/h Century , October, 1 894.

172 LAST ESSAYS.

Africa are no longer safe , and hence , no doubt, thegreat charm which attaches to a country like Tibet ,now almost the only country some parts of which arestill closed against European explorers. It was inTibet, therefore , that Madame Blavatsky met her

Mahatmas , who initiated her in the mysteries ofEsotericBuddhism . Mr. Sinnett claims to have followedin her footsteps

,but has never described his or her

route. Of course, ifMadameBlavatsky and Mr . Sinnetthad only told us by what passes they entered Tibetfrom India

,at what stations they halted , and in what

language they communicated with the Mahatmas, itwould not be courteous to ask any further questions .That there are Mahatmas in India and Tibet no onewould venture to deny. The only doubt is whetherthese real Mahatmas know, or profess to know,

anything beyond what they can

,and what we can , learn

from their sacred literature . If so,they have only to

give the authorities to which they appeal for theiresoteric knowledge, and we shall know at once whetherthey are right or wrong . Their Sacred Canon is

accessible to us as it is to them , and we could , therefore ,very easily come to an understanding with them asto what they mean by Esoteric Buddhism . TheirSacred Canon exists in Sanskrit , in Chinese , and inTibetan , and no Sacred Canon is so large and has atthe same time been so m inutely catalogued as that ofthe Buddhists in India, China, or Tibet.But though certain portions ofTibet

,and particularly

the capital (Lassa), are still inaccessible, at leas t toEnglish travellers from India, other portions of it, andthe countries between it and India, are becoming moreand more frequented by adventurous tourists. It

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1 74 LAST ESSAYS.

But,taking it for granted that M . Notovitch is a

gentleman and not a liar,we cannot help thinking

that the Buddhist monks of Ladakh and Tibet mustbe wags , who enjoy mystifying inquisitive travellers,and that M . Notov itch fell far too easy a victim totheir jokes . Possibly, the same excuse may apply toMadame Blavatsky, who was fully convinced that herfriends, the Mahatmas of Tibet, sent her letters toCalcutta , not by post , but through the air , letterswhich she showed to her friends , and which werewritten , not on Mahatm ic paper and

’

with Mahatmic

ink, but on English paper and with English ink .

Be that as it may, M . Notovitch is not the firsttraveller in the East to whom Brahmans or Buddhistshave supplied, for a. consideration, the informationand even the manuscripts which they were in searchof. Wilford ’

8 case ought to have served as a warning,but we know it did not serve as a warning toM . Jacolliot when he published his B ible dons l’I ndefrom Sanskrit originals

,supplied to him by learned

Pandits at Chandranagor. Madam e Blavatsky , ifI remember rightly, never even pretended to havereceived Tibetan manuscripts

,or

,if she had , neither

she nor Mr. Sinnett has ever seen fit to publish eitherthe text or an English translation of these treasures .But M . Notov itch , though he did not bring the

manuscripts home, at all events saw them ,and not

pretendn to a knowledge of Tibetan,had the Tibetan

text translated by an interpreter,and has published

seventy pages of it in French in his Viem oan/we dc

J(sass-Christ. He was evidently prepared for thediscovery of a Life of Christ among the Buddhists .Similarities between Christianity and Buddhism have

ALLEGED SOJOUHN or CHELST IN INDIA. 17 5

frequently been pointed out of late,and the idea that

Christ was influenced by Buddhist doctrines has morethan once been put forward by popular writers . The

difliculty has hitherto been to discover any realhistorical channel through which Buddhism could havereached Palestine at the time of Christ. M . Notovitch

thinks that the manuscript which he found at Him isexplains the matter in the simplest way . There is nodoubt, as he says, a gap in the life of Christ, say fromHis fifteenth to His twenty-ninth year. During thatvery time the new Life found in Tibet asserts thatChrist was in India, that He studied Sanskrit and Pali ,that He read the Vedas and the Buddhist Canon , andthen returned through Persia to Palestine to preachthe Gospel . If we understand M . Notovitch rightly

,

this Life of Chris t was taken down from the mouthsof some Jewish merchants who came to India immediately after the Crucifixion (p . It was writtendown in Pali

,the sacred language of Southern Bud

dhism ; the scrolls were afterwards brought from Indiato Nepenl and Makhada (quasars Magadha) aboutA . D. 200 (p . and from Nepaul to Tibet, and areat present carefully preserved at Lassa: Tibetantranslations of the Phli text are found , he says, invarious Buddhist monasteries

,and , among the rest ,

at Himis. It is these Tibetan manuscripts which weretranslated at Himis for M . Notovitch while he waslaid up in the monastery with a broken leg, and itis from these manuscripts that he has taken his newLife of Jesus Christ and published it in French , withan account of his travels . This volume , which hasalready passed through several editions in France, issoon to be translated into English .

176 LAST ESSAYS.

There is a certain plausibility about all this . Thelanguage of Magadha, and of Southern Buddhism ingeneral , was certainly Pali , and Buddhism reachedTibet through Nepaul. But M. Notovitch ought tohave been somewhat startled and a little more scepticalwhen he was told that the Jewish merchants whoarrived in India immediate ly after the Crucifixionknew not only what had happened to Christ inPalestine, but also what had happened to Jesus , orIssa, while He spent fifteen years of His life among theBrahmans and Buddhists in India, learning Sanskritand Pali , and studying the Vedas and the Tripitaka.With all their cleverness the Buddhist monks wouldhave found it hard to answer the question, how theseJewish merchants met the very people who had knownIssa as a casual student of Sanskrit and Pali in India— for India is a large term—and still more

,how those

who had known Issa as a simme student in India ,saw at once that He was the same person who hadbeen put to death under Pontius Pilate. Even His

not quite the same. His name in India issaid to have been I ssa , very like the Arabic nameIsd

’

lMasth , Jesus , the Messiah , while, strange to say ,

the nam e of Pontius Pilate seems to have remainedunchanged in its m e from Hebrew to Pali, andfrom Pali to Tibetan. We must remember that partof Tibet was converted to Mohammedanism . So muchfor the difficulty as to the first composition of the Lifeof Issa in Pali , the j oint work of Jewish merchantsand the pamonal friends of Christ in India, whetherin Sind or at Benares . Still greater

,however, is the

difficulty of the Tibetan translation of that Life havingbeen preserved for so many centuries without ever

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178 LAST ESSAYS.

The Tandjur consists of 225 volumes, and while theKandjur is supposed to contain the Word of Buddha

,

the Tandjur contains many books on grammar,

philosophy , &c. , which , though recognized as part ofthe Canon, are in no sense sacred .

the story of Ian ought to have its place , and if

him at leas t a reference to that part of the Cataloguewhere this story might be found

,he would at once

have discovered that they were trying to dupe him .

Two things in their account are impossible, or next to

impossible. The first, that the Jews from Palestinewho came to India in about 35 A.D . should have metthe very people who had known Issa when he was astudent at Benares ; the second , that this Sutra of Issa,composed in the first century of our era

,should not have

found a place ei ther in the Kandjur or in the Tandjur.

It might , of course , be said, Why Should theBuddhi st monks of Himis have indulged in thismystification i

—but we know as a fact that Panditsin India

, when hard pressed, have allowed themselvesthe same liberty with such men as Wilford and

Jacolliot ; why should not the Buddhist monks ofHimis have done the same for M. Notovitch , who wasdetermined to find a Life of Jesus Christ in Tibet ?If this explanation, the only one I can think of,be rejected, nothing would remain but to accuseM . Notovitch , not simply of a mauvaise plaisante/rie,but of a disgraceful fraud ; and that seems a strongmeasure to adopt towards a gentleman who representshimself as on fri endly terms with Cardinal Rotelli ,

ALLEGED SOJOUHN or GHE IST IN INDIA . 179

And here I must say that if there is anything thatm ight cause misgivings in ourm ind as toM.Notovitch ’

s

trustworthiness,it is the way in which he speaks of

his friends . When a cardinal at Rome dissuades himfrom publishing his book, and also kindly offers toassist him , he hints that this was simply a bribe, andthat the cardinal wished to suppress the book. Whyshould he ? If the story of Issa were historically true ,it would remove many d ifliculties . It would showonce for all that Jesus was a real and historicalcharacter. The teaching ascri bed to him in Tibet ismuch the same as what is found in the Gospels, andif there are some difi’

erences , if more particularly themiraculous element is almost entirely absent , a cardinalof the Roman Catholic Church would always have thetradition of the Church to rest on, and would probablyhave been most grateful for the solid historical framework supplied by the Tibetan Life.M . Notovitch is equally uncharitable in imputing

motives to the late M. Renan , who seems to havereceived him most kindly

,and to have offered to

submit his discovery to the Academy . M. Notovitch

says that he never called on Renan again, but actuallywaited for his death

,because he was sure that M .Renan

would have secured the best part of the credit forhim self

,leaving to M Notovitch nothing but the good

luck of having discovered the Tibetan manuscript atHim is . Whatever else Renan was , he certainly wasfar from jealous

,and he would have acted tos

M. Notovitch in the same spirit with which he welcomedthe discoveries which Hamdy Bey lately made inSyria on the very ground which had been exploredbefore byRenan himself. Many travellerswho discover

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180 LAST ESSAYa

manuscripts, or inscriptions, or antiquities , are too aptto forget how much they owe to good luck and to thespades of their labourers

,and that , though a man who

disinters a buried city may be congratulated on hisdevotion and courage and perseverance , he does notthereby become a scholar or antiquary . The name of

the name of the decipherer wi ll be remembered forever.

The worst treatment, however, is meted out to themissionaries in Tibet. It seems that they have writtento say that M . Notovitch had never broken his leg orbeen nursed in the monastery oi mis . This is a

point that can easily be cleared up , for there are at

the present moment a number of English oflicersat Leh , and there is the doctor who either did or didnot set the traveller’

s leg. M . Notovitch hints thatthe Moravian missionaries at Leh are distrusted bythe people

,and that the monks would never have

shown them the manuscript containing the Life ofIssa . Again I say, why not ? If Issa was Jesus Christ,ei ther the Buddhist monks and the Moravian mi ssionaries would have seen that they both believed in thesame teacher, or they might have thought that thisnew Life of Issa was even less exposed to objectionsthan the Gospel-story . But the worst comes at theend. How can I tell ,

’ he writes , ‘ that these missionaries have not themselves taken away the documentsof which I saw the copies at the Him is monastery ? ’

But how could they, if the monks never showed themthese manuscripts ? M. Notovitch goes even further.

This is simply a supposition of my own ,

’ he writes‘ but, if it is true, only the copies have been made

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182 LAST ESSAYS.

than the text of St. Mark . Other things may follow.

Only let us hope that if such a Life were ever to bediscovered

,the attitude of Christian theologians would

not be like that which M. Notovitch suspects on thepart of an Italian cardinal or of the Moravian missionaries at Him is , but that the historical Chri st ,though difl‘

erent from the Christ of the Gospels,would

be welcomed by all who can believe in His teaching,even without the help of m iracles .It is curious that at the very time I was writing

this paper I received a letter from an English ladydated Leh , Ladakh , June 29, 1 894 . She writes

‘We left Leh two days ago, having enjoyed our stay there so

much ! There had been only one English lady here for over threeyears . Two German ladi es live there , m issionaries, a Mr. and

Mrs. W eber, a girl, and another English m issionary. They haveonly twenty Christians , though it has been a missionwtation for

seven years. We saw a polo match which was played down the

principal street. Yesterdaywe were at the great H im is monastery ,

the largest Buddhist monastery up here—800 Lamas. Did you

hear of a Russian who could not gain admittance to the monasteryin any way , but at last broke his leg outside, and was taken in ?

His object was to copy a Buddhist Life of Christ which is there.

He says he got it, and has published it since in French. There isnot a single word of truth in the whole story 1 There has been no

Russian there. No on e has been taken in to th e Sem inary for the

pas t fifty years with a broken leg 1 There is no Life of Christ thereat all ! It is dawni ng on me that people who in England professto have been living in Buddh ist monasteries in Tibet and to

have learnt there th e mysteries of Esoteric Buddh ism are frauds.The monasteries one and all are th e most filthy places . I haveasked many travellers whom I have m et, and they all te ll thesame story . They acknowledge that perhaps at th e Lama U n iversityat Lassa it may be better, but no Englishman is allowed there .

Captain Bower (the diwoverer of the fam 0us Bower M8 .) did hi svery best to get there, but failed . We are roughing i t now verymuch. I have not taswd bread for five weeks, and shall not fortwo months more . We have chappaties

”instead . We rarely get

any butter. We carry a little tinned butter, but it is too precious

ALLEGED SOJOURN or CHRIST IN INDIA . 183

to eat much of. I t was a great luxury to get some linen washedin Leh

,though they d id starch the sheets. We are just starting

on our 500 miles’

march to Sim la. We hear that one pass is not

Open yet, about which we are very anxious. We have one pass of

feet to cross,and we shall be feet high for over

a fortnight ; but I hope that by th e time you get this we shall bedown in beautiful Kulu , only one month from Simla l

THE CHIEF LAMA OF HIMIS ON THE

ALLEGED U NKNOWN LIFE OF

CHRIST.

’

Br Ms . J . AncntsALn DOUGLAS 1 .

T is difficult for any one resident in India to estimate accurately the importance of new departures

in European literature,and to gauge the degree of

acceptance accorded to a fresh literary discovery suchas that which M . Notovitch claims to have made. Arevelation of so surprising a nature could not, however

,have failed to excite keen interest, not only

among theologians and the religious public generally,but also among all who wish to acquire additionalinformation respecting ancient religious systems and

U nder these circumstances it was not surprisingto find in the October (1 894) number of this Reviewan article from the able pen of Professor Max Miillerdealing wi th the Russian traveller’s marvellous find .

’

I confess that, not having at the time had thepleasure of reading the book which forms the subjectof this article, it seemed to me that the learnedOxford professor was disposed to treat the discoverersomewhat harshly, in holding up the Unknown Life

Nineteenth Ch ewy, April, 1 896‘

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186 LAST ESSAYS.

under the painful circumstances connected with hismemorable visit.During his journey up the Sind Valley M . Notovitch

was beset on all sides by ‘ panthers,tigers

,leopards

,

black bears , wolves , and jackals . ’ A panther ate oneof his coolies near the village of Haiena before hisvery eyes

,and black bears blocked his path in an

aggressive manner. Some of the old inhabitants ofHal’ena told me that they had never seen or heardof a panther or tiger in the neighbourhood

,and they

had never heard of any coolie, travelling with a European sahib, who had lost his life in the way described .

They were sure that such an event had not happenedwithin the last ten years . I was informed by agentleman of large experience in big-game shootingin Kashm ir that such an experience as that ofM. Notovitch was quite unprecedented, even in 1 887 ,

within thirty m iles of the capital of Kashmir.During my journey up the Sind Valley the only

wild animal I saw waa a red hear of such retiringdisposition that I could not get near enough fora shot .In Ladakh I was so fortunate as to bag an ibex

with thirty-eight-inch horns,called somewhat con

temptuously by the Russian author wild goats butit is not fair to the Ladakhis to assert, as M . Notovitch

does, that the pursuit of this animal is the principaloccupation of the men of the country . Ibex are now

so scarce near the Leh-Srinagar road that it is fortunatethat this is not the case . M . Notovitch pursued hispath undeterred by trifl ing discouragem ents , prepared ,

’

as he tells us,

‘ for the discovery of a Life of Christamong the Buddhists .’

ALLEGED SOJOURN or CHRIST IN INDIA . 187

In justice to the imaginative author I feel bound tosay that I have no evidence that M . Notovitch has notvisited Himis Monas tery. On the contrary, the ChiefLama, or Chagzot, of Himis does distinctly rememberthat several European gentlemen visited the monas teryin the years 1 887 and 1 888 .

I do not attach much importance to the venerableLama’s declaration, before theComm issioner ofLadakh,to the effect that no Russian gentleman visited themonastery in the years named

,because I have reason

to believe that the Lama was not aware at the timeof the appearance of a person of Russian nationality ,d on being shown the photograph of M. Notovitch

confesses that he m ight have mistaken him for anEnglish sahib.

’ It appears certain that thi s venerableabbot could not di stinguish at a glance between aRussian and other European or American traveller.The declara tion of the English lady at Leh ,

’ and ofthe British officers , mentioned by ProfessorMaxMiiller,was probably founded on the fact that no such nameas Notovitch occurs in the list of European travellerskept at the dak bungalow in Leh , where M. Notovitch

says that he resided during his stay in that place .

Careful inquiries have elicited the fact that a Russiangentleman named Notovitch was treated by themedical officer of Leh Hospital , Dr. Karl Marks , whensuffering not from a broken leg, but from the lessromantic but hardly less painful complaint— toothache.I will now call attention to several leading state

ments in M . Notovitch’

s book, all of which will befound to be definitely contradicted in the documentSigned by the Chief Superior of Himis Monastery, andsealed with his ofiicial seal . This statement I have

188 LAST EsSArS.

sent to Professor Max Miiller for inspection,together

with the subjoined declaration of Mr . Joldan, aneducated Tibetan gentleman, to whose able assistanceI am deeply indebted.

A more patient and painstaking interpreter couldnot be found

,nor one better fitted for the task .

The extracts from M . Notovitch’

s book were slowlytranslated to the Lama, and were thoroughly understood by h im . The questions and answers were fullydiscussed at two lengthy interviews before beingprepared as a document for signature

,and when so

prepared were carefqtranslated again to the Lamaby Mr. Joldan , and discussed by him with thatgentleman

,and with a venerable monk who appeared

to act as the Lama’s private secretary .

I may here say that I have the fullest confidence inthe veracity and honesty of this old and respectedChief Lama, who appears to be held in the highestesteem , not only among Buddhists, but by all Europeanswho have made his acquaintance . AS he says, he hasnothing whatever to gain by the concealment of facts ,or by any departure from the truth .

His indignation at the manner in which he has Men

travestied by the ingenious author was of far toogenuine a character to be feigned , and I was muchinterested when, in our final interview, he asked meif in Europe there existed no means of punishing aperson who to ld such untruths . I could only replythat literary honesty is taken for granted to such an

extent in Europe , that literary forgery of the naturecommitted by M . Notovitch could not, I behaved, bepunished by our criminal law.

With reference to M . Notovitch ’

s declaration that

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190 LAST assay s.

little is known about h im save by the Chief Lamas who have readthe scrolls re lating to h is life (p. 1 so).

‘The docum ents brought from India toNepal, and from Nepal toTibet, concerning Issa‘

s existence, are written in the Pali language,and are now in Ia ssa ; but a copy in our language

—that is, theTibetan—exists in this convent

‘

(p. n

‘Two days later I sent by amessenger to the Ch ief Lama apresentcomprising an alarum , a watch, and a thermometer (p.

We will now pass on to the description given bythe author of his re-entry into the monastery witha broken leg

I was carried with great care to the best of the ir cham bers, andplaced on a bed of soft materials , near to wh ich stood a prayerwheel. All this took place under the immed iate surveillance of

the Superior, who aflectionately pressed th e hand I ofl'

ered him in

gratitude for his kindness (p .

‘Wh ile a youth of the convent kept in motion the prayer-wheelnear my bed , the venerable Superior entertained m e with endlessstories . constantly tak ing my alarum and watch from the ir cases , andputting to me questions as to their uses , and the way they shouldbe worked . At last, acced ing to my earnes t entreaties, he endedby bringing me two large bound volumes

, with leaves yellowed bytime , and from them he read to me

,in th e Tibetan language, th e

biography of Issa, which I carefully noted in my com et do voyage, as

my interpreter translated what he said (p .

This last extract is,in a sense , the most important

of all , as will be seen when it is compared withAnswers 3 , 4 , and 5 in the statement of the ChiefSuperior of Himis Monastery. That statement I nowappend. The original is in the hands of ProfessorMax Miiller, as I have said , as also is the appendeddeclaration of Mr. Jelden, of Leh.

The statement of the Lama, if true— and there isevery reason to believe it to be so— disposes once andfor ever of M . Notovitch

’

s claim to have discovereda Life of Issa among the Buddhists of Ladakh . Myquestions to the Lama were framed briefly, and with

ALLEGED SOJOURN or onarsr IN INDIA . 19 1

as much simplicity as possible, so that there mightbe no room for any m istake or doubt respecting themeaning of these questions .

My interpreter, Mr . Joldan ,tells me that he was

most careful to translate the Lama’s ausweis verbally

and literally, to avoid all possible m isapprehension .

The statement is as followsQuestion I . You are the Chief Lama (or Abbot) of

Himis Monastery ?Answer I . Yes .

Question 2 . For how long have you acted continu0

Answer 2 . For fifteen years .Question 3 . Have you or any of the Buddhis

monks in this monas tery ever seen here a Europeanwith an injured leg ?Answer 3 . No, not during the last fifteen years . If

any sahib suffering from serious injury had stayed inthis monastery it would have been my duty to reportthe matter to the Wazir of Leh . I have never hadoccasion to do so .

Question 4 . Have you or any of your monks evershown any Life of Issa to any sahib

,and allowed him

to copy and translate the same ?Answer 4 . There is no such book in the monastery ,

and during my term of ofiice no sahib has beenallowed to copy or translate any of the manuscriptsin the m onastery .

Question 5 . Are you aware of the existence of anybook in any of the Buddh ist monasteries of Tibetbearing on the life of Issa ?An swer 5 . I have been for forty-two years a Lama,

and am well acquainted with all the well-known

192 LAST assays.

Buddhist books and manuscripts , and I have neverheard of one which mentions the name of Issa

,and

it is my firm and honest belief that none such exists .

I have inquired of our principal Lamas in othermonasteries of Tibet , and they are not acquaintedwith any books or manuscripts which mention thename of Issa.

Question 6 . M . N icolas Notovitch,a Russian gentle

man who visited your monastery between seven andeight years ago

,states that you discussed with him

the religions of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, andthe people of Israel .Answer 6. I know nothing whatever about the

Egyptians,Assyrians, and the people of Israel, and

do not know anything of their religions whatsoever. I have never mentioned these people to any

[I was reading M . Notovitch’

s book to the Lamaat the time

,and he burst out with, “Sun, sun, sun ,

manna mi dug l’ which is Tibetan for Lies , lies, lies ,

nothing but lies ! ’ I have read this to him as partof the statement which he is to sign— as his deliberateopinion of M . Notovitch

’

s book. He appears perfectlysatisfied on the matter —J. A . D.]Question 7 . Do you know of any Buddhist writings

in the Pali language ?Answer 7 . I know of no Buddhist writings in the

Phli language ; all the writings here, that I know of,have been translated from Sanskrit and Hind i intothe Tibetan language .

[From this answer, and other observations of theLama

,it would appear that he is not acquainted with

the term ‘Pflli.’ —J. A . D.]

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194 LAST ESSAYS.

seal and signature were thoroughly understood byhim , and I have the fullest confidence in his absolute

SHAHMWELL JOLDAN

(Retired M unster of Ladakh

Leh : June 5 , 1 895.

This statement and declaration appear conclusive,and they are confirmed by my own inquiries, and bythose made in my presence by the Abbot of Him isof some of the monks who have been longest residentin the monastery. There is every reason for believing that the conversati ons with the Lamas ofWokka and Lamayuru originated also in the fertilebrain of M . Notovitch.

Neither of these reverend abbots remembers anything about the Russian traveller, and they knownothing of the religion of Issa (Christianity), or ofany Buddhist sacred books or writings which mentionhis name.

I would here remark that the Lamas of Ladakh arenot a garrulous race, and I have never known themindulge in high-flown platitudes on any subject.The casual reader would judge from a perusal ofM . Notovitch

’

s‘ conversations ’ with them , that they

were as much addicted to pompous generalities as theorators of youthful debati ng societies. The LamasI have met are prepared to answer rational inquiriescourteously. They do so with brevity

,and usually

to the point. They confess wi llingly that their knowledge on religious subj ects is limited to their own

religion,and that they know nothing whatever of

religious systems unconnected with Tibetan Buddhism.

ALLEGED SOJOURN or center IN INDIA . 195

They do not read any languages but Sanskrit andTibetan, and their conversations with foreigners arealtogether limited to commonplace tOpics . The ChiefLama of Himis had never heard of the existence ofthe Egyptians or of the Assyrians

,and his indignation

at M . Notovitch’

s statement that he had discussedtheir religious beliefs was so real , that he almostseemed to imagine that M . Notovitch had accusedhim of saying something outrageously improper.

The exclusiveness of the Buddhism of Lassa seemsto have instilled into the minds of the Lamai‘stes aninstinctive shrinking from foreign customs and ideas.I would call attention especially to the ninth

answer in the Lama’s statement,in which he disclaims

all knowledge of the English and U rdu languages .The question arises

,

‘Who was M . Notovitch'

s

interpreter ? ’ The Tibetans of Ladakh competent tointerpret such a conversation are l

eading men, cer

tainly not more than three or four In number. Notone of them has ever seen M. Notovitch , to hisknowledge. What does our imaginative author tellabout this detail ? On page 35 of the English ed ition ,we are informed that at the village of Goond (thirtymiles from Srinagar) he took a shikari into his

service ‘who fulfilled the rOle of interpreter) Of allthe extraordinary statements with which this bookabounds , this appears to us the most marvellous.A Kashm iri shika/r'i is invariably a simple peasant,whose knowledge of language is limited to his nativetongue

,and a fewwords of U rdu and English, relating

to the necessities of the road, the camp and sport,picked up from English sportsmen and their Hinduattendants.

196 LAST assars .

Even in his own language no Kashm iri villagerwould be likely to be able to express religious andphilosophical ideas such as are contained in theconversations between M . Notovitch and the Lamas .

These ideas are foreign to the Kashm iri mode ofthought

,usually limited to what our author would

term ‘ things palpable. ’

We will take one or two examples‘Part of the spirituality of our Lord (p. 33)Essential principles of monotheism (p. 5x) ;

‘An interm ediary between earth and heaven '

(p. 5 1)

used in the ‘ conversation ’ with the Abbot of Wokkaon the journey to Leh . The conversations at Himisabound in even more magnificent expressions

‘ Idols which they regarded as neutral to their surroundings(aThe attenuation of the divine princi ple (p . U 5 ) i

‘Th e dominion of things palpable (p. 1 1 5)‘A canonical part of Buddh ism ’

(p.

and many others which readers will have no difficultyIn

Few things have amused me more, in connexionwith this inquiry, than the half-annoyed , half-amusedexpression of the venerable Lama’s face when Mr .

Joldan , after a careful explanation from me, did hisbest to translate into Tibetan, as elegantly as itdeserves , the expression, the attenuation of the di vineprinciple .

’

Apart , then , altogether from the statement made bythe old abbot

,there are ample reasons for doubting

the veracity of M. Notovitch’

s narrative.In my last conversation with the Lama we talked

of the story of the broken leg . He assured me that

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198 LAST men 's.

a sense of truth . The religious difl'

erences of these

so marvellous that it might almost seem to be

Regu d ed , then. in the light of a work of the

imag’

natiom M. Notovitch'

s book fails to plesss ,

because it does not present that most fascinating

And yet, if I am rightly informed. the Frenchversion has gone through eleven edi tions ; so M.

Notov itch'

s effort of imagination has found, doubtless, a substantial reward. In face of the evidenceadduced, we must reject the theory gsnm-onsly putforward by Professor Max Miiller, that M. Notovitch

was the victim of a cunning‘hoax

’

on the part of the

Buddhist monks of Himis .I do not believe that the venerable monk who

presides over Him is Monastery would have consen tedto the practice of such a deception, and I do not thinkthat any of the monks are capable of carrying outsuch a deception successfully. The departures fromtruth on other points which can be proved againstM . Notovitch render such a solution highly im

The preface which is attached to the English editionunder the form of a letter To the Publishers ’ is a bolddefence of the truth of M .Notovitch

’

s story , but it doesnot contain a single additional arg ument in favour ofthe authenticity of the Life of I ssa.

A work of brilliant imagination is entitled torespect when it confesses itself as such, but whenit is boldly and solemnly asserted again and againto be truth and fact , it is rightly designated by

ALLEGED smouax or oxs rsr IN 11mm. 199

a harsher term . The Life of I ssa is not a simplebiography . Such a publication

,though a literary

forgery , might be considered comparatively harmless .

This Life of I sea contains two very stri king departuresfrom Christian revelation , as accepted by the vastmajority of those who confess the faith of Christ.It practically denies the working of miracles

,and it

also gives a definite denial to the resurrection of JesusTo the first of these denials is given no less authoritythan the words of our Lord , while the second moreimportant article of faith is explained away verymuch to the discredit of the Apostles of the EarlyChurch . M . Notovitch must remain , therefore, underthe burden of what will be in the eyes of many peoplea more serious charge than literary forgery and persistent

‘

untruthfulness. He has attempted wilqy to

pervert Christian truth , and has endeavoured to investthat perversion with a shield of divine authority.

I am not a religious teacher, and , great as is myrespect for Christian missionaries

,I cannot profess

any enthusiastic sympathy with t heir methods andimmediate aims. M. Notovitch cannot thereforecharge me with ‘missionary prejudice ’ or obstinate

But,in the name of common honesty, what must

be said of M. Notovitch’

s statement, that his versionof the fi fe of I ssa ‘ has many more chances of beingconformable to the truth than the accounts of theevangelists

,the composition of which , effected at

different epochs, and at a time ulterior to the events ,may have contributed in a large measure to distortthe facts and to alter their sense. ’

Another daring departure from the New Testament

200 LAST assays .

account is that the blame of Christ’s cru cifixion is caston the Roman governor Pilate , who is repres ented as

descending to the suborning of false witnesses toexcuse the unjust condemnation of Jesus.The Jewish chief priests and people are represented

as deeply attached to the great Preacher,whom they

regarded as a possible deliverer from Roman tyranny ,and as endeavouring to save Him from the tyrannicalinjustice of Pilate . This remarkable perversion of thereceived account has led several people to ask if

the author of the Unknown Life of Christ is of Jewishextraction. Such inqu iries as I have been able tomake are not, however, in favour of such a supposition .

In many respects it may be said that this‘ Gospel

according to M . Notovitch bears a resemblance to theVie de Jesus by Renan , to whom the Russian authorstates that he showed his MSS.

We believe , nevertheless , that the great Frenchauthor possessed too much perspicacity to be deceivedby the discovery ,

’ and too much honesty to acceptsupport of his views from such a dubious quarter.The general question as to the probability of the

existence of any Life of Issa among the BuddhistMSS. in the monasteries of Tibet has been alreadyso ably dealt wi th by so great an authority on thesematters as Professor Max Muller, that I feel it wouldbe presumptuous on my part to attempt to deal witha subject in which I am but slightly versed . I willtherefore content myself by saying that the statements of the Lama of Himis

,and conversations with

other Lamas, entirely bear out Professor Max Muller’s

contention that no such Life of Issa exists in Tibet.In conclusion

,I would refer to two items of the

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202 LAM ESSAYS.

to me in my investigations, but also for the unfailingcourtesy and kind hospitality which rendered so en

joyable my visit to Ladakh .

PO STSCRIPT

BY F. M . M.

1

ALTHOUGH I was convinced that the story told byM .Notovitch in his Vic incon 'nue dc Jesus-Clar ifyt was

pure fiction,I thought it fair to give him the benefit

of a doubt,and to suggest

'

that he m ight possiblyhave been hoaxed by Buddhist priests from whomhe professed to have gathered his information aboutIssa , i . e . Jesus . (Isa is the name for Jesus used byMohammedans .) Such things have happened before .

Inquisi tive travellers have been supplied with theexact information which they wanted by Mahdtmasand other religious authorities, whether in Tibet or

India, or even among Zulus and Red Indians . Itseem ed a long cry to Leh in Ladakh , and in throwingout in an English review this hint that M . Notovitch

might have been hoaxed,I did not think that the

Buddhist priests in the monastery of Him is,in Little

Tibet , might be offended by my remarks. Afier

having read , however, the foregoing article by Mr.Douglas

,I feel bound most humbly to apologize to

the excellent Lamas of that monastery for havingthought them capable of such frivolity . After the com

plete refutation , or , I should rather say, annihilation ,

Nineteenth Century, August, 1896.

ALLEGED SoJouaN or CHRIST IN INDIA 203

of M . Notovitch by Mr. Douglas , there does notseem to be any further necessity— nay

,any excuse

for trying to spare the feelings of that venturesomeRussian traveller. He was not hoaxed

,but he tr ied

to hoax us. Mr. Douglas has sent me the originalpapers

,containing the d epositions of the Chief Priest

of the monastery of Himis and of his interpreter, and

I gladly te stify that they entirely agree with theextracts given in the article

,and are signed and

sealed by the Chief Lama and by Mr . Jolden , formerlyPostmas ter of Ladakh

,who acted as interpreter be

tween the priests and Mr. Douglas. The papers aredated Himis Monastery

,Little Tibet

,June 3 , 1 895 .

I ought perhaps to add that I cannot claim anyparticular merit in having proved the We inco'n'

nue

de Jésus-Christ— that is, the Life of Christ taken fromMSS. in the monasteries of Tibet— to be a merefiction. I doubt whether any Sanskrit or Pali scholar,in fact any serious student of Buddhism , was takenin by M . Notovitch . One might as well look for thewaters of Jordan in the Brahmaputra as for a Life ofChrist in Tibet.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE

BY MR. J . A DOUGLAS.

FIVE and a half years have elapsed since the foregoing paper was written in the little wood-panelledguest-chamber of Him is Monas tery in Western Tibet .The monastery and adjacent settlement are builton the western side of a rocky pass whi ch climbs

204 LAST ESSAYS.

upwards to the eternal snows. The pass above theBuddhist settlement is the haunt of numerous ibex,

which are tamer than the rest of their kind ; and higherup I saw a snow leopard, a rare animal even in thistrans-Himalayan region . At the foot of the Himisvalley flow the head -waters of the m ighty Indus

,

which , after a roundabout route by way of theChitral border, sweeps through the plains of thePunjab and the hot

,low-lying country of Sind into

the Indian Ocean . Remarkable and weird as are

the surroundings of this great centre of Lamaism ,

or Western Buddhism , the interior of the Him isMonastery is still more fascinating on account of itsdissimilari ty to anything that the European who hasnot previously visited a Buddhist country has everseen before . The few days that I spent at , and inthe neighbourhood of Himis, were among the mostinteresting of my life hitherto , and even now itsometimes seems like a visit to another planet— asa journey to Mars , for instance , in response to aninvitation forwarded by Dr. N ikola Tesla’s wirelessmega

o telephone. The marvels of the Buddhist temple,its strange points of resemblance to a Roman Catholiccathedral of Southern Europe , the wonderful picturesand carvings , and the grotesque images occupied myattention very fully . There was one terribly graphicpicture of the horrible tortures of the damned , whichimpressed itself upon my mind on account of thefiendish ingenuity of the conceptions . The hugeyellow

,savage dogs

,chained up near the temple,

were in keeping with their surroundings , thoughI succeeded

,after repeated appeals to the appetite

of one of these Tibetan hounds, in making fri ends

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206 LAST ESSAYS.

kind of conversation without the aid of an interpreter,and he seem ed to be better educated from our standpoint than the older monks . In exam ining the libraryof the monastery , with its MSS . on wooden rollersand between wooden boards, the intelligence of thisyoung Tibetan was very helpful to me, and with theassistance of my interpreter the task of inspectionwas rendered easy .

Early in the evening before my departure mysecretary-friend brought into my little chamber atankard of ‘

tcha/ng, or Tibetan beer, a present fromthe Chief Lama

,which was not altogether unwelcome

after some weeks of enforced total abstinence .

’Tchanghas a Slightly acid flavour, but is not at all un

palatable , and it is not too much to presume that thisbeer is free from arsenical impurities . My visitordeparted after a brief conversation ; and I sat downat my camp-table to write an account of my investi

gations. It was in the small hours of the morningthat I finished my labours

,and after . a few hours’

sleep I dispatched my article to the editor of theNineteenth Century, and the Signed depositions ofthe Lama and of my interpreter, with an explanatoryletter, to my revered friend , Professor Max Miillerat Oxford. These were given to a moon-faced Tibetandeli -runner to hand to the postal officials at Leh , andI must confess to grave feelings of anxiety lest theyshould fail to reach their destination .

It can hardly be wondered at that I was anxiousto send news to England of the results of my investigations at the earliest possible date , especially as theproof of the forgery was complete ; but when furtherinquiries in Western Tibet produced other striking

ALLEGED SOJOURN or GHE IST IN INDIA. 207

instances of M . Notovitch’

s marvellous inventivepowers

,I was incl ined to regret that I had not

delayed dispatching these packets to Europe .

The good mission-people of Kashm iri and Ladakh,

who first attempted to expose M . Notovitch , did thatRussian adventurer good serv ice by denying that hehad ever visited Leh or Himis at all . There is nodoubt whatever that M . Notovitch Spent one nightatHimis, and that ten days later (or within a fortnightafter he had broken his leg, according to his own

account) he walked into the m ission dispensary atLeh , and asked to see Dr. Karl Marks

,whom he

informed that he was suffering from toothache . Dr.

Marks made an entry of the date of the visit in hisdi ary . The Tibetan who engaged some carriers forM . Notovitch remembers that he left Leh on thatoccasion , after two days’ stay, on foot, with theintention of proceeding to Srinagar by way of Niniuand Dras . The crushing refutation of the details ofthe Russian discoverer’s story is the clear, straightforward statement of that most respectable oldmonk

,the Chief Lama of Himis, who thoroughly

understood the matter,inquiring most carefully into

the details of the story told by M . Notovitch . Hewas naturally most indignant at them isuse of his nameand authority , and at the manner in which Buddhismhad been burlesqued and its teachings travestied .

Still more worthy of condemnation is the injurywhich this pretended ‘ Gospel,

’ this forged life ofChrist, was designed to inflict on the Christianreligion. It seeks to deny the divinity of JesusChrist

,the working of miracles , and the story of the

Resurrection (which is described as a piece of de

208 LAST ESSAYS.

liberate deception on the part of the Apostles), andthus assails what are regarded by the vast majorityof professing Christians as vital truths of Christianity .

And yet there were a large number of religious people ,in Europe and America , who accepted as genuine thismarvellous discovery and one well-known religiouspaper

,The Christian , published a discussion as to the

authenticity of this ‘New Gospel,’ as it began to be

called.

In India, M . Notovitch’

s publication was welcomedecstatically by a certain class of Hindu

, as a proofthat the Christian faith was but a corrupt offshootof that pure

,ancient, original Brahmanism of which

we read so much and really know so little. Thegenuine pundits

,who are in the habit of m istrusting

nearly all new literature , did not, as a rule,notice

the discovery but the younger generation , who hadreceived at Indian colleges what is known as anEnglish education, read of and revelled in it . OneBengali paper greewd the find

’ as ‘ a clear proof thatChristianity , like Buddhism , is simply an offshootof Hinduism

,and that Jesus Christ learnt His doc

trines at the feet of Brahmans. ’ Further commenton the result of the forgery in India is need less . Inj ustice to these Hindus it may be prem ised that few,

if any,of them had ever seen the clumsy for

gery .

Their impressions of it were derived from reviewsand book notices in European journals , and some ofthese were most absurd and ignorant effusions . TheGospel ‘ according to Notovitch

’ teems with absurdi

ties and errors , which is hardly to be wondered at,as its author was not in any sense an Orientalist,and failed utterly to catch the keynote of Tibetan

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THE KUTHO-DAW

T has been said that through the introduction ofrailways, steamships , telegraphs, newspapers, and

International Congresses, our te rrestrial globe has

shrunk to half its form er size . We can now travelround the globe in less time than was formerly re

quired for a journey from one end of Europe to theother. Within my own recollection, which goes backnow to many years

, a j ourney from Berlin to Parisor London was looked upon in Germany as a greatevent. The adventurous traveller before starting wasexpected to pay farewell visits to all his friends andrelations

,team were shed in abundance

,and no one

would have started on so perilous an expeditionwithout making hi s will and insuring his life .

A journey to Egypt or India or Am erica was an

event discussed in all the papers. We know fromGoethe what a grand thing it was supposed to be inhis time to travel to Italy and explore its antiqui ties .

To have travelled to Greece or to Constantinople , tohave seen the Parthenon or St. Sophia, made a mana celebrity not only in his own native town, but allover Germany. Now three or four days bring us toAthens or Constantinople, and a small ca'

ique ora penny steamer takes us across the Bosphorus ina few minutes

,and we are in Asia

,on the very spot

Nineteenth M ary , September, 1 895 .

m s sum o-paw. 211

where Xerxes is supposed to have whipped the seain his anger. A week takes us to America, a fortnightto India, and we travel all the time with perfectcomfort and with hardly any effort or danger.

With the same case, however, wi th which we travelto distant countries , people from distant countries arenow beginning to come to us . I have had In my ownstudy at Oxford

,not only Turks

,Arabs

,Hi ndus

,

Siamese , Japanese, and Chinese , but I received onlythe other day a visit from one of the BlackfootIndians , the first of that tribe who had ever set footon English soil , a most interesting and intelligentman, who was bewailing to me the fate of his race,doomed , as he thought, to di sappear from the face ofthe earth , as if Babylonians and Assyrians , Accad iansand Hi ttite s had not di sappeared before. Hi s namewas Strong Bufialo (not Bufi

'

alo Bill), and a mostpowerful, determ ined, and sensible man he seemed.

He rem inded me of a young Mohawk who also usedto deplore to me the fate of his race . He came to

Oxford many years ago to study medicine. He camein his war-paint and feathers

,but left in his cap and

gown , and is now a practising physician‘at Toronto.These visits of strangers from distant lands are

often highly instructive : I extracted some knowledgeof the Mohawk language from Dr. Oronyha Teka .

One is thus brought in contact with some of theleading spirits all over the world . I have now, orhave had , pupils, friends , and correspondents in India ,Burmah

,Siam

,Japan, China, Corea , aye , even in the

Polynes ian and Melanesian Islands , in South America,and in several African settlements .But here surgit a/mari aliqwid . People in these

P 2

212 LAST ESSAYS.

happy far-off countries have evidently less to do thanwe have, and the number of letters, newspapers,pamphlets

,and books which the Indian post brings

every week to my door is sometimes appalling. Itwould be physically imm ible to acknowledge, muchless to answer , all these letters and parcels, andI sometimes feel as if, in England at all events, therehad been a shrinkage not only in space, but also intime. What used to be an hour is now scarcely halfan hour , and a morning is gone before I have an

swered half the letters from every part of the worldthat lie scattered about on my table . A collectionof the letters asking advice and help from me on themost heterogeneous and the most heterodox subjects ,all beginning with the well-known phrase , ‘ThoughI have not the honour of your personal acquaintance,

’

would form a most interesting and amusing volume .Still, there is both good and bad in all this . I havereceived most useful information and help from someof my unknown friends , and I trust that the unknownfriends whose letters I have not been able to answer,whose books and MSS . I have not had time toexam ine

,will forgive me if only they remember that

the number of those whose personal acquaintanceI have not the honour to possess is very large indeed .

And not only have letters and telegrams drawn them inds and hearts of men in every part of the worldmore closely together, but newspapers and reviewsseem to have changed the world into one largedebating club. If my friends were to see the Orientalnewspapers which I have to read , or at all eventsto open and to glance at - I say nothing of Gem anand French and Italian papers, I only think of the

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214 LAST ESSAYS.

day at eight hours , which I behave is now the correctnumber, no less than hours taken away fromthe literary workshops of the world ! If it were all

rest and relaxation it would be different , but, asa matter of fact, a week or a fortnight of an international congress is about the hardest work that canfall to any mortal being in the pursuit of science .

The most celebrated of these international congresseswas no doubt the se-called Parliamen t ofReli gionsheld at Chicago in 1 893 . There representatives of allthe religions of the world were gathered togetherBrahmans and Buddhists , Jm as and Parsees, Mohammedana and Chinese , people from Siam , Japan , China ,and last

,not least, Jews and Christians of every

description and denomination. A Roman Catholiccardinal presided ; the blessing was given one day bya rabbi, the next by an Anglican bishop, the next bya Buddhist priest

,and last, not leas t, by an Italian

archbishop the Lord ’s Prayer was joined in byhundreds

,nay, by thousands who were assembled

there in their gorgeous costumes— in black Silk,white

lawn, scarlet brocade , yellow satin , with wonderfulhead-gears , golden chains and crosses ; and— what wasthe most extraordinary of all— though everybodyspoke up for his own religion , not one unkind wordwas said to disturb the perfect harmony of that wonderful meeting. Such a gathering was unique in thewhole history of the world ; it could not have takenplace at any earlier time ; nay, it may be said to havegiven the first practical recognition to the teachingof St. Peter, that In every nation he that feareth Godand worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.

Nor is this first truly Oecumenical Council likely

rns xurno-naw. 215

to remain without results. Already several of thereligions of the East begin to set their house in order ,try to reform abuses that have crept into theirchurches

,and challenge comparison with other reli

gions,Christianity not excepted .

Of course, every religion has its weak points,every

church has its abuses which must be reformed fromtime to time, and the followers of other religions arevery qui ck in finding out these vulnerable points.But every religion has also its strong points , and it isfar better that they also should be pointed out

,and

not the weak points only , and that they should beheld up for the adm iration and im itation of otherreligions .

If we hold that a religion should be judged by itsfruits

,can we wonder that the Mohammedans , yes ,

even the unspeakable Turks,should pride themselves

on the fact that their religion has succeeded in stamping out drunkenness

,which no other religion

,not even

our own,has been able to achieve

,or that the Jainas

should take some credi t for never touching animalfood ? I had a Jaina dining with me only a fewweeks ago

,and I confess I envied him when he told

me that during the whole of his life he had nevereaten the flesh of animals , not even an egg, becauseit contained a germ of life . I do not say that we canmeas ure the excellence of a religion by these outwardtokens

,by the mere keeping the outside of the cup

and the platter clean ; still, suppose that we Christianswere the only total abstainers and vegetarians in theworld

,should we not point to this as one of the great

triumphs of our religion ? There can be no doubtthat

,for the future

,Christians, and particularly

216 LAST ESSAYS.

Chri stian m issionaries , will have to see to the jointsof their armour. You may have heard that not onlythe Mohammedans, but even the Buddhists in Japan,are going to send their own missionaries all over theworld. There are mosques springing up in England,and I read of Buddhist temples in Paris and inAmerica, where thousands go to listen to what iscalled the teaching of Buddha. There can be littledoubt, to j udge from Indian and Japanese papers ,that these people have studied our Bible

,our Old and

New Testamen ts, far more carefully than we havetheir Tripitaka or their Koran.

It was for this very purpose,for the purpose of

enabling m issionaries to study the religion of thosewhom they wish to convert, that I published a seriesof translations of the Sacred Books of the East, whichnow amounts to nearly fifty volumes. If governmentssend out officers to explore the fortresses and toexamine the strategic peculiarities of the frontiersof their neighbours, would it not be well that missionaries also , who are to conquer the whole world,should act as spies , should make themselves acquain tedwith the sacred books of other religions

,the very

fortresses of those whom they wish,if not to conquer

,

yet to convince and to convert ?Much has been written of late of the comparative

merits and defects of the principal religions of mankind . Some of the Orientals who attended theCongress at Chicago have been lecturing before largeaudiences in the principal towns of America

,and

some of them are lecturing now in England and inGermany. There has been some skirmishing betweenthese defenders of the Faith

,most of them maintaining

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218 LAST ESSAYS.

old men as old fogeys . We m ight therefore safelyleave to the Brahmans the glory of possessing theoldest sacred book . They would soon find out thatthe walls of fortresses do not grow stronger by oldage, and that books dating so far back as , accordingto som e authorities , 6000 B. according to others2000 B . 0.

,must needs contain many things, many

forms of thought , many modes of expression, thathave grown not only old

,but antiquated

,and are

no longer in harmony with the truth as we see it.Besides

,what do we gain if we push back the date

of the Old Testament or of the Veda ever so far ?Are there not the higher critics who tell us that2000 B . o. and even 4000 B . o. is quite a modern datecompared with the dates of Egyptian and Babylonianmonuments ? And are there not sti ll higher criticswho assure us that even that ancient Egyptian andBabylonian civilization , as represented in hieroglyphicand cuneiform writings

,must be looked upon as quite

modern, and as the last outcome only of a much earlierand far more prim itive civilization or non-civilizationwhich has to be studied among the Palaeolithic savagesof Tasmania or the Andaman islanders ? We shouldgain

,therefore , very little by a few thousand years

more or less . If Mr. Tilak,in a very learned work

lately publ ished , claims 6000 B . o. as the very lowestdate of Vedic literature

,if Professor Jacobi insists

on 4000 B . o. as the last concession that can be made,I still keep to the date which I originally claimedfor the Hymns of the Rig-veda , namely, 1 200 or

1 500 and I always take care to add that eventhis date requires a certain amount of willingness onthe part of historical critics . But even this more

TEE xursa w. 219

moderate date goes far beyond that of the Old Testament, whether we accept the conclusions of the higheror the lower critics , and it seems to me far better toyield that point and let the Brahmans have the fullcredit— if it is any credit—of possessing the oldest,the most remote, and in consequence the most obscure ,and the most difficult among the sacred books of the

Another equally useless skirmish has been thatabout the number of followers which each religionmay claim . Here again two distinctions have to bemade . If we ask for the number of human beingswho have entrusted their souls to one or other of thesacred books as the safest vessel to carry them acrossthis life, naturally the number of thwe who believedin the Veda, or the Old Testament, or the BuddhistTripitak a during all the centuries that had elapsedbefore the rise of Christianity or Mohammedanismmust have been much larger than the number ofChri stians or Mohammedans. And who could everguess what may have been the number of Neolithicand Palaeolithic believers during the untold agesSince the surface of the earth became cool andhabitable ? Remember that, according to Sir CharlesLyell

,years must have elapsed since the

Cambrian period,and that traces of human life go

back as far at least as the Post-Pleiocene period .

Every pebble on the seashore may have been one oftheir fetishes , every shell we pick up or find petrifiedmay have been a sacred totem of our primitiveancestors . From a purely statistical point of view,

we Should therefore again have to concede to Buddhists,to Brahmanists , and still more to those primi tive

220 u sr Essars.

troglodyte ancestors of the whole human race, a considerable superiority in numbers ; and we shouldprobably do it without the leas t m isgivi

ngs .

Still, it is strange that the superiority 111 numberswhich has been claimed for Buddhism above all otherreligions seems to have greatly disturbed certaintheologians ; and as the numbers themselves couldnot well be disputed , attempts have lately been madeto distinguish between real and purely nominalBuddhists, particularly in the vast empire of China.No doubt

,m illions of people who are classed as

Buddhists in China and Mongolia have no notion ofwhat Buddhism really is ; they have never read a lineof the Tripitaka

,and could not pass an examination

even in Olcott 's Short Catechism of Buddhism . TheirBuddhism often consists in no more than their goingto the monaste ry for medicine, and , if that fails, fora decent burial. Still , such a distinction between realand nominal Buddhists is simply impracticable . Are

there not Christians also who have never read a lineof the Bible

,and who could not pass an exam ination

in the Catechism ? It is difficult enough to have anytrustworthy census whatever in so vast a country as

China ; a question whether a man or a woman wasa real or a nominal Buddhist would convey nomeaning at all to the shepherds in the steppes ofAsia

,and could elicit no answer, except perhaps

a broad grin . Malta Brun used to say years ago :If a geographer means to be honest, he has to confessthat there is no more reason for assigning to Asia 500than 250 millions of inhabitants .

’

And though someprogress has no doubt been made since his time

,still

Chinese statistics are guess-work and no more .

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222 LAST Bean s.

tance, though we shall see that it is interesting froma purely literary point of view.

The question has frequently been discussed of late ,Which religion possesses the largest Bible ‘

1 Mostpeople would probably argue that the smaller a Bible,the better for those who have to study, to believe, andto obey it. But there is hardly a subject, if connectedwith religion

,on which opposite opinions have not

been held and defended with great ingenuity and

To count the words even of a book like the OldTestament is no easy undertaking

,but the Rabbis ,

who are famous for their patient labours , have notshrunk from the trouble of counting the words in theHebrew text

,and they have found out, as Dr. Neubauer

informs me, that the Old Testament in Hebrew contains words, letters , andverses. This estimate is not made by taking thewords of one page and multiplying it by the numberof pages—a most uncertain proceeding— but by actualcounting word for word .

These rabbinical labours, however, astound ing asthey are, have been surpassed by Christian students .I regret I cannot find out their names, but I see itstated that by counting each word in the AuthorizedVersion of the Old and the New Testaments , theyfound out that the number of words of the wholeBible amounted to that of the letters to

and that of the verses to If thisis correct— and who would venture either to doubtor to verify such labours l— the number of words inthe English New Testament would be about

Here, however, one estimate is

THE KUTHO-DAW. 223

made from Hebrew,the other from English

,which

naturally vitiates the calculation .

Much as one may adm ire such gigantic patience,the results produced by it are comparatively small .I shall only mention a few, such as they are . It hasbeen found out that the eighth verse in the 1 1 8th

Psalm forms the centre of the whole Bible that thetwenty-first verse of the seventh chapter of Ezra contains all the letters of the English alphabet

,except

the letter F that the nineteenth chapter of the secondbook of Kings is identically the same as the thirtyseventh chapter of Isaiah that the word Lord occurs

times, the word reverend but once, and the wordamd times . This may seem very unprofitablelabour, yet I must plead guilty of having gone throughthe same kind of drudgery myself. Before I couldventure to edit the text and the anci ent commentaryof the Rig-veda, I had to make an index verbom 'm,

containing every word as many times as it occurredin this the oldest of all sacred books . The Rig-vedacontains about verses and words , andthe word and ,

the Sanskrit cha,occurs , unless I have

added wrongly, which is not impossible, times .I need hardly say that I did not go through all thisdrudgery from mere curiosity. It was a dire necessity .

In order to edit and translate a text like that of theRig

-veda , which had never been edited before , it wasabsolutely necessary, as in the case of deciphering aninscription

,to have every passage in which the same

word occurs placed side by side before our eyes , so asto be able to find out which meaning would suit themall. Without such an indexverborwm, Vedic philologywould have been impossible, and I flatter myself that

224 LAM seem s.

this index has served ,and will serve for centuries to

come, as the best and most solid foundation fora scholarlike study of these ancient hymns. I mustnot indulge in any more statistics, though I ought toadd that two thousand years ago the native scholars ofIndia had , like the Rabbis, counted not only the words,but even the syllables of their Rig-veda, and that theystate the number of syllables to amount toI have to confess again that I have not tried to checkthis account. What must strike every one in thesestatistical researches is the great amount of repetitionin all the sacred books . Thus, while the number ofwords actually occurring in the Old Testament is

,as

we saw , the number of separate words usedagain and again— in fact, the number of words ina

’

dictionary of the Old Testam ent—is said to amountto no more than thus showing that, on anaverage , every word was used in the Bible onehundred times . Comparing , then , the principal sacredbooks , we find that the Avestic texts, as we nowpossess them , are the shortest. They were not sooriginally, for we possess two only out of the twentyone Naska of which the Avesta originally consisted .

The total of words in our present text amounts toThen follows the Rig-veda, then the New,

and then the Old Testament . I am sorry I have notbeen able to find out the exact number of words in theKoran , though I have little doubt that they too havebeen counted. The Koran

,as far as the number of

words goes, would probably stand between the Oldand the New Testament.If new in conclusion we turn to the sacred books

of the Buddhists,we come at last to the Kutlw daw.

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226 LAST nssAvs.

syllables for the commentary. Thi s is , of course , anenormous amount ; the question is only whether theRev . R . Spence Hardy and his assistants, who are

responsible for these statements, counted rightly .

Professor Rhys Davids, by taking the average of

words in ten leaves,arrives at much smaller sums

,

namely, at words for the P6.“ Canon, whichin an English translation

,as he says

,would amount

to about twice that number, or words. Eventhis would be ample for a Bible ; it would make theBuddhist Bible nearly five times as large as our own ;but it seems to me that Spence Hardy’s account ismore likely to be correct. Professor Rhys Davids ,by adopting the same plan of reckoning . brings thenumber of words in the Bible to aboutWe found it given as But who shalldecide ?What the bulk of such a work would be , we may

gather from what we know of the bulk of the translations . There is a complete copy of the Chinesetranslation at the India Office in London , also in theBodleian , and a catalogue of it, made by a Japanesepupil of m ine

,the Rev . Bunyiu Nanjio, brings the

number of separate works in it to The Tibetantranslation

,which dates from the eighth century

,

consists of two collections,commonly called the

Kanjur and Tanjur.The Kanjur consists of a hundred volumes in folio,

the Tanjur of 2 25 volumes , each volume weighingbetween four and five pounds . This collection, published by command of the Emperor of China, sellsfor £630. A copy of it is found at the India Office.The Buriates, a Mongolian tribe converted to Bud

run xvrno-nxw. 227

dhism, bartered oxen for one copy of theKanjur

,

and the same tribe paid silver roubles fora complete copy of both Kanjur and Tanj ur.What must it be to have to believe in 325 volumes

each weighing five pounds , nay, even to read throughsuch a Bible ! True , the Buddhist Canon is full ofrepetitions, but at present we need only think of thenumber of volumes, of pages, and of words , whetherrepeated or not. It is not easy to realize such anumber.

as syllables,but we may try to do so , and

then think of the Kutbo-daw, which is a Buddhistmonument near Mandalay in Burma, consisting ofabout 700 temples, each containing a slab of whitemarble on which the whole of this Buddhist Bible

,

the whole of these eight millions of syllables , has beencarefully engraved. The alphabet is Burmese

,the

language is Pfili , the language supposed to have beenspoken by Buddha. Well may the Buddhists saythat such a Bible on white marble cannot be matchedin the whole world . I am glad it cannot. Think ofthe fearful expenditure of labour and money. Andwhat is the result ? A small copy of the New Testament, which our U niversity Press turns out for a pennya copy

,is more useful

,has more power for good in

it, quite apart from its intrinsic value , than the wholeof this gigantic structure which no one reads , nay ,which but few people understand . The Kutbo-dawis not an ancient monument. It was erected in 1 85 7by Mindon-min

,the predecessor of K ing Thebaw, the

last king of Burma . No one seems ever to havedescribed this marvellous pile , and I confess that unlessmy correspondent

,Mr.Ferrars, had sen t me photographs

of it, I should have found it difficult to believe inQ 2

228 LAST sssars.

this extraordinary monument of Buddhist piety and

To judge from these photographs, there are aboutseven hundred temples

,form ing together a large

square , with a higher temple in the centre , visiblefrom far and wide. Each temple contains a slab ofwhite marble covered with inscriptions , possibly morethan one

,if the inscriptions contain , as is maintained,

the complete text of the three Pitakas. Over eachslab there is an ornamental canopy in pagoda form

,

which renders photography d ifi cult, but by no meansimpossible . Mr . Ferrars , a member of the BurmaForest Departm ent, is quite ready to undertake thephotographic reproduction of the complete text ofthe Tripitaka, if the Government or some learnedsociety will bear the small expense that is required .

He has been assured that the text,as engraved on

the marble slabs , was critically revised and editedby a Royal Commission

,consisting of ten learned

men under the presidency of the famous Rahan,U -Nye-ya. It is stated that three copies of thesame text were prepared at the same time on palmleaves

,and sent by the king to three European

libraries . What libraries they were I have not beenable .to find out.If a photographic reproduction could be made at

a reasonable price, it would certainly seem desirable ,though, from a specimen sent to me, I am a littleafraid that some of the letters are no longer quitedistinct. The signs of decay are visible all over thebuilding ; the moisture of the climate has begun totell, and moss is growing on the walls and cupolas.What a confirmation of Buddha's teaching that all is

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230 LAST ESSAYS.

Pali , though he must not expect to gain any convertsto Buddhism at Oxford, would certainly help tosecure to Buddha that position among the wisestand best men of the world which belongs to him byright as the recognized guide and teacher of 423millions of human beings— as a sage whose utteranceseven those who belong to another religion may read ,mark , and inwardly digest, with real advantage tothemselves— as one whom a former professor in thisU niversity declared to be second to One only .

’

BU DDHA ’

S BIRTHPLACE

T is strange to see how in our days the republicof letters extends its arms farther and farther

,

and how the same literary and archaeological questionsare discussed in the journals of Japan

,India

,France

,

England, and Germany, difference of language havinglong ceased to be a barrier between the scholars ofthe principal countries of the civilized world. Hardlyhas a question been asked or a problem connectedwith orien tal literature been started , when answerspour in from East and West, from North andSouth.

Here is the last number of the Hansel: Zasshfi,a

monthly magazine,published at Tokio in Japan. It

is generally written in English , but from time to timeit contains articles in Russian and German also. Thelast number contains one article in French, or rathera speech delivered in French before a learned societyat Tokio by a distinguished French savant

,M. Sylvain

Levy. And what is the subject on which he addressedhis Japanese audience ? It is a pilgrimage which heperformed to the newly discovered birthplace ofBuddha , Kapilavastu . In the sixth century B . 0. thisKapilavastu was the residence of the Sakya princesand of Buddha’s father, as we are informed again and

Blackwood‘

a l egu me, December, 1898.

282 LAST assay s.

again in the sacred canon of the Buddhists TheseSakya princes were what we should now call smallIndian Rajahs, and the father of Buddha was the headof the family, and ruler of their principality. Butthough the name of the capital , Kapflavfistu , and thename of a large park belonging to it

,Lumbini

,were

well known to all students of Buddhism,the real

situation of that once famous town had hithertobaffled all attempts at identification. General SirAlex . Cunningham, a high authority on Indianarchaeology, had indeed placed Kapilavfis tu near thevillage of Bhuila in the Basti district of the NorthWestern Provinces ; but this view was clearly wrong,and has by this time been given up by all competentauthorities . The only scholar who long ago had fixedon the right locality was Vivien de St. Martin

,who

in hisMémo i 'reAnalytique, appended to Stan . Julien’stranslation ofHiouen-tbsang, placed it rightly betweenGorakhpur and the mountains of Nepal.Little attention, however, was paid to this geo

graphical conjecture, which dates from 1 858 , and itwould perhaps have been impossible to place italtogether beyond the reach of doubt without arenewed exam ination of the Voyages den Pele-rimBoudd h'istes— that is, the descriptions of the pilgrimages performed by Ch inese Buddhists ,

such asFa-hian in the fifth , and Hiouen-theang in the seventhcentury . These two Chinese Buddhists

,and many

others l ike them,travelled from Ch ina to India, which

was their Holy Land,and to Kapilavastu ,

which wastheir Jerusalem . But even with the help of theminute details which these Buddhist pilgrims haveleft us of all they did and saw on their journeys, the

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234 LAST seem s .

in the same alphabet and the same language whichare well known from many other monuments erectedby King Asoka in all parts of his kingdom. A paperimpression of this inscription was taken by Dr. Flibrarand sent to Dr. Biihler, who published the four linesin the Academy of April 2 7 , 1 895 . Imperfect as theinscription was

,it declared distinctly that King

Piyadesi , i . e . Asoka , in the fourteenth year afterhis consecration enlarged the stfipa of BuddhaKonakamana (Konagamana) for the second time, andcame himself to worship it . Nothing , however, wassaid as to the geographical position of Kepilavastubeing fixed by that inscribed pillar

,and though it

may be said that the topographical deductions wereinevitable, yet simple fairness compels us to say thatMajor Weddell was the first to point out that thispillar in comm emoration of Konakamana was the samewhich Fa-hian 1 mentions in the fifth century, andHiouen-thsang

2 in the seventh,and that , therefore ,

the site of Kapilavastumust be in close neighbourhood‘of it, distant no more than one yogana, or about sevenm iles to the west, according to the statement of theChinese pilgrims. This discovery was no doubt ofgreat value, both geographically and historically, andit was more or less confirmed by a Tibetan book inthe possess ion of Major Weddell

, in which the shrinesof Krak ukkhanda and Konfikamana are mentioned assituated near Kapilavastu . All this is by no means

Fa-h ian , ed . Legge, p . 64, calls the Buddha Kanaka-mun i .

Hiouen-thaeng (Julian , i . p. 3 16) calls h im Kia.no-k ia~meou

u i-fo.

‘Dans ce stoupa, ’ he says,‘on a clove une colonne , haute

d 'une vingtaine de pieds. Sur le sommet on a sculpte l’ image d‘

un

llon , at,sur le cote, on a grave l

'

histoire du Nirvana de Kane

kamoouni.’

BUDDHA’

s smrs rnacs . 235

intended to dim inish in any way the credit due toDr. Fiihrer in his subsequent labours on the spot .It is only meant to remind us that the topographicalimportance of the Konakamana pillar as an ancientfinger

-post was pointed out for the first time byMajor Weddell , and that it was he who suggestedto the Government to send out a deputy (Dr. Fuhrer)when his own services were required elsewhere.After the site of Kapilavastu had once been securely

fixed,it became easy to see that the ground all around

was covered by ruins of ancient stfipas , monasteries ,villages , and towns. Very soon another of Asoka ’spillars was found by Dr. F iihrer

,and identified as that

of Lumbini . This Lumbini was a well-known parkclose to Kapilevastu, famous in Buddhist tradition asthe garden to which the queen retired

,when going to

give birth to her first son, who was to become hereafter the founder of the Buddhist religion . Thatpillar also had been described by Hi

guen-thsang, who

mentions that in his time already 1t was broken intwo pieces, a statement confirmed by Dr. Fuhrer, whotells us that the t0p part seems to have been shatteredby lightning. Hiouen-thseng does not mention thatit contained an inscription, probably because the lowerpart of the pillar was no longer visible in his tim e.But that inscription

, as now laid bare , leaves nodoubt that the pillar was the identical pillar whichwas erected by Asoka

,for it declares that ‘King

Piyadasi [Asoka] , beloved of the gods , having beenanointed twenty years, himself came and worshipped .

saying,Here Buddha Sakyam uni was born, and he

caused a stone pillar to be erected , which declares ,“ Here the Venerable was born.

” The very name

236 LAST sssars.

of the park ,Lumini or Lumbini

,occurs in the injured

part of the inscription,so that no doubt can remain

that this was indeed the spot where Buddha firs t sawthe light of the world , or, at

‘

all events, where KingAsoka in the third century before Christ, and aboutthree centuries after the birth of Buddha, was toldthat it was 80 . According to the Divyavadana, theguide who undertook to show the king the spotswhere Buddha had sojourned was U pagupta

1. He

began by conducting the king to the garden ofLumbini , and extending his right hand he said , Here,O great King, was the Venerable [Bhagavat] born,and here should be the first monument in honour of

the Buddha. ’

After all this,scepticism would indeed seem un

reasonable . That Asoka erected these commemorativepillars is known from Buddhist books and from theinscriptions on the pillars themselves. That theyexisted in the fifth and seventh centuries after our

era is known from the itineraries of the Chinesepilgrims

,Fa-hian , Hiouen-thsang , and others. Their

existence even at a later time is attested by inscriptions left on the upper part of the column by latervisitors, and therefore to doubt that they mark thereal spots of Buddha’s birth and early life would beover-conscientious even for the most critical ofhistorians. It is true that the neighbourhood

,as it

is at present, is very different from what it is described to have been in Buddha’s time. The Teraiof Nepal is the most inhospitable part of India, andif the towns with their Buddh ist monuments were not

Wed dell,‘U pagupta ,

’

J. A . Soc. Bengal, 1 897, p. 8 1 ; quotingBurnouf, Introd uction , p.

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238 m ar mean s .

may be hoped that they will in time teach us a greatdeal

,and reveal to us much of the outward circum

stances of Buddhism, at all events at the time ofAsoka in the third century. But

,after all

,the real

ruins of that ancient religion must be dug up withthe pen from MSS .

,whether in Sanskrit or in Pdli,

and what has been dug up there will have to besifted and arranged by such piocheurs as Burnouf,Oldenberg, Senart ,Rhys Davids, and others . Gratefulas we are to such laborious searchers and diggers asGeneral Cunningham ,

MajorWeddell, Dr. Fiihrer, andothers

,we should never forget that after all a spade

is a spade, and that other bands and heads are wantedbefore stones can become monuments , true W menta

to remind us of the life that was lived in the ruins ofKapilavastu and in the garden of Lumbini .There has been no lack of such labourers

,coming to

help from all parts of the world , each contributing hisshare towards the recovery of the birthplace of Buddha.

Greek scholars have helped us to prove that Asokawas the grandson of Chandragupta, end that Chendragupte was Sandrokyptos, the contemporary ofAlexander the Great. Here is our strong anchor forIndian chronology.

China has given us the heroic pilgrims who foundtheir way across the dangerous mountain-passes andsnowdrifts to their Holy Land

,who stayed there for

years studying the languages and customs of thecountry, and leaving us careful descriptions of all theysaw from the Himalayan Mountains down to Ceylon.

It is to France that we owe Stanislas Julien, thegreat Chinese scholar

,who translated for the first

time the Travels of the Chinese explorers, which had

sunnna’

s smrs rt aos . 239

defied the scholarship of all former sinologues. Tothe same country we owe the light that M . Senart hasshed on the inscriptions ofAsoka and on Peli literaturein general.Germany also has contributed most valuable aid

in the labours of the late Dr . B'

dhler , whose recentloss is keenly felt by all Sanskrit scholars

,and more

particu larly by Indian archaeologists.But the spark that at last lighted the train that had

been so carefully laid by all these scholars came fromSurgeon-MajorWeddell

,who with rare pluck searched

the pestilentiel Terai of Nepal,and was the first to

recognize the geographical importance of the pillarof Konakamana, and to read on it what no one hadread before him

,

‘ This is the way to Kepilavts tu ,

’

while Buddhists all over the world— in Ceylon,

Burma,Siam , and China— have hailed this dis

covery with rapture. Several Buddhist scholars fromFrance and England have set out on their scientificpilgrimages to the dangerous Nepalese Terai

,and it

was one of them ,M . Sylvain Levy, who on his return

from Kapilavastu delivered his eloquent discoursebefore an audience of faithful Buddhists at Tokio in

Let us hope that the Indian and Nepalese Governments will unite their forces in friendly rivalry , not,as it has been supposed , to dig up hidden treasures ,but to lay here by an army of spades whatever theremay still be left of the soil once trodden by the feetof Buddha

,and ornamented in the third century s o.

by the monuments erected by the Constantine ofBuddhism

,by Asoka, the grandson of Sandrokyptos,

the ally of Alexander the Great.

MOHAMMEDAN I SM AND

CHR I ST IAN ITY ‘.

T is at first a strange , but a decidedly pleasant,sensation when we live in the m idst of a Turkish

population to find how,on all ordinary subjects

,their

feelings are our feelings,and their thoughts our

thoughts, and their motives our motives They are

doing what is right and what is wrong very muchas we do . They are satisfied with themselves andashamed of themselves j us t asWhen they speak about religion

,which they do

rarely, they will speak of God just as we do , as theLord and Governor of the universe ; as just and righteous, yet always merciful ; and they will act as ifthey were strongly convinced that virtue will berewarded and vice punished either in this life or inthe life to come . They have a very strict regard fortruth

,and will respond to our confidence by equal

confidence . Are these , then, the Turks, infidels , andheretics

,we ask ourselves

,for whom we used to pray ?

Is their religion false while ours is true ; is theirmorality corrupt while ours is pure ?Their customs and social habits are no doubt

different from ours , but they hardly ever becomeobtrusive or offensive to others . If the ir life underits good and its evil aspects may be taken as the

N ineteenth Century , February , 1 894.

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242 Lasr m ars.

from us. With us the feeling of the m ultitude aboutMohammed and Islam is still much the same as itwas at the time of the Crusades and during the

Middle Ages,though of late several weighty voices

both of the Prophet and of his religion. Carlyle ’sessay on Mohamm ed

,and Mr . Bosworth Smith’s

excellent work , Mohammed and Mohammedanism ,

have powerfully influenced public opinion. The oldfeeling of hostility against Islam was in its originpolitical rather than religious . Europe has neverforgotten the cruelties perpetrated both in Asia andEurope by Mohammedan arm ies recruited not onlyfrom Arabia but from Mongolia and Tartary

,and

their violent invas ion of the East and West ofEurope still rankles in the hearts of many. Everything was believed of the am iss of the Mahound

,

and in modern times the unspeakable atrocities inBulgaria and Anatolia have revived the slumberingfeelings of hatred among the great masses in Europe .

Still it was not always so,particularly in England,

when 300 years ago it was for the first time broughtinto political relations with the Turkish Empire.There were periods in the history of England whenthe feeling towards Islam was more than tolerant.Queen Elimbeth , when arranging a treaty with SultanMuted Khan , states that Protestants and Mohammedans alike are haters of idolatry , and that she is thedefender of the faith against those who have falselyusurped the name of Christ 1 Her ambassador wass till more outspoken, for he wrote on the oth ofNovember

,1 5 87 :

‘Since God alone protects His own ,Hist. Review, July, 1893, p. 480.

monamnsnamsu AND camsrramrr. 248

He will so punish these idolaters (the Spaniards)through us, that they who survive will be convertedby their example to worsh ip with us the true God ,and you

,fighting for this glory, will heap up victory

and all other good things . ’ The same sentimwere expressed on the part of the Sublime Ports ,by Sinan Pasha, who about the same time told theRoman ambassador that to be good Musulmans allthatwas wanting to the English was that they shouldraise a finger and pronoun ce the Eshed , or Confessionof Faith ‘. The real differences between Islam andChristianity were considered so small by the Mohammedans themselves that at a later time we find

another Turkish ambassador,Ahmed Rasm i Efl

'

endi ,

assuring Frederick the Great that they consideredProtestants as Mohammedans m disguise .

As for the atrocities charged against Mohammedanarmies, it is for the historian to clear up this matter,and to find out whether the armies of the Sultan havereally been the only arm ies guilty of committingatrocities in war. Even during the more recentBulgarian troubles Am erican m issionaries , who wereeye-witnesses

,assure us that the atrocities committed

by Turkish Bashibazuks were not greater than thosecommi tted by Christian armies when the day ofvictory and revenge had come. But, whatever thehistorical truth may be , no studen t of the history ofreligion

,no reader of the Koran , would venture to say

that the atrocities of Mohammedan warfare weresanctioned by the Koran. On that point, on teachingclemency towards the vanquished , the Koran is not

Hid . Review. July , 1 893, p . 430.

NewM aw, 1 893, p. 49.8 2

244 rm sssars .

beh ind the Old Testament or the Laws of Manu . Ifit had not been for the political part which thefollowers of Mohammed acted in the history ofthe world , their religion as taught in the Koranwould have been

, or at all events ought to havebeen

,welcomed as a friend and ally both by Chris

tians and by Jews. It was not at first a new or

hostile religion ; it was , as Mohammed declared himself, the old religion of Abraham ,

preached to theignorant and idolatrous tribes of Arabia. Longbefore the time of Mohammed , Arabia was full ofJews and Chri stians . Gibbon speaks of Jews settledin Arabia 700 years before Mohammed , and he men

tions new arrivals after the wars of Titus . As toChristianity, we know from Philostorgius

l that inthe year 342 an Italian bishop (Theophilus) was sentby the Emperor Constantine to the King of Yemen ,and was allowed to build three Christian churches

,

one at Zafar, another at Adan, and a third at Hormuzon the Persian Gulf. The same writer speaks of thecity of Najran in Yem en as the seat of a Christianbishop, and affirms that some important tribes hadbeen converted there to Christianity. There wasa magnificent church at Sana , to which the Arabswere ordered to go by the Christian ruler of Abyssiniawhen performing their pilgrimage

,instead of visit~

ing the Ka‘ba . This led to the famous War of the

Elephant in the very year of Mohammed’s birth , socalled because the Viceroy of Egypt, at the head ofan army of Abyssinians , was fighting mounted onan elephant. Mohammed’s immediate instructorsin Christianity were Jabr and Yasar

,and they are

Hist Eodoa , i . p. 4.

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246 LAST sssars.

have admitted this, and even the Rev . Marcus Dods,

now in the full odour of orthodoxy , declares that, ifMohammad had but known the true character ofChrist, ‘Christianity would have had one morereformer.

’ There is , of course , no evidence for sayingthat Mohammad ever was a Christian

,but he might

have been , except for the corruptions which had creptinto Christian ity through the m ost ignorant ofChri stian sects . Mohammed ’s feelings at first wereevidently more friendly towards the Christians thantowards the Jews . He declares that both Jews andChristians will be saved if they do what is right.Verily

,

’ he says ‘,those who believe and those who

are Jews , and the Sabaeans and the Christians, whosoever believes in God and the last day, and does whatis right

,there is no fear for them , nor shall they

grieve. ’ But,he adds 9 , ‘Thou w ilt surely find that

the strongest in the enmity against those who believeare the Jews and the idolaters

,and thou wilt find the

nearest in love to those who believe to be those whosay ,

“ We are Christians that is because there areamongst them priests and monks , and because theyare not proud .

’ It was the false doctrme of theTrin ity

,as taught at the tima by certain Christian

sects with whom Mohammad had to deal, that moststrongly repelled him from Christianity .

‘They m isbelieve

,

’ he says”, ‘who say , Verily , God is the

Messiah , the son of Mary , but the Messiah said ,0 children of Israel. worship God ,

my Lord and yourLord .

’ A prophet who had abolished Al-Ifi t, Al-'

U zza,Manht, and the other goddesses of Arabia, was naturally horrified at seeing Mary , the mother of the

Kora'

a, v . 73. v. 85 . v. 78.

MOHAM EDANISM AND cs arsrrs s rrr . 247

Messiah , worshipped in the sam e way as a goddess ,for instance by the Collyridian Christians . After therepeated condemnations pronounced by Mohammedagainst what he wrongly believed to be Christianity ,because it happened to be the Christianity of hisneighbours

,m issionaries have found it extremely

difficult to convince his followers that Mohammadwas mistaken, and that Christ Himself never taughtthat His mother was a goddess

,that God was the

Messiah or the Messiah an alter Deua. It is too latenow to regret the m isunderstanding between Mohammad and his Christian contemporaries . Many thingscan be prevented, but few things can be undone, andthe loss which Christianity has suffered in alienatingthe powerful support ofMohammad in the East seems

now almost impossible to repair. I felt this in everyconversation which I had with enlightened Turks,and their number is by no m eans small . After longdiscussions we had generally to admit in the and that

,

in all the essential points of a religion, the differencesbetween the Koran and the New Testament are verysmall indeed

,and that but for old m isunderstandings

the two religions , Islam and Christianity, m ight havebeen one : In our friendly discussions my Turkishfriends differed from each other on many points

,for

the number of sects is larger in Islam than even inChristianity ; but in the end they could not resist myappeal that we should be guided in our discussions bythe Koran , and by the Koran alone.They all agreed that there were six articles of faith

which all Musulmans accepted as fundamental, andas resting on the authority of the Koran : the unityof God

,the existence of angels , the inspired character

248 LAST m ars.

pmphcb , the day of judgement, and the decrces of

God. Som e added a seventh arfid a a belief in the

resurrection bnt th is is really inclnded in the belief

in a day of jucbament.On the first and most important article— i. a. the

unity of Godhead— Christians , Mohammedans, andJews are all of one mind. If certain Christian sects

exposed themselves to the suspicion of recognizingthree Godt ad no difiiculty in proving to myTurkish friends that this was a later corruption, amere invention of theologians and philosophers, anddiametrically opposed to the h ue spirit of Christi

quits extinct even at the present day among some

ing of a metaphor wrought more serious mischief thanin the dogmatic conclusions that wa s based on thesimple expression of ‘Son of God.

’ It is perfectlytrue that as soon as people are mada to realiae what

Son of God would mean if it were not a meta ,phor orif it were taken in a mythological not in a philosophical sense , they shrink with horror from realizingthe thought ; still they think they may play fas t andloose with the metaphorical wording, and they repeatwords which they would not dare to translate intoclear thought. I had to admit that on this point, onthe relation between Divinity and Humanity

,the

language of the Koran is far more elevated and lessliable to misapprehension . The Koran says ‘Godwill create what He will ; when He decreeth a thing,He only saith Be , and it is .

’ It would never tolerateeven a metaphorical nativity . It may be said that

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250 LAST assars.

Nor did we find much difiiculty in arriving atan understanding about the second article , a beliefin angels . It is true that this is not an essential article of faith in Christianity , still both inChristian and Jewish traditions angels (Malak) havetheir recognized place, and in a certain sense evena higher place than in Islam . For while in theBible Adam is represented as a little lower than theangels

,in the Koran the angels have to bow before

On the third article,however

,there was naturally

at first much greater difference of opinion. Thatthere are books which may be called inspired bothreligions hold alike , but they differ as to the bookswhich deserve that name . The most important point

,

however,is the admission of the possibi lity of inspira

tion,or of an immediate communication between the

Deity and man. The Mohammedans distinguishbetween two kinds of inspiration. The first calledwaky sdhir , or external inspiration , the second wakybdtin , or internal inspiration . We should call theformer literal

,when every word and every latter

were believed to have proceeded from the mouth ofGabriel ; the latter general , when the Prophet was ledby thought and reasoning to the perception of truthand enunciated it in his own words . Now it is quitepossible that Christians would not allow that theArabic words of the Koran came from the Deity,whether directly or indi rectly , and my friends pointedout that many portions in the Bible also— the historical chapters , for instance— could not possibly havebeen spok en by Jehovah , still less by God the Father .

That Christ,however

,was divinely inspired no Muslim

mos am nm su AND camsrrsm '

rr . 25 1

would deny,nor need any Christian deny the gift of

ky bdtin to Mohammad whenever his doctrines are

the same as those of Christ— that is , whenever theyare true .

Much the same question had to be discussed againwhen we came to consider the third art icle of theMohammedan faith , a belief in inspired prophets .

Mohammad believed in a whole class of chosen peoplewho at all tim es and in all countries were meant toact as mediators between God and man . This is a

m ost important belief,and wherever it prevails man

kind is at once raised to a higher level,and brought

into closer communion with the unseen world . Thesame belief lies at the root of Buddhism ; for theBuddha Sakyamuni is lepresented as but one ofa class of Buddhas or enlightened beings who indifierent ages are to deliver mank ind from sin andm isery . St. Paul expressed the same thought whenhe said

,God

,who at sundry tim es in divers manners

spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophetshath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son .

Mohammad would have understood these words betterthan many Christian interpreters

,for to him the Son

is in the true sense the Kalimata ’

lhrh, the Word ofGod .

’

Mohammad took the most comprehensive viewsof the h istorical growth of the religions of the world ,as far as he knew them

,and it is much to his credi t

that he did not represent the religion which he preachedhimself as a new religion

,but simply as the old religion

believed in by Abraham , Moses, and Jesus, but puri fiedby him from misunderstandings and cormptions, par

ticularly such as had crept into it among the Christiansects in Arabia. In this respect he did no more than

25 2 LAST assay s.

what the Reformers did at a later time in Europehe freed Christianity from human corruptions andmisinterpretations . He protested against Christ beingmade another God

,and against the Virgin being

worshipped as a goddess. In Arabia the doctri ne ofthe Trinity had been so complete ly m isunderstoodthat the official formula was no longer the Father

,the

Son , and the Holy Ghost, but the Father, Mary, andtheir Son .

In protesting against such heresy every Christian ,particularly every Protestant Christian , would go handin hand with Mohammed , nor need it be feared thatMohammad would ever usurp the place due to Christalone. Mohammad claims to be the last, but not thegreatest

,of the prophets . He himself expresses greater

reverence for Christ than for any other prophet . Hecalled Him the Word of God , which is the highestpredicate that human language can bestow, and whichto Mohammad meant far more than the name of Sonof God .

There remained,therefore , two articles only for our

discuss ion : the fourth and fifth,the Day of Judgem ent

and the Decrees of God . On the broad doctrines thatthere will be a day of j udgement and a resurrection ,I and my adversaries, or rather my friends, were ableto agree without difficulty . The divergences began asusual when we came to minutiae ; but here I thinkI was able to convince my fr iends that that religionis best which says least, or says what Christ said :Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not theangels of heaven , but My Father only

’

; and again ,What no eye hath seen nor ear heard, neither haveentered into the heart of man the things which God

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254 LAST ESSAYS.

which after a time are sure to be taken in a literalsense .

It has often been said that a religion must be falsewhich teaches what the Koran teaches about a futurelife . I do not think so . In every religion we mustmake allowances for anthropomorphi c imagery, nor

would it be possible to describe the happiness ofParadise except in analogy with human happiness .

Why, then, exclude the greatest human happiness ,companionship with friends

,of either sex

,if sex

there be in the next world ? Why assume thepharisaical mien of contempt for what has beenour greatest blessing in this life , while yet we speakin very human imagery of the city of Holy Jerusalem

,

twelve thousand furlongs in length,in breadth and

height . and the walls thereof one hundred and fortyfour cubits, and the building of the wall of jasper andthe city of pure gold

,and the foundations of the wall

garn ished with all manner of precious stones,jasper,

sapphire , chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius,

chrysolite , chrysoprasus , jacinth , and amethyst ? Ifsuch childish delights as that of women in certainao-called precious stones are admitted in the life tocome, why should the higher joys of life be excludedfrom the joys of heaven ? If Mohammed placed theloveliness of women above the loveliness of gold andamethyst, why should he be blamed for it ? Peopleseem to imagine that Mohamm ed knew no other joysof heaven , and represented Paradise as a kind ofheavenly harem. Nothing can be more m istaken.

In many places when he speaks of Paradise the

presence of women is not even mentioned , andwhere they are mentioned they are generally men

MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHR ISTIANITY.

tioned as wives or friends . Thus we read ‘: Verily

,

the fellows of Paradise upon that day shall beemployed in enjoyment, they and their wives , inshade upon thrones , reclining ; therein they shallhave fruits , and they shall have what they maycall for, Peace, a Speech from the merciful God.

’

Or ”: For these shall enter Paradise , and shall notbe wronged at all, gardens of Eden ,

which theMerciful has promised to His servants in the unseen ;verily , this promise ever comes to pass .

’

Is it sovery wrong

,then

,that saints are believed to enter

Paradise with their wives, as when we read 3 : ‘O myservants, enter ye into Paradise, ye and your wives,happy ? ’

In this and sim ilar ways the pure happiness of thenext life is described in the Koran

,and if, in a few

passages,not only wives but beautiful maidens also

are mentioned among the joys of heaven, why shouldthis rouse indignation ? True

,it shows a less spiri tual

conception of the life to come than a philosopherwould sanction

,but, however childish, there is

noth ing indelicate or impure in the description ofthe Houris.The charge of sensuality is a very serious charge in

the Western world,and it is difficult for us to make

allowances for the different views on the subjectamong Oriental people . From our point of view ,

Mohammed himself would certainly be called a senanalist . He sanctioned polygamy, and he evenallowed himself a larger number of wives and slavesthan to his followers . Mohammedans , however, asI was informed

,take a different view . They admire

Sarah xxxvi . 55 . xix. 60. xli ii. 62 .

256 LAST assars.

h im for having remained for twenty-five years faithfulto one wife , a wife a good deal older than himself.They consider his marrying other wives as an act ofbenevolence

,in granting them his protection while

others were ‘averse from marrying orphan women

Mohammedan s look upon polygamy as a remedy ofmany social evils , and they are not far wrong. Wemust not forget that Mohammed had to give laws tobarbarous and degenerate tribes , with whom a womanwas no more than a chattel

,carried off, like a camel

or a horse, by whoever was strong enough to defy hisrivals . In Arabia, as elsewhere, women were morenumerous than men

, and the only protection for awoman, particularly an orphan woman , was a husband .

Much worse than polygamy was female slavery ; stilleven that was better than what existed before. Wemust not forget that even now the slave who hasbecome a mother has a recognized position in thefami ly, and that her child is legitimate . They havein Turkey no young mothers who commit suicideor drown their illegitimate offspring. Though neitherpolygamy nor slavery can be approved

,I confess

that I found it hard to answer Mohammedan criticswho had seen the streets and prisons of Paris andLondon. There are many enlightened Mohammedanswho condemn polygamy and slavery. Polygamy, infact

,is dying out . Mohammed did not enjoin it

,he

simply tolerated it,as it was tolerated among the Jews

,

and carried even to excess by some of their kingssuch as David and Solomon—men, we are told, afterJehovah’s own heart.In all my discussions , however, with my Turk ish

Surah iv. “ 5.

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258 LAST ESSAYS.

I order you anything about the affairs of the world,then I am nothing more than a man.

’ What strongerferman can social reformers demand for the abolitionof polygamy, slavery, and for other changes requiredby the changed circumstances of the time, than thesesolemn words of their own wise Prophet ?

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA ‘

l . Coxruo umsm.

CHINA has had for a long time not one but threeState religions— that is , three religions tolerated ,

supported,and protected by the State. The most

widely spread and thoroughly national, however, isthat which was restored and preserved

,though not

founded , by Confucius . Though it goes by his nameas Confucianism

,he himself

,it should be remembered

,

never claims the books on which it rests as his own .

These books are the Five Kings

(1 ) The FileKing, the Book of Changes .

(2) The Siva. King, the Book of Historical Documents.

(3) The She Ki ng, the Book of Poetry.

(4) The Le Ke,the Record of Bites.

(5 ) TheCh‘

eunTs'

ew, Spring andAutumn, a chronicleof events from 72 1 B . 0. to 480 .

Secondly the four books, the Shit, or the books ofthe Four Philosophers

(I ) The Lwn. Ya ,the Digested Conversations , chiefly

the sayings of Confucius.

(2) The Ta Hes , or Great Learning, commonlyattributed to Tsang Sin, a disciple of Confucius.

Nineteenth Century, September, October, and November, 1900.

8 2

260 LAST assays.

(3) The Chung Yang , or the Doctrine of the Mean ,ascribed to K'ung Keih , the grandson of Confucius .

(4) The Works ofMenciue

Confucius calls himself a transm itter only,not a

maker,believing in and loving the ancients. When

speaking of himself, he says : ‘At fifteen I had mymind bent on learning. At thirty I stood firm . Atforty I had no doubts . At fifty I knew the decrees ofheaven. At sixty my ear was an obedient organ forthe reception of truth . At seventy I could followwhat my heart desired , without transgressing whatwas right .’ Confucius di ed in 478 D. C.

, complainingthat among all the Princes of the Empire there wasnot one who had adopted his principles , not one whowould obey his lessons . This shows— what is

,in

fact, confirmed from other sources— that he himselfwas not an active reformer , so that while alive hescarcely produced a ripple on the smooth and silentsurface of the religious thought of his own coun try .

He was , no doubt, in advance of his contemporaries ,but he took his stand chiefly on certain verities thathad come down to him from ancient times , and hisfaith in these verities and in their com ing revival hascertainly not been belied by what happened after hisdeath . His grandson already speaks of him as theideal of a sage

,as a sage is the ideal of all humanity.

But even this grandson was far from claiming divinehonours for his grandsire, though he certainly seemsto exalt his wisdom and virtue beyond the limits ofhuman nature . Thus he writes

‘He may be compared to heaven and earth in their supportingand contain ing, th eir overshadowing and curtain ing all things ; he

See Legge, W eis s, pp. I , 2 .

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262 Li st assu re.

declared that he had left one disciple only , and thatthis disciple had misunderstood him . If some of ourmodern philosophers lay so much stress on what theyimagine is entirely their own invention— such as, forinstance

,evolutwn or development or growth orWerden

— is not that chiefly owing to their ignorance of thehistory of philosophy ? Religion is in that respectvery much like language . People may preserve , theymay even improve

,purify , and add to their language ,

but in the end they are , like Confucius, not inventors ,but only transm itters of language and religion.

How closely the fundamental ideas of the Chinesereligion are connected with language has been shownfor the first time by Professor Legge . He has laidbare a whole stratum of language and religion inChina of which we had formerly no idea , and it isowing to our ignorance of that stratum that the ‘

Chinese religion has so often been represented asunconnected with Nature-worship such as we findin all Aryan religions ; as without any mythologynay

,as without any God . But it cannot be doubted

that several of these mythological and religious ideasappear even at an earlier time in China than in Indiaor in Egypt and Babylon. And they appear there notonly in the words

,but, as Professor Legge has shown ,

even in the written symbols of the words which aregenerally ascribed to nearly or yearsbeforeour time .

This surely requires the attention of all studentsof antiquity. It has generally been supposed that itwas chiefly among the Aryan nations that Natureled on to Nature ’s gods ; and it is hardly doubtednow that not only the heavenly luminaries, but dawn

rns nameles s or csma. 263

and night, rain and thunder, rivers and trees andmountains , were worshipped in the Veda, thoughwhile this kind of worship led to Polytheism , therewere always faint rays of Monotheism which maypossibly be due to a more ancient worship of the skyand the sun , and which afterwards developed into theconception of one God , or of one God above all gods .

I say possibly , though what we know of the religiousideas of other nations

,and even of savage and uncivil

ized races , seem s to admit of this explanation only .

That sim ilar traces of a worship of Nature would befound in China was never even suspected . At all

events the religion of the Chinese seemed to haveleft the mythological stage long before the tim e ofConfucius. It seemed to be a prosaic and thoroughly

but a system of morality and ofworldly wisdom ratherthan of religious dogmas and personal devotion . If itwas full of eternal verities, it was also full of truisms.Again

,if we mean by religion a revelation of the

Deity, of its existence, its acts and its qualities ,miraculously imparwd to inspired seers and prophets,Confucius and those who followed him knew of noneof these things

,and hence they were even accused of

having had no religion at all, or of having beenAtheists in disguise . Against such a charge however,as Professor Legge has clearly shown, the Chineselanguage

,nay

,even the Chinese system of writing ,

protests most strongly. I ought to mention , perhaps,that Professor Legge was well acquainted with whatI had written about Dyaus, Zeus, and Jupiter . Heknew that in Sanskrit dya/us, as a fem inine, meanssky

,the bright one

,from a root DIV or DJU , to

264 u sr m ars.

shine ,while Dyam ,

as a mu culine, is the bright sky ,conceived as an ageng and that he was at one timeth e first and oldest god of the Aryan pantheon .

Dyans was in faet the same wmd as Zeua and as

Jam'

s and Ju in Jupitcr, while the original mm gofJovis breaks through in such comparisons as w b

Jovcfi ' igido ,nnder the cold sky ‘.

the sign for sky and day, but it is also the name for

from (yt, one) and j ( (ta , great), so that it wouldhave signified from the beginning the One and

greate st .

’ This, however, would psychologically , ifnot chronologically, be a late name for Deity. It istrue that the Chinese written symbols go back to

nearly years before our time, or to between thethird and fourth millenni um If Hwang-ti wasthe inventor of the written characters , his first yearwas 2697 B .O. ; if Eu-hsi invented them , the first yearof his reign was 3697 This is a very ancient date,but the question before us is whether we may noteven go behind these Chinese inventors of alphabets,and look upon the explanation of their symbol forTim , as meaning by its component parts the Oneand the Greatest Being, as ban trovato rather thanm o. When Confucius , however, uses such terms asTim ,

heaven , Ti , Lord , and Slici ng-Ti , Supreme Lord,synonymously , it is quite clear that with him Ticn

meant no longer the visible sky only, but the in

See Nineteenth Century, 1 885 ,‘The Lem of Jupiter ’

; see also

Chips , iv . pp. 368-4 1 1 .

Lasso, Religions y ou“ , a aIbid. , p. 59.

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266 LAST s ssu s.

instead of ‘ it rains ,’ completes the person ification of

any inanimate agent, whether sky, or hill, or river,

or tree . Very learned terms are used for what is inreality perfectly simple, and nothing seems so destructive of clear thought on these subjects as highsounding names, such as Feti shism

,Animism , 8 m.

‘Fci tico factztms) or‘ fétiche,

’

or‘ fetish ' is a name

given by ignorant Portugues e sailors to the amuletsof the negroes on the West Coast of Africa ; andfétich’isme

,as a system , was invented by that most

ignorant and pedantic of ethnologists,De Brosses

,

whose wild ideas of Fetishism as a prim itive form ofreligion have survived even the ridicule of Voltaire

,

and have not been made less ridiculous by thepatronage bestowed upon it by Comte and h is

followers . As to Anim ism , anybody who watches .

uncivilized races or common people even in Bumpsknows perfectly well that when , for instance , themoon is called in German ‘Dear Moon ,

’

orHerrMond ‘,

he becomes at once an agent,an active, but not yet

a masculine or feminine person. Anyhow, thesemerely grammatical changes , which have been fullydiscussed by Grimm in his German Grammar

,are

sufi cient to explain to any student of psychologyand language the natural transition of inanimate toanimate objects . They require no mysterious helpfrom what i s called Animism , particularly if Animi smis supposed to refer to that an imus

,breath, which

presupposes lungs and throat.It is important to have a clear conception of all

this before we approach the ao-called spirits of Natureand the spirits of the departed, who are said to have '

Grimm , Deumlw Graumnaft'

k, iii. p. 346.

ran am orous or csmx. 267

been worshipped by the Chinese from very earlytimes . Anyhow

,their names and their written signs

existed,and they by themselves would carry us back

at least to about 2697 But what idea can weconnect with such beings as Shun

,the spirits of the

sky , 07873, the spirits of the earth , and Kwei , the spiritsof the departed or the Chinese manes '

l We are toldthat to j udge from the ideograph for Gift or SM,

thespirits of the earth

,it was meant originally for mani

festation and what is above . In the sign for Ska/nalso there is the element indicating what is above.The sign for Kwei , the mam a, is explained by nativeChinese scholars in the most fanciful way. But it isquite clear that every one of these names and signsfor so~called spirits does not stand for somethingindependent of clouds , rain, thunder, and winds, orfor something animated or breathing

,still less for

a mere amulet or an idol, as little as Agn i in theVeda means something independent of fire . If theChinese speak of the spirit of rain, thunder , &c.

, theydo not m ean something apart from the rain

,but rain

and thunder conceived as active . We may do whatwe like, thunder as a spirit is no more than thunderas an agent, or as active ; and to imagine that theterm Animism , to say nothing of Fetishism , helps usin the least to understand the origin of these conceptsis simply to blind ours elves by a mist of words. Ifwe must have a technical term instead of Animism ,

it should be Agentism , which, barbarous as it sounds ,is not more so than m any other technical terms , andis certainly better, if only properly understood . Thelanguage of the Chinese seems ahnost to have beenconstructed in order to pret the misrepresentatiou

268 m ar seem s.

that the religion of China took its form from theprinciples of Animism 1 and Fetishism .

The step from thunder and rain as agents to thespirits of thunder and rain is easily pe

rceived as

almost inevitable, in China as well as in ancientIndia . Only in China the subordination of thesespiri ts to fl ea or T6, the Supreme Lord , was moreclearly felt than in India. There is a danger indeed ,as Professor Legge fully admitted , of the spiritualpotencies being regarded as independent

,and being

elevated to the place of gods,as they were in the

Veda ; but in China the most ancient and strongconviction of the existence of one God , originally theone Heaven

,prevented the rising of the manifesta

tions of nature into the so-called spirits and theirclaiming equality with Tim as the One God . Thisis the real difference in China between the One Godand the many gods or spirits or agents of naturewhich in other countries have given rise to varioussystems of Polytheism .

It is curious to observe that even the name of heavenand earth is used , not as the name of two Deities ,l ike Dyava-Pm

'

th iv yau , heaven and earth , in theVeda, but as the name of one , namely of Tien, theone Supreme God. Thus we read Heaven and Earthis the parent (like father or mother) of all creatures .In order to avoid all danger of having two supremeDeities instead of one

,Confucius says distinctly : the

ceremonies of the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth arethose by which we serve Shorty-Ti 2, the SupremeGod .

Little as such a naturalistic origin of ChineseLegge, The Religion of China, p. 19. Ibid. p . 30.

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270 LAST sssxvs.

positively. In fact, it has been doubted whetherthis ancient and widely spread system deserves tobe called a religion at all, and as we understandthat name

,no doubt, religion is not quite the name

for the doctrines of Confucius . His chief object isto inculcate good behaviour

,propriety, unselfishness,

virtue,but as to revelation or anything revealed , as

to m iracle , and even as to a priesthood, he is persistently silent .There are however, many things in his teaching

which a Chn stian could honestly accept. The goldenrule of Christianity : ‘All things whatsoever you wouldthat men should do unto you , do ye even so to them

,

’

occurs again and again in the Kings. What is nowcalled altruism Confucius called reciprocity

,as when

Tsze-Kung is introduced, asking if there is not oneword which may serve as a rule of practice for allone’s life, he is answered by Confucius , ‘ Is notreciprocity such a word ? What you do not wantdone to yourself, do not do to others .

’ And again,in the Analects

,V . ii : ‘What I do not wish men to

do to me, I also wish not to do to men.

’ It seemsrather a nice distinction when Dr. Legge says thatConfucius only forbids men to do what they feel tobe wrong and hurtful , while the Gospel commandsmen to do what they feel to be right and good.

I confess this savours a little of the m issionary ratherthan the historian of religions. If we must finda difference , it seems to me rather to lie in thatConfucius cites no authority, sacred or profane, insupport of his rule, while Christ appeals to the IA Wand the Prophets . This is a peculiarity, perhaps adefect, that runs through the whole of Confucius

’

s

rHs s sLIC ICNS or CHINA. 27 1

teaching. If he were asked by whose authority hetaught , he would find it difficult to answer, exceptby appealing, as he always does , to antiquity.

One may discover some of the old belief in nature,in the teaching of Confucius to act like nature

,to

obey the Will of Heaven,and to submit to nature’s

laws, also to look upon man as part of nature . Butthis would hardly suflice as a basis for morality,whether in a fam ily or in the State . He declines allmetaphysics

,but as he percei an unostentatious

working of perfect wisdom in all parts of nature , hebehaved that there was a Power ruling the world, andthis was what he m eant by the Will ofHeaven . But

he went no further. Everything infini te and superhuman, too , was looked upon by him as incomprehensible to a finite and human m ind . He did notdeny a God

,or a future life

,but toiling among such

metaphysical uncertainties seemed to him worse thanuseless . What seemed to him certain was man andhis perfectibility on earth . For this he strove byevery word he said and by every deed he did; Deathhad nothing terrible for him , as little as birth . Itwas but a part of the working of Nature , and , assuch

,regular and beneficent like all her works . He

could not admit anything miraculous, for everythingsupernatural or against the laws of nature seemed tohim a slur on the wisdom of the Wi ll of Heaven ,though it m ight rest on the testimony of ever somany persons , ancient or m odem . The ways ofheaven and earth

,he said

,are without any doubleness ,

and produce things in a manner that is altogetherunfathomable.

When Confucius enters upon ethics and politics he

272 LAST sssxrs.

explains how every individual should first of all

improve himself and then try to im prov e the familyand the State . The foundation of a State is , accordmgto him , Filial Piety, and this forms the constant subjcet of his discourses , and of the discourses of other

that the origin of filial piety, as a sacred duty , is to befound in the worship paid to ancestors

,which in China

ranked next to the worship of God . But the questionis, which came first

,the filial piety shown to living

parents or the worship paid t o ancestors ? Confuciushimself declares : The services of love and reverenceto parents when alive, and those of grief and sorrowfor them when dead , these discharge completely thefundamen tal duty of living men.

’ The filial piety,

or Haida,is represented by a very ancient written

sign , consisting of the symbols of an old man supportedby his son . Confucius explains what is meant byfilial piety.

‘ In h is general conduct,’

he says , ‘ he man ifests to them the

utmost reverence ; in h is nourishi ng them , h is endeavour is tog ive them the utm ost pleasure ; when they are ill h e feels th egreatest anxiety ; in m ourning for them when dead he exhibitsevery demon stration of grief ; in sacrificing to them h e displaysthe utmost solem n ity . When a son is complete in these five thingshe may be pronounced able to serve his parents. ’

He then goes on and describes the result of suchfilial piety : He who thus serves his parents will, ina high situation

,be free from pride.’

There is one book that treats entirely of Haida, orfilial piety

,and which on account of its age and its

authority has received the name Haida-King. If wepossess the same book of whi ch Confucius speaks , itwould be one of the oldest classics in China. Confucius

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274 user ESSAYS.

much controversy among native scholars as to theage and genuineness of these two texts . That classicrepresents itselfas containingthe conversations betweenConfucius and one of his disciples

,and it makes litt le

difference to us whether these conversations werewritten down by that disciple himself or by his disciples again . The doctrines contained in the bookare the doctri nes ofConfucius , as they may be gatheredfrom the five Kings and from the Shfis , and theycertam give us the most prim itive and simple ideasof the political philosophy of China that can well be

We are told in the beginning of the book thatConfucius was once sitting unoccupied , and that oneof his most distinguished disciples was sitting by inattendance on him . Then the master said

,Shari

,

the ancient kings had perfect virtue and an allembracing rule of conduct, through which they werein accord with heaven. By the practice of it peoplewere brought to live in peace and harmony, and therewas no ill-will between superiors and inferiors. Doyou know what it was ? The whole world hasbeen looking for that secret, without as yet havingfound it.’

No wonder, therefore, that the disciple, Shan, rosefrom his mat and said, ‘ How should I, who am sodevoid of intelligence, be able to know this 2Then the master said

,

‘It was Filial Piety. Filialpiety is the root of all virtue and the stem out ofwhich grows all moral teaching . Sit down again andI will explain the subject to you . Our bodies, to

every hair and bit of skin, are received by us fromour parents, and we must not presume to injure or

THE man s i ons or CHINA. 27 5

wound them ; this is the beginning of filial piety.

When we have established our character by the

prac tice of filial piety,so as to make our name famous

in future ages and thereby glorify our parents , wehave reached the end of filial piety. It commenceswith the service of parents it proceeds to the serviceof the ruler ; and it is completed in the establishmentof character.

’

We see already from these introductory remarkswhat Confucius is aiming at. Looking at the familyas the unit of political life , he holds that organizationsof all polit ical bodies can be built up with these units ,and that if children have once learnt to dischargetheir duties to their parents

,they will have learnt

how to treat their superiors in larger political associations , and to show preper respect to their rulers inChurch and State. Peace and harmony will be preserved , and those who honour their father and motherwill, in the language of the Old Testament, live long ;that is , live long in peace in the land which God hasgiven them .

Confucius then proceeds to show how filial pietyshould pervade all classes

,from the common people to

the very Son of Heaven that is,the Emperor.

The common people must follow the course ofheaven (in the revolving seasons) that is to say , theymust observe the order of the heavenly signs for thepurpose of agriculture

,Or

,as he expresses it, they must

distinguish the advantages afforded by different soils ,be careful in their conduct and econom ical in theirexpenditure , in order to nourish their parents . Thisis the filial piety of the common people.Inferior officers show their filial piety in serving

T 2

276 LAST sssu s.

their fathers and loving their mothers,and in serv ing

their rulers and reverencing them . Love is what ischiefly rendered to mothers, reverence to the rulers,and both love and reverence to fathers. When theyserve their ruler with filial piety they are loyal , m d

when they serve their superiors with reverence theyare obedi ent

,and when they never fail in th is loyalty

and obedience in serving those above them they are

able‘ to preserve their emoluments and to maintaintheir sacrifices . This is the filial piety of the infer iorofficers.Chief ministers and great officers, if controlled by

filial piety, must never presume to wear robes otherthan those appointed by the laws of ancient kings ,

nor to speak words other than those sanctioned bytheir speech , nor to exhibit conduct other than Mexemplified by virtuous ways (morality). When thesethings are all as they should be they can preservetheir ances tral temples . This is the filial piety of the

But the Princes of States also, nay the Emperorhimself

, or the Son of Heaven , as he has been calledever sin ce the Shang dynasty , have the duties offilial piety to fulfil. If he loves his parents he willnot dare to incur the risk of being hated by any manor being contemned by any man. When the Son of

Heaven has carried to the utmost the service of hisparents

,the lessons of his virtue will affect all the

people and he will become a pattern to all withinthe four seas.Well may the disciple exclaim after this : Immense

indeed is the greatness of filial piety ’

; while Confuciusadds : Yes , filial piety is the constant course of Heaven ,

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278 LAST Beas t s .

extracts from the Haida-Ki ng , but those who carefor these early attempts at political scien ce wi ll com eacross many things worthy of considerati on in thethird volume of my Sacred Books of the East

,where

they will find a complete translation of the HaidaKing, and likewise of the Shit-King and Ski-KW ,

while later volumes contain the Yiii -King (vol . xvi),the Le Kc, or the Rules of Propriety (vols . xxv ii andxxviii), and the Tes ts of Taoism (vols . xxxix and x1) ,all translated by my friend , the late Professor Legge .

Anyhow, when one reads these books , however j ustlythey may be suspected of representing ideals ratherthan realities, one begins to doubt whether the believersin evolution are right in supposing that all evolutionand all development proceeded from the less perfectto the more perfect, from the ape to the savage , fromthe savage to the sage, or whether there was not inChina also from time to time a reculer, let us hope ,however, pour m iewr sauter

‘.

2. TAO ISM.

THE next home-grown religion in China is Taoism,

ascribed to LAO-tee. Of him and of his life,if we

exclude mere legends , even less is known than of

Confucius. Some have indeed gone so far as to denyhis existence altogether, and though his reported

Confucius is the latinized form wh ich Rom an m issionaries

gave to the Chinese nam e Kong-fu -tze, i. e . the venerable teacherKong. I t is a pity that they did not adopt a s im ilar latin ized

name for IAo-tzé , calling h im Laocius . But they did not takemuch notice of that ph ilosopher, who therefore became known to

the world under h is Chin ese name only .

rHr. RELIGIONS or CHINA. 27 9

in terview with Confucius has been generally considered as establishing once for all the historicalcharacter of both these sages

,even that meeting

,

fixed as having taken place about 5 1 7 B . m ight wellbe the product of tradition only . Something like ithas happened , indeed, to most founders of religion .

Tradition adds so many fanciful and miraculoustraits to the real story of their lives that

,l ike a tree

smothered and killed by ivy,the subject of all these

fables,the stem round which the ivy clusters

,becomes

almost invisible, and seems at last to be fabulousitself. Still the trunk must have been there

,and

must have been real in order to serve as the supportof that luxuri ant ivy . It is said, for instance , ofLfio-tzé that his mother bore him for seventy-twoyears, and that, when he was born at last, in 604 B . C

he had already white hair. Is it not palpable howthis tradition arose ? Iao-tze

' was the name givento him , and that name signifies Old Child , or OldBoy. This name being once given

,everything else

followed . He was born with white hair , and spokewords of wisdom like an old man . Even the verywidely spread idea that the fathers of these wonderfulheroes were old men recurs in this instance , for thefather of Confucius also was said to have been wellstricken in years . But, after all, the parents andwhat was fabled or believed about them in Chinaare nothing to us . What we want to know is whatthe Old Boy thought and taught, and this is what wefind in the Trio-tch-K ing. Nor does it help us muchif we read of the modern state of Taoism ,

in which thesublime ideas of Lho-tzé seem entirely swamped bysuperstitions .jugglery, foolish ceremonies, and idolatry .

280 LAST assars.

On the contrary , we shall have to forget all thatTaoism has become in later times , and what it is atthe present day ,

if we want to understand the ideas ofthe old phi losopher. We are told that at presentthose who profess Taoism belong to the lowest and

most degraded classes of society in China , nor do weever hear of the spreading of Taoism beyond its

national frontiers or of any attempts to spread itabroad by means of m issionary efforts. In fact

,we

can hardly doubt that Taoism , in this respect at leas t ,resembled Confucianism . Both were home-grownnational forms of religious and mythological faith,both sprang up from a confused and ill-defined massof local customs and popular legends, sacri ficial traditions , medical and hygienic Observances— with thisdifference

,however, that the teaching of Confucius

acted from the very first prohibitively against themass of existing superstitious beliefs and practices ofthe common people , and laid the strongest stress onethical and political principles, excluded polytheismand all talk about transcendent matters, whi le Taoismexcluded little or nothing, but was ready to acceptwhatever the people had believed in for centuri es

,

only adding what must always have been a philosophy first

,and a religion afterwards— the belief in

Tao . In 1 40 a learn ed scholar of the name ofTang Chung-shi recommended to the Emperor Wfithat all studies not found in the six departments ofknowledge and in other arts sanctioned by Confuciusshould be strictly forbidden

,so that the people should

know what to follow,and that the depraved and per

verse talk which was heard at that time should ceaseonce for all. But the Emperor, though aware of the

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282 LAST Esss rs.

degraded state of those who profess Taoism inand exam ine the popular beliefs and the public worship in which they rejoice , we can hardly trust our

eyes when we come to read the Tdo tch King, theonly book which Lao-w has left behind

,and on which

his real teaching, whether we call it philosophy or

religion , was founded . In early timcs , and even inChina itself, IAo-tzé is spoken of as the superior ofConfucius in his sublime flights of speculation andfancy. Certainly Confucius must have been a manof great hum ility. He is said to have exclaimed

,

Alas ! there is no one that knows me adding , however

,But there is Heaven— He knows me.

’ A manwho can say that must be a man of independentthought and of a strongly marked religious character.

But,though he dare not adm it it himself, hewas known.

and was known even during his life-time, as one ofthe ao-called superior men ,

’ far superior even to Yaoand Shun, the phoenix among birds , the TM mountain among mounds and ant-bills . Sti ll, as he wasthe younger

,being thirty-fivewhen IAo-tzewas eighty

eight years of age,Confucius, having heard of Lao tze

’sfame , went to see him in 5 1 7 B . C. Lao-tad receivedConfucius with a certain air of superiority , but Confucine, after his interview with Lao-tzé was over , wasevidently full of admiration for the old philosopher.

He is reported to have said to his own disciplesI know how birds can fly , fishes swim , and animals

run ; but the runner may be snared , the swimmerbook ed , and the flyer shot by the arrow. But thereis the dragon ; I cannot tell how he mounts on thewind through the clouds and rises to heaven. To-dayI have seen Lfio-tze, and can only compare him to the

rns asmoios s or cams . 288

dragon The followers of Confucius and Lao-tzé ,however , did not remain united in fri endship andadmiration , like their respective teachers. In the firstcentury, as Sze-ma Chien relates, the believers in Taohad become a separate school , opposed to the adherents of Confucius and opposed by them. Many morelegends gathered round Leo-tee. He was deified, hewas believed to have existed in a former life , and ,what has often been repeated, as pointing to Christianity , he was believed to have predicted a comingteacher— a teacher that would come from the west.This is, no doubt, a curious prophecy ; the difficultyis only to find out at what time it arose and by whomit was first mentioned . The earlier legend speaksonly of IAo-tzé as leaving his home in disgust andgoing to the north-west. Here the keeper of the gateis said to have ask ed him to compose a book. Heagreed, wrote the book , the Tdo-teb King, and thenproceeded alone on his distant journey and disappeared, no one knowing whither he had gone andhow he died .

But, though we are told that during all his life hehad been teaching the doctrine of the Tao, it seemsalmost impossible , in spite of all that has been writtenon the subject by Ch inese and European savants , tosay what Tao really meant. We have now manytranslations of the Tda-tch-K ing, but even they do notthrow much real light on this mysterious being. Itis clear, however, that Tao was not a man ,

nor a visibleor palpable thing. But if it was a concept , we askagain whence that concept arose, what it comprehended

,and how it ev er sprang up in the mind of

Legge , Rd igionqMna, p. 306.

28 4 Lxsr ESSAYS.

man . We are accustomed to find concepts in everylanguage to which there is no word corresponding in

other languages . Concepts such as revelatim andinspiration m ean very different things in differentlanguages

,and there is no word so difficult to render

into any language as Logos, the Word . Still, we cangenerally define the category of thoughts to whichsuch names belong ; but even that seems impossiblewith Tao. Hence some philosophers— and it is clearlya subject for philosophers rather than for Chinesescholars— speak with open contempt of IAo-tzé andhis Tao, while others, particularly those who firstdiscovered the Tdo-teh-King and translated it, arerapturous in their admiration of that ancient phi losophy. The first who published a translation of theToto-teh-King was Remusat, a member of the FrenchInstitute , and certainly a man thoroughly inured tothe hardest philosophical speculations . In 1 825

Remusat wrote in the first volume of his Asiatic

‘Th e currenttraditions regarding this ph ilosopher (IAc Tseu), th ek nowledge of which is due to the m iss ionaries, were not of

a character to encourage the first inquire" . The study of h is

book alte red all the ideas which I had been able to form abouthim . Instead of th e originator of a set of jugglers, professors of

the black art,and astrologers , who seek for immortali ty and the

means of rais ing themselves through the sky to heaven, I found a

genu ine philosopher, a single-eyed moralist, an eloquent theologian ,and a subtle m etaphysician . H is style has the sublim ity of the

Platon ic,and also

,we must say, someth ing of its obscurity. He

produces quite simi lar thoughts in nearly th e same words . More.

over, h is whole philosophy breathes mildness and goodwill. Hiscondemnation is directed only against hard hearts an d violen tmen.

His opinions on th e origin and constitution of the universe showne ither r id iculous fables nor a scandalous want of sense they bearthe stamp of a noble and h igh spirit ; and in the sublime views

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superstitions of the country , and it was not till afterstatues of Buddha had been brought to China thatstatues of Confucius and other great men of the pastbegan to be made , nor was any image ever fashionedof the Confucian God of the old classical . But now,

if you go into a Taoist temple, you are immediatelyconfronted by three vast images

,looking exactly like

Buddhas . They are , however, the great gods of theTaoists

,the thme Pure Holy Ones— the Perfect Holy ,

the Highest Holy,and the Great Holy One . They

actually are called Shang-Ti , the Confucian nam efor God, the Supreme Lord. The second is meant forLeo-tee, here called the Most High Prince Lao. Thethird is the Gemmeous sovereign God, who is supposed to exercise control over the physical world andto superintend all human affairs . Many legends aretold about these three Pure or Holy Ones . The first

,

who is also called P’an-ku ,’is the first man who

opened up heaven and earth . He is sometimes represen ted as a shaggy

,dwarfish Hercules, developing

from a bear rather than from an ape, and wielding animmense hamm er and chisel. with which he is breaking the chaotic rocks and fashioning the earth. Thereare ever so many legends told about the third of thesepopular idols, who is represented as the ruler of theworld . Yet the original of that idol, too, is said tohave been a magician of the family of Leo-tee, andthe story is told of him that he and another magician

,

called Liu, rode a race on waggons up to heaven,a novel position for the ruler of the world to findhimself in . This is a fair specimen of the vulgarTaoism

,with its grotesque fancies and its unbeautiful

W QI OMM p. 167 .

THE anmoros s or CHINA . 287

art. It is true that Buddhism also had a very fancyful mythology and collection of legends , but we cangenerally discover a m eaning in them , while in Taoism everything is a kind of dumb show. The threePrecious Ones of Buddhism , often represented bystatues and images, are said to be emblematic of theintelligence personified by Buddha , the Law,

and theCommunity or Church , or

,as the people thought

,

the Buddha Past , Present, and To Come . We shallsee that the Buddhism which found most favour inChina was not only the purely ethical and at the same

time historical Buddhism of India, as represented inBali

, the Tripitaka, the ao-called Hinayana, the Littlego, but the Mahayana, the Great-go, a system ofBuddhism the origin of which is still enveloped ingreat obscurity , and which may have borrowed fromtribes beyond the Himalayan chain as much as itgave to them . Neither Buddha, who died 477 B . C . ,

nor Confucius , who died 4 78 nor IAo-tzé, theolder contemporary of Confucius, cared about any ofthese purely external embellishments of religion. Inone instance we can almost watch an exchange ofopinion between Confucius and Lfio-tzé. All threeagreed on the principle that we should treat othersas we wish that they should treat ourselves . IAo-tzé,

however,went even a step beyond , and commanded

his followers to return good for evil. One of theschool of Confucius

, we are told , heard this maxim ,

and, being puzzled by it, consulted the master. Confucina thought for a moment and then replied, What,then, wi ll you return for good i

’ And his decisionwas ,

‘Becompense injury with justice, and returngood for good ! ’ Lao-tzé’s sentiment may seem more

288 user man s.

sublime, but the answer of Confucius was certain lymore logical .But what is TAO which IAo-tzé proclaimed, and on

which the whole of his philosophy was founded ? Ifwe once know this , we shall be able to j udge for ourselves whether, as Samuel Johnson observes , thisancient book contains really ‘water from unseen walksand life from original fountains ,

’ or whether what wefind there is muddy water only, of which the veryspring, the Tao, defies all accurate definition , nay ,

even translation. If we take the title Tdo-tch-Kingwe find that King means book ,

’ particularly a classical book ; Tab. means ‘ virtue ’ or ‘outcome ’

; and ifwe consult Lao-tzé himself, he says, ‘ If I were suddenly to become known, and (put into a position) toconduct (a government according to the Great The),what I shou ld be most afraid of would be a boastfuldisplay . The great Tao (or way) is very level andeasy ; but people love the by-ways. ’ This shows

,

though not very clearly,that with him TAO was the

straight path, the right tendency but in what sensehe m eant this straight path to be understood remainsuncertain . The old Latin translator uses RamKemoeat says , Ce mot me semble ne pas pouvoir étrebien traduit si ce n

’

est par le mot Ao’

yos dans ls

triple sens dc souverain Etre , de Raison et de Parole.’

In many respects Logos would certam seem a goodsubstitute for Tao , though not in all . If, however,Professor Legge thinks it could not be rendered byLogos

,because it had a father and was believed to

have pro-existed , he should have remembered thatsome early theologians claimed pro-existen ce for theLogos also

,though conceived as the Son. He even

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lations Of the Tdo-teh-King that now one, now theother, seems to fit best into the context of words andthe context of thoughts with which the author isdealing. Translators, however, seem to forget thatmore words , such as Nature , God, Reason , Logos, andall the rest, requ ire themselves a definition beforethey can be declared adequate for the purpose of

translation. One thing seems quite clear— that inthe philosophical and re ligious development Of earlyhumanity there i s nothing that had the same originand the same development as the Chinese Tao . All

agree that it meant originally the path or course, andthat afterwards it came to mean something quitedifferent, such as nature, God, or reason, though theydo not explain by what stages this transition tookplace .

But though there is no word and no concept in anyother language, the histori cal development of whi chruns parallel with that of Tao , I venture to point outone occurring in Vedic, though almost forgotten inclassical Sanskri t, which seems to me to fulfil thoseconditions better than any other word. I mentionedit years ago to Professor Legge

,but

,as he was nu

acquainted with the language and the growth ofphilosophy of the Veda and the U panishads , he wasafraid that my explanation would only be explainingthe in twm per ignotius

—a mere addition of a newtranslation— without any addition of new light on thehidden origin of the Tao . I see that I even mentionedmy idea in a note to mc ctwres on the Origin ofReligion , that is to say, in 1 878, p . 25 1 . My con

viction has, however, become stronger and strongerthe more I studied Lao-tsé’ s Tdo-teh-K i/ng, and the

rns m icrons or cums . 29 1

more I watched the application of Ti e to natural ,psychological

,moral

,and political developments , sup

posed to have originated in and to be ruled by theTAO. For it must not be forgotten that Tao rules ,or is meant to rule

,not only in nature , but in the

government of States also,and in the actions of each

individual. One . thing only I must guard againstat once—namely , the idea that I look upon Tao asa Vedic idea

,transferred in ancient times, like many

other things,from India to China. Not even among

the Buddhists of India does such an idea occur, thoughthere maym ay have been earlier communicationsbetween India and China than we are aware of. Theparallelism between the Vedic and the Chinese coursesof thought need

,therefore

,prove no more than a

natural coincidence , showing, it may be, that the conception of the Tao was by no means so peculiar to theChinese as it seemed to Chinese scholars 1 .Rita, from ri , to

'

go, would m ean originally thegoing, the moving forward , the path , particularly thestraight or direct path . Thus we read in the Bigveda , i . 105 , 1 2 ,

‘The rivers go the Ri ta ’— i. s. theright way ; or , RV. ii. 28 , 4 , ‘The rivers go the rightway of Varnna.

’ Here ‘R ita ’ may mean no morethan the right or proper way , and the same meaningwould apply when Varuna and other gods are calledthe guardians

,Of Rita— that is , of the right way , orof the right. But when Varuna and Mitra and othergods are said to be born of Rita, to know the Rita, orto increase the Rita, Ri ta has evidently the meaningof something prior to the gods , a something from

See what Le Page Renouf says about the Egyptian Mast

(B M W p. 169 et

292 LAST sesars .

which even the gods may be said to proceed . The

Way is used in the sense Of that which caused themovement or gave the first impulse, and likewise thefirst direction to all movement— the xwoiiv dximrov, or

pr imum mobile— in fact, the very Tao, as we shallsee . Rita may first have been suggested by thevisible path of the sun and other heavenly lum inaries ,but it soon left that special meaning behind

,and came

then to signify movement and course in general— thatis to say, in a larger sense— including the movemen tsof sun and moon and stars , of day and night, of theseasons and of the year . On the other band Ri tacame to mean the point from which a movement proceeded , the starting-point, or the cause of any movement, more particularly of the great cosmic movem ent .When the sun rises the path of Rita is said to besurrounded by rays , and it was used for the placefrom whence the movement originated

,and sometimes

also of the originator of such movement. The sun isactually called the bright face of Ri ta. The dawn issaid to dwell in the abyss Of Rita. The god Varuna(U ranus) is introduced as saying, I supported the skyin the seat of R ita,

’ and later on R ita is conceived asthe eternal foundation of all that exists .

When Ri ta, or the path of Rita,had once been

conceived as the path on which the gods overpoweredthe darkness of the night

,it was but a small step for

their worshippers to pray that they also might beallowed to follow that right path . In this connexionit is often doubtful whether we should translate thepath of Ri ta or the right path . And we can fromthis point of view better understand how Rita

,after

meaning what was straight, right, and good , came to

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294 LAST ESSAYS.

it sometimes comes very near to it, may be gatheredfrom such passages as the TAO is devoid of act ion, ofthought, of j udgement, of inte lligence .

’ When IAo-tzé

speaks of the TM in nature, it means nothing but theorder of nature . The Tho of nature is no doubt thespontaneous life and action of nature ; it is thatwhich changes the chaos into a kosmos

,and represen ts

the law and order visible in nature, in the growth ofanimals and plants, in the course of the seasons , themovements of the stars, in the birth and death of allanimals . In all of these there is Tao

,an innate force,

sometimes also something very like Providence , onlynot like a personal God . If water by itself finds itslevel

,runs lower by its own gravity as long as it can

,

and then remains stagnant, that again is due to itsTho, its inherent qualities , we should say , or its

character, its very being (svabhfiva), as Hindu philosophers would call it.So much for Tim in nature. As to the Tao in the

individual, who is considered a part of nature , itbecomes manifest in all actions which are spontaneous

,

and,as Lao-tzé requires , show no cause and no purpose .

If the individual acts as he acts because he cannothelp it

,he acts in conformity with his Tho . He lets

himself go and act as his nature moves him . If theheart is empty of all design and of all motives , thenthe Tao has its free course. This leads to the glorification of perfect quietude , and of allowing perfectfreedom to theTfio . IAo-tze actually maintains thatby laziness and doing nothing there is nothing that isnot done.’ All things

,

’ he adds,shoot up in spring

without a word spoken , and grow without a claim totheir production . They accomplish their development

m s as t roros s or CHINA. 295

without any display of pride , and the re sults arereached without any assumption of ownership .

’

80 it is or should be with man,who, while the The

has free play, remains perfectly humble and neverstrives. The water too is a pattern of humility. Itabases itself as low as it can and finds its lowest level .Thus we read (p . 1 04)

‘What makes a great State I ts being like a low-lying, downfiowing stream it becomes the centre to which tend all the small

States under heaven . To illustrate from the case of all females

the female always overcomes the male by her stillness,and the

process may be cons idered a sort of abasem ent

On p. 5 2 Lho-tzé says‘Th e h ighest excellence is that ofwater. That excellence appears

in its benefiting all th ings , and in its occupying , without strivingto the contrary , the low place which all men dislike. Hence itsway is near to that of Tao.

’

‘ There are three precious things,

’

Lho-tzé says ,which I prize and hold . The first is gentle kindness ,the second is economy

,the third is hum ility, not

daring to take precedence of others . With gentlenessI can be brave

, with economy I can be liberal, notpresum ing to take precedence of others. I can makemyself a vessel or means of the most distinguishedservices . ’

All this may be perfectly true ; the only questionis whether it can be obtained by simply letting theCourse (Tho) have free course , by being good-naturedwithout being aware of it, aye, as he says in conelusion

,by loving even our enem ies. He goes a step

further,and maintains that by following thi s course

men may acquire mysterious power,’ may become

invio lable , enjoying freedom of all danger, even theMa tch-King, translated by Log o .

296 LAST ESSAYS.

risk of death . Poisonous insects will not sting him,

wild beasts will not seize him,birds of prey will not

strike him. This is, of course, sheer fatalism , and itm ight seem that The could in this connexion be translated by fatum . And this is the point where a gooddeal of the superstitious practices of the Tw ists comesin . They do not see the metaphorical significance ofthese words

,but profess by a symbolism of the breath

and other hypnotic practices to act as physicians andto be able to brew even the elixir of life . Death doesnot seem to exist for them as an extinction of life.

Anyhow, dying means to them no m ore than theperishing of the body, while the soul is immortal .A Taoist of the eleventh century writes : The humanbody is like the covering of the caterpillar or the skinof the snake , as occupying it but for a passing sojourn .

When the covering is dried up the caterpillar is stillalive, and so is the snake when the skin has decomposed and disappears . But he who knows the permanence of things becomes a sharer of the Tho, andwhile his body may disappear his life will not beextinguished .

’

In this way the exoteric and the esoteric meaningof Lho-tse’ s doctrines show themselves, as professedeither by the vulgus profmmm or by the sage.We can easily imagine what this doctrine of the

The may become when applied to the government ofpolitical society, though Lho-tzé certainly went beyondour wildest imaginations. The ethics of political lifeare the chief interest of Confucius

,and they are so ,

though in a different form , in the system of Lho tse.

Confucius goes back to very primitive times when heimagines that a State could be governed by Hsiho ,

or

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298 LAST scan s .

the commencement of disorder. Every mem ber of aState should act as the Tho or

,it may be , his nature

compels him , and this Tho is supposed to be betterthan goodness

,benevolence , righteousness and pro

.

priety .

’

Knowledge , too, does not fare better. Not

to value men for their superior talent is the way tokeep people from contentious rivalry not to prisearticles difiicult to obtain is the way to keep themfrom stealing ; not to show them the example ofseeking after things that excite the desires is the wayto keep their hearts from disorder.

Lho-tsé seems to have believed that such a paradisiacal State once existed , and that there were rulersthen under whom their subjects simply knew thatthey existed. They all said ‘We are as we areourselves . ’ The great object of the governors wasto keep people simple , and one only wonders how theancients ever forfeited such a paradise . Knowledgeseems to have been considered as the chief cause ofall mischief. ‘ The difficulty of governing the peoplearises from their having too much knowledge ; andtherefore he who seeks to govern a State by wisdomis a scourge to it, while he who does not seek togovern it thereby is a blessing.

’ It is but naturalthat M o-tze should , on account of such sentiments,have been looked upon as an enemy to all knowledgeand a believer in the blessings of ignorance. But weought not to forget that his description of what apolitical system ought to be , or even had been, wasa U topia only, and we should remember that inanother Parad ise also the fruit of the tree of knowledge was a forbidden fru it. I cannot bring myselfto believe that a man of Lho-tzé ’

s genius would have

rHs RELIGIONS or CHINA. 299

wished to revive that state of paradisiacal ignoranceand innocence in modern States, though it is certainlytrue that superstitious ignorance flourished moreamong the Taoists than real knowledge. Yet he saysin so many words : ‘ Though the people had boatsand carriages they should have no occas ion to usethem . Though they had mail coats and sharpweapons they should not don them . I would makethem return to the use of knotted cords (an importantpassage

,as showing the former use of knotted cords

,

qu ippos, instead of written characters , in ancien tChina also). They should think their coarse foodsweet

,their plain clothing beautiful, their poor houses

places of rest , and their common ways places ofenjoym ent.’

Much more is to be found in the Tdo-tek-King as tothe power and the workings of Tho, but what has beensaid may suffice for our purpose. We see in Taoisma system of philosophy and religion, sometim es theone

,sometimes the other, which has sprung up on

purely Chinese soil, though at a later time it wasevidently far more influenced than Con fucianism bythe newly introduced system of Buddhism . Taoismand Confucianism both point back to an immeasurableantiquity

,and they certainlymade no secret of having

taken anything that seemed useful from the treasuresor from the rubbish of ancient folklore that had accumulated in times long before the days of Lho-tzé andConfucius . Those who have known the present classof Tho priests and who have witnessed their religiousservices form a very low opinion of a religion whichhas las ted for twenty-four centuries, and, thoughfornierly professed by much larger numbers in China ,

300 LAM seem s

is even now, while the number of its adherents is

considerably reduced ,a powerful element for evil as

well as for good in China . As an historical phenomenon it deserves the careful study of the historian,if only to teach us how even a religion supported bythe State may do its work by the side of other religionswithout the constant shouts of anathema to which weare accustomed in other countries . No one seemsa heretic in the eyes of the Chinese Government excepting always the hated foreigner ; and while oneTaoist may grovel in the m eanest religious practicesand another soar high into regions which even thebest disciplined of Christian phi losophers hesitates toventure into

,the two will not curs e each other as

infidels,but try to carry out the highest Chri stian

principle of loving our enemies, or at least of doingjustice to them .

3 . BUDDHISM AND CHRIST IANITY.

The third of the State-supported , but often Statepersecuted religions of China is that of F0, theChinese name for Buddha . The circumstances underwhich the religion of Buddha was introduced fromIndia to China are matter of hi story ; and unless wemean to doubt everything in Eastern history forwhich we have not the evidence of actual eyewitnesses

,the introduction into China of Buddhist

teachers by the Emperor Mi ngti in the year 65 A .D.

has a perfect right to claim its place as an historicalevent . It may be quite true that the fame of Buddhism had reached China at a much earlier time .

A Buddhist m issionary is mentioned in the Chinese

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302 LAM ESSAYS.

sacred canon of Buddhism— for at that time we knowof one only, the one written in Phli and reduced towriting by Vattaghmini in 80 B .C .

— had not yet beentranslated into Chinese, and at the time of the introduction of Buddhism into China. this canon wouldseem to have been the only one accessible to ChineseBuddhists ; and yet it is clear that the Chinesedepended far more on the Sanskrit than on the Phl icanon . The Emperor sent Tza’

i-in and other highofiicials to India,

in order to study there the language,

the doctrines , and the ceremonial of Buddhism . Theyengaged the services of two learned Indians , Buddhistsof course, Mathnga and Tchou-fa-lan, and some of themost important Buddhist works were translated bythem into Chinese . Missions were sent from Chinato India to report on the political and geographicalstate of the country

,but their chief object remained

always to learn the language , to enable Buddhis tmissionaries to translate and generally to study thework done by Buddhism in India. On the otherhand, Indian Buddhists were invited to settle inChina to learn the Chinese language—no easy taskfor an Indian accustomed to his own language— andthen to publish , with the help of Chinese assistants ,their often very rough translations of the Buddh istoriginals. In the catalogue of these translations

,

those taken from Sanskrit texts pre nderatc evidautly over those taken from Phli. ¥et we knownow , thanks chiefly to the labours of Bunyiu Nanjio,in his catalogue of the Chinese Tripitaka—which wassecretly removed from my library, and which, considering the notes it contained from the hands ofBunyiu Nanjio and other Chinese scholars, was sim

rHH HHLICICNs or CHINA. 303

ply invaluable— and from the researches of Takakusu ,

that both texts , the Phli and the Sanskrit, were placedunder contribution by Chinese translators .For about 300 years after the Emperor Mingti , the

stream of Buddhist pilgrims seemed to flow on uninterruptedly . The first account which we possess ofthese pilgrimages refers to the travels of Fa—hian, whovisited India towards the end of the fourth century A.D. The best translation of these travels is byM. Stanislas Julian . After Fa-hian, we have thetravels of Hoei-seng and Song-yen , who were sentto India in 5 1 8 by command of the Empress, witha view to collecting MSS . and other relics. Thenfollow the travels of Hiouen-thsang (629—645Of these too we possess an excellent translation byStanislas Julien. One of the last and certainly mostinteresting journeys is that of I-tsing

, who travelledin India from 67 1 to 695 A. D. Takak usu

,a Japanese

pupil of mine, has rendered a real service to the studyof Sanskrit, more particularly to the history of Sanskrit literature in the seventh century A . D. , by translating I-tsing

’

s Chinese memoirs into English .

These travels,lasting from the fouIth to the seventh

century,give us some idea of the literary and religious

intercourse between China and India. Some of theChinese travellers made themselves excellent scholarsin Sanskrit, and were able to take an active part inthe religious congresses and public di sputations heldevery year in the towns of India. At the same timethe number of Buddhist monasteries in China is saidby Hiouen-thsang to have amoun ted in his time to

What is still a great puzzle is what becameof the thousands of Buddhist MSS. which we know to

304 LAM ssSArs .

have been taken to China by Indian m issionaries, forthe reception and preservation of which large andmagnificent public libraries were built by variousemperors, and which seem now to have entirely disappeared from China. Many researches have beenmade for them by friends of m ine in China and Corea

,

but all that could be found was one not very interesting MS., the Khlachakra (Wheel of Time), which wassent to the India Office . Of course there were inChina from time to time violent persecutions of Buddhists

,and during those scenes of violence monas

teries were razed to the ground and many publicbuildings burnt. Still, all hope should not be givenup ; and if China should ever become more accessible,new investigations should be made wherever Buddhist monasteries and settlemen ts are known to haveexisted, it being quite possible that a who le library ofBuddhist literature and ancient Buddhist MSS. maystill be recovered. What we want more particularlyis to learn, if possible, what caused the great bifurcation of Buddhism into Hinayhna and Mahhyhna, theLittle Way and the Great Way , or whatever translation we may adopt for these two schools. Bothsystems are clearly Buddhistic, but they are in somerespects so different from one another that sometimeswe can hardly imagine that they had both the sameorigin or that one was derived from the other. Longpassages in the books of the two schools are som etim es identically the same, but on certain points ofdoctrine the two are often diam etrically Opposed . Tomention a few points only . The Buddhist of theHinayhna, or the Phli canon , denies most decidedlya personal soul and a personal God . The Mahhyhna

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306 LAST assu re.

the Mahayana was so called because it led to a highergoal , others that it was a way for a larger number , theSmall Way being so called , evidently by the seceders,because it led to a lower goal or was followed by asmaller number. Even the priority of the Small Wayto the Great Way is by no means admitted by thesupporters of the latter system . Chronology , in fact,in our sense of the word ,

does not exist for the

Mahayana Buddhists , and where there are no histori

cal mcords , fables spring up all the more readily .

Thus we are told that the founder of the Mahayanasystem of Buddhism was Nagfirguna ; that he hadtravelled to the South and North of India , and therecome across a race of men more or less fabulous , calledNagas , i . e. Serpents ; that they possessed copies of thecanonical books of the Mahayana, and gave them toNagfirguna. These NAgasare frequentlymentioned, andthere may well have been a real race of men calledNagas or Serpents but how they should have com einto possession of these books , written in Sanskrit, howthey should have hidden them ,

as we are told , in a largelak e

,and produced them at the time ofNAgfirguna

’

s visithas never been explained. NAgfirguna is mentioned aspresent at the fourth Buddhist council, that at Galandhara, called by King Kanishka, at the end of thefirst century A.D. This date

,however

,has been

very much contested . He is the fourth in the list ofBuddhist patriarehs ; but that list again is purelyimaginary , and for chronological purposes useless .What seems certain is that he was a contemporaryof King Kanishk a

,a King of India

,of Mongolian

rather than Aryan blood, whose coins give him an

was REL IGIONS or CHINA. 307

histori cal background . He is called there Kanerk es,a Knehans king

,and his life must have extended

beyond the end of the first century of our era, sayA . D. 85

- 106. But all this does not help us towardsan explanation of the true origin of the MahayanaBuddhism . We see no causes for a change in Buddhism , no new objects that were to be obtained bythis reformation, if indeed it deserves to be calledby such a name . We cannot possibly ascribe theelaboration of the new system of Buddhism to oneman

,such as NAgArguna, nor does he put forward

any such claim . On the contrary,we are told that

the Mahayana books existed long before his time , andwere handed to him by the Nfigas . Besides , wheredid he find the disciples ready to follow him ? Therewas no widespread discontent with the old Buddhism , as far as we can judge. But the fact remainsthat we find a new Buddhism with its canon writtenin Sanskri t, and it was this Buddhism that found suchdecided favour in China. It may in some respectsbe called a more popular form of Buddhism,

but itshighest speculations must have been at the sametime quite beyond the grasp of the multitude. It hasa kind of personal Deity it has saints in large numbers , and a worship of saints ; it has its future lifeand a paradi se which is described in the most attraetive colours . But whatever we may think of it, theMahayana was at all events the Buddhism whichfound favour in the eyes not only of the Chinese , butof Tibet, Corea, Japan, and of the greater part ofCentral Asia. While the Hinayana kept itself purein Ceylon

,Burmah

,and Siam

,the Mahayana Bud

dhism took possession , not only of China, but ofX 2

808 LAST men's .

Turkestan also,of the U igurs in Ham i and on the

Ili . It is quite true that Asoka at the time ofthe third council sent missionaries to Kashm ir

,Kabu l

,

and Gandhara, and it may have spread from there tothe countries on the Oxus , to Eucharis , nay even toPersia. But the legend that a son of Asoka becamethe first king of Khotan seem s to have no historicalfoundation . Khotan , no doubt, becam e the chief seatof Buddhism till it was expelled from there byMohammedanism

,but that is difi’

erent from countinga son of Asoka as their first king. That Buddhismhad spread in Asia before its recognition by theEmperor Mingti in China, is an impression that itis difficult to resist. We saw already that a Buddhistm issionary is m entioned in the Chinese annals in2 1 7 B . e.

,and that about the year 1 20 B . o. a Chinese

general brought back a golden statue of Buddha ’ . Isthat the golden Buddha who suggested to the Emperorthe golden Buddha in his famous dream ? Much stillremains obscure in these early conquests of Buddhismin Central Asia

,conquests never achieved by force

,it

would seem,but simply by teaching and example ;

but the fact remains that Buddha’s doctrine tookpossession, not only of China

,but of adjacent

countri es also.

Highly interest ing as these conquests of Buddhismoutside of China are

, what interests us at present isnot the reception which that religion met with outsideof China, but the reception which it received whenonce introduced into the Middle Kingdom . We mustnot imagine that when the Emperor had dreamt hisdream , and given his sanction to the introduction of

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3 10 LAST ESSAYS.

early time already Chinese Emperors should havediscoveI ed a number of coincidences between Christianity and Buddhism , but so far from approving ofa mixing up of the two, such as we often have seenin our own tim e, should have protested solemnlyagainst all such attempts . Thus the Emperor Té-ts ungdecided that the monastery of the Buddhists at Hsianfu and the monastery of TA-tsin (Rome) are quitedifferent in their customs, and their religious practicesentirely opposed. Adam , a Christian monk

,ought

therefore to hand down the teaching of Mishiho(Messiah), and the Buddhist monks should propagatethe Sutras of Buddha.

‘ It is to he wished,

’ he adds,

‘ that the boundaries of the two doctrines should bekept distinct

,and that their followers should not

intermingle. The right must remain distinct fromthe wrong, as the rivers Ching and Wei flow indifferent beds .

’ What will the se-called Nee-Buddhistsor Christian Buddhists say to this ? And yet at thetime of Adam or King-shing, at the time of theEmperor Té-tsung, this interm ingling of Buddhismand Christianity was a fact the study of which hasbeen strangely neglected . Christian , chiefiy Nestorian,m issionaries were very active in China from themiddle of the eighth century ‘

. Their presence andactivity there are mentioned not only in Chinesebooks , but they are attested by the famous monumentof Hsian-fu , often called Segan-fm br Singan-fu,

theold capital of China. The monument had been erectedin the year 78 1 by the Nestorians who were settledthere

, and who lived in a monastery of their own,

called by the Emperor the monastery of TA-tsin,just

See Ckn ctianity in China, by James Legge, 1 888.

THE REL IGIONS or CHI NA . 3 1 1

as another Emperor called ‘ Christianity the religion ofTA-tsin . In that monastery we see that Buddhistsand Christians lived together most amicably

,and

even worked together , and were evidently not frightened if they saw how on certain points their religiousconvictions agreed The Buddhists then seemed byno means the Yellow Terror of which we have heardso much of late . It was near Hsian-fu that a Nestorianmonum ent was seen among the ruins by early travellers,and last in 1 866 by Dr. Williamson. It was just asit had been described by the people who unearthed itin 1 625 the principal portion of the inscription is inChinese

,but there are also a number of lines in Syriac.

When that inscription was first published it was thefashion to consider everything that came from m issionaries abroad as forged : the very presence of Christianm issionaries in China in the seventh century A. D. wasdoubted ; but Gibbon , nomean critic, not to say sceptic ,write s in the forty-seventh chapter of his historyThe Ch ristian ity of Ch ina between th e seventh and thirteenth

cen turies is invincibly proved by the consent of Chinese, Arabian ,

Syriac, and Latin eviden ce . The in scription of Sighan-Eu; which

describes the fortunes of the Nestorian Church,from the first

miss ion in th e year 636 A. D. to th e current year 78 1 , is accused

of forgery by La Cruse, Voltaire , and others who become the dupesof thei r own cunning wh ils t they are afraid of a Jesuitical fraud.

’

The doctrinal portion of that inscription does notconcern us much beyond the fact that it containsnothing which a Nestorian m issionary at that timemight not have said . It seems intentionally to avoidall controversial topics, and it keeps clear of anyattacks on paganism,

which would have been equallyout of place and dangerous. From the historicalportion and the signatures we learn that the first

3 12 LAM nssArs.

Nestorian m issionary, called Olopun, arrived in Chinain 635, that he was well received by the Emperor andallowed to practise and teach his own religion by the

side of the three religions then already es tablished inChina, that of Confucius, that of Leo-tee, and that ofF0 or Buddha. These three religions are alluded toin the Nestorian monum ent as ‘ Instruction ’

(Confucianism) ,

‘ the Way ’

(Taoism), and‘ the Law

’

(Dharma, that is , Buddhism), while Christianity issimply spoken of as the Illustri ous Doctrine. ’ Thesereligions seem to have existed side by side In peaceand harmony, at least for a time. Christianity spreadrapidly, if we may j udge by the number of monasteli os built, as we are to ld, in a hundred cities . Thisprosperity had continued with but few interruptionstill the year 78 1 , when the monumen t was erected.

It must be remembered that during these two centuriesChristian doctrines were carried to Persia , Bactria,probably to India also, by persons connected wi ththe Nestorian mission, and that about the sam etime Chinese Buddhi sts, such as Hiouen theang (A . D .

629- 45) and I-tsing (67 1 explored India , while

Indian Buddhists migrated to China to help in thework of translating the sacred canon of the Buddhistsfrom Sanskrit into Chinese . We see , therefore, thatduring these centuries the roads for intellectual , chieflyreligious , intercourse were cpen between India, Bactria ,Persia, China, and the West, and that all religionswere treated with toleration and without that jealousyand hatred which we find in later times . There musthave been a certain camarader ie between Christianand Buddhist missionar ies in the monastery of Hsianfu— also called Si-gnan-fu ,

the present residence of

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3 14 LAST assu re.

dhists in China began—and they were terrihle and

frequent—the Christians shared their fate, with thisdifference however, that while the Buddhists recoveredafter a time, the Christians , having to be suppliedfrom their distant homes , were altogether annihilatedin Ch ina. While under the enlightened EmperorTai-tsung (627—49) the number of Buddhist mona~sterics in China seems to have been about the

edict of the Emperor Won-tung reduced their numberconsiderably

,and after the edict of Khang-hi few

Buddhists and hardly any Christian monasteries re

mained in China.It is curious

,however, to see with what pertinacity

the Church of Rome and its various orders clung tothe idea that the East, and more particularly Indiaand China, should be won for the Roman Church .

After the Reformation particularly , the Roman See,as well as the Dom inicans , Franciscans , and aboveall the Jesuits, seem never to have lost sight of theidea that the ground which their Church had lost inEurope should be mconquered in China. Already underBenedict XII ( 1 342—6 ) attempts were made to sendout again Christian m issionaries to China, but theysoon shared the fate of the Nestorian Christians

,

and in the sixteenth century; when Roman Catholicmissions were organized on a larger scale , no tracesof earlier Christian settlements seem to have beenforthcoming. Francois Xavier, who after his sue

cesses in India and Japan was burning with a desireto evangelize China, died in 1 552 , almost in sightof China 2. Then followed Augustine monks under

Ewan -ammo, p. 309 .

See Canon Jenk in s’s 1m “: in (MM . 1894.

m s RELIGIONS or CHINA. 3 15

Herrada, and Franciscans under Alfara . Both hadto leave China again after a very short sojourn there .

Then came the far more important m issions of theJesuits under Ricci , who landed in 1 5 8 1 . They werebetter prepared for their work than their predecessors.Anyhow

,they had studied the language and the

customs of the country before they arrived , and inorder to meet with a friendly reception in China theyarrived in the dress of Buddhist monks . They becamein fact all things to all men they were received withOpen arms by the Emperor and the learned amongthe mandarins . It was Ricci who made such pro

paganda by m eans of his clocks ; but he did notneglect his m issionary labours , though it is sometimesdifficult to say whether he himself was converted toConfucianism , or the Chinese to Christianity . Hewrote in Chinese a book called Dom in i Caelorwmvera ratio . He adopted even the Chinese name forGod, Tien. or Sha'

ng-Ti , and joined publicly in the

worship of Confucius . That was the policy of theJesuits in China, as it was their policy in India,

when about the same time Roberto de Nobili (1 577taught as a Christian Brahm in , adopting all

their customs and speaking even Sanskrit, being nodoubt the first European to venture on such a task .

The history of these missions is full of interest, butit would require considerable space to touch uponeven the most salient points and the most markedpersonalities. Many Chinese, particularly in the

higher classes,became Christians

,and they thought

they could do so without ceasing to be Confucianists ,Taoists , or Buddhi sts . The Jesuits survived even the

See Sdenocq/Lom aga, i. p. 209.

3 16 LAST assars .

Great Revolution in 1 644 , which brought in thepresen t Manchu dynasty, and one of them ,

the FatherSchaal

,was actually appointed governor of the Crown

Prince, the son of Chun-k i. The widow of the Emperorand her son allowed them selves to be baptized in1630. In Europe people were full of enthusiasm for

really conquered that vast empire . But a reactionbegan slowly. Some missionaries, not Jesui ts, becamefrightened , and laid their complaints before the Popeat Rome . Even at Rome the so-called Accomm odati onQuestion became the topic of the day, and at last,after various legates and Vicars Aposto lic had beensent to Pekin to report

,and numerous witnesses had

been listened to as to murders, poisonings, and imprisonm en ts of the various missionaries then settledin China and striving each and all for supremacy , thePapal See could not hesitate any longer, and hadat last to condemn the work of the Jesuits both inChina and in India. It i s diflicult for us to judge atthis distance of time. Certainly, Christi an ideas hadgained an entrance into China , particularly amongthe highest classes, and it was hoped that in time themere ckmwiseries of their faith would be stripped off,

and true Christianity, relieved of its Chinese trappings,would step forward in its native purity. How farthe Jesuits thought that they could safely go we maylearn from a list of doctrines and customs which theCurie. condemned as pagan rather than Chri stian .

Such things m ust have existed to account for theirofficial condemnation. The Pope declared he wouldnot allow the Chinese names for God, Tien andShang-Ti , but would recognize but one read ing , Tien

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3 18 LAST assu s.

were likewise subj ected to very severe measures .The persecutions of the Christians at various times,and as late as 1 747 , 1 805 , 1 8 1 5 , 1 832 , seem to havebeen terrible. The Emperors complained of lése-majestéon the part of the Pope , who, as a foreign sovereign,ought not to have issued edicts in the Chinese Empire.The Emperors , in fact, knew very little what thePope really was

,and the Popes looked upon the

Emperors as Chinam en,as pagan and half-savages.

The Pope , however, insisted on his right of j urisdictionall over the world in all spiritual and eccles iastical

questions, and the resultwas that the Christian Church,so carefu lly planted and built up by the Jesuits,crumbled away and became extinct in China. The

whole of that history, bristling with heroes, martyrs,and saints , can be read in any of the histories ofChristian m issions . We see clearly that what theChinese hated was not the teaching of Christ, butthe foreigners themselves who had come to prewhHis doctrine, and who were making proselytes inChina. If the missionary was submissive he wasgenerally free to teach his doctrine , but the antiforeign sentiment cam e out at the same time withunexpected strength, a sentim ent so deeply engrainedin the Chinese m ind that nothing but clocks and otheruseful mechanical and scientific inventions found pe' rmanent favour with the Chinese. There is no passagein their Kings prescribing hospitality and kindness tothe stranger within the gate . There is nothing evenabout the sacrosanct character of envoys , thoughembassies from and to China were of frequent occurrence . In the Li Ki

,ii i . 1 7 , we read : ‘At the frontier

gates , those in charge of the prohibitions examined

THE RELIG IONS or CHINA . 3 19

travellers, forbidding such as wore strange clothes ,and taking note of such as spoke a strange language. ’

So it has been and so it will be again and again in

China,unless the Foreign Powers are able to impress

the people with fear and respect . It was under theprotection of the European Powers that the m issionsof the reform ed churches began their work in Chinaat the beginning of this century ; but, trusting in thatprotection, they seem on various occasions to haveprovoked the national sensibilities of the Chinese, andthus

,particularly in the case of their native converts,

to have encouraged the Chinese to commit suchatrocities as those we have just been witnessing.

Although they could not possibly , like the Jesuits ,adapt themselves to the prejudices of the Chinese ,they seem to have given greater offence than in theirignorance they imagined . To give one instance only .

The European mi ssions would send out not onlymarried but unmarried ladies

,and persisted in doing

80,though warned by those who knew China that the

Chinese recognize in public life two classes of wom enonly— married women ,

and single women of badcharacter. What good results could the m issionsexpect from the m issionary labours of persons sodespised by the Chinese ? It will be long beforeChristianity finds a new and better soil in China thanit found at the time of Ricci . To claim any privileges ,however small

,for Chinese converts was certainly an

imprudence on the part of the Great European Powers ,who after all were powerless to protect their faithfulmartyrs. In Chinese society any attempt to raise thesocial status of these Christian converts was sure toexcite jealousy and even hatred . After our late

320 LAST nssars.

experience it must be quite clear that it is more thandoubtful whether Christian m issionaries should be

sont or even allow d to go to cw ntii ea tlwGovernmentsof which object to their presence. It is always andeverywhere the same story. First commercial adven

then war.

In the course of centuries it could hardly be otherwise than that sects should arise in the three Statereligions of China, Confucianism ,

Taoism , and Buddhism . Persecutions were frequent , but at the bottomof each we can generally see political and socialquestions more active than mere questions of dogma.

The rebellion of the Tae-Pings in 1 854 is still vividin the memories of many people , particularly as itwas General Gordon , the martyr of Khartoum , who

had to quell the insurrection against the ImperialGovernment. The strange feature of that insurrectionwas the leaning of the chief and his friends to whatwe can only call Christian ideas . Tue-Ping-Wanglooked upon himself as a Mess iah ; he worshipped akind of Trinity

,he actually introduced baptism and

the Lord ’

s Supper, and repudiated the worship of

idols . His favourite books were those of the OldTestament which treat of the wars of the Israelites ,the very chapters which U lfilas

,the apostle of the

Goths,left out in his translation as likely to rouse

the bellicose tendencies of his counti ymen .

While the hatred of Tae-Ping Wang was chieflydirected against the Manchu dynasty and aristocracy,who for the last two hundred years have kept the realCh inese under their sway

,and while , like other rebels ,

his obj ect was to upset that dynasty and to found

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322 LAST ESSAYS.

The origin and spreading of the three establishedreligions iii China is of great interest

,not only for

studying the ramifications of these sysm of faith ,but also as opening before our eyes a chapter ofhistory and geography of which we had no idea.

Before the travels of the Buddhist pilgrims fromChina to India and from India to Chinawere published,who could have guessed that in the fifth century A.D .

human beings would have ventured to climb themountains that separate China from India, and findtheir way back by sea from Ceylon along the Burm ese ,Siamese , and Cambodian coast to their own home ?Who had any suspicion that after the third Buddhistcouncil, in the third century B . 0.

,Buddhistmissionaries

pushed forward to Kashm ir and the Himalayan pa sse,

founded settlements not only in China, but among theraces of Central Asia , and thus came in contact withthe Greeks of Bactria, and with Mongolian and Tartarraces settled along the greater rivers , nay , in the veryheart of Central Asia ? When we consider how Buddhist and Christian settlements existed in Asia fromthe seventh century , as at Si-gnan-fu ,

and that thesepilgrims must have found practicable or impracticableroads as far as Alexandria in the West

,Odessa and

N isibis in Syria , and as far as Hsian-fu in the East ;that Persia, too, was open to them , and that theyhelped each other in teaching and learning theirlanguages , nay , even their alphabets , does not theAsiatic continent assume a totally different aspect ?We wonder that here and there in China, Tibet, andMongolia (Kashgar) books are now forthcoming, as

yet almost uninte lligible, but most likely of Buddhistorigin , which indicate at least the highways on which

THE RELIGIONS or CHINA. 323

travels were possible for the purposes of religiouspropaganda. The interior of Asia

,which formerly

looked like an unknown desert, appears now like theback of our hand

,intersected by veins indicating

something living beneath. Many discoveries awaitthe patient student here

,but we shall want for their

realization not only the ingenuity of Senart,Hoernle,

and Leumann 1,but the plucky and lucky spade of

a Schliemann .

Uber cine van den unbekaom ten Literaturspm chen Mittelasc’

ens, 1900.

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS ,

CHICAGO ,

HERE are few th ings which I so truly regrethaving m issed as the great Parliament of Reli

gions held in Chicago as a part of the ColumbianExhibition in 1 893 . Who would have thought thatwhat was announced as simply an auxiliary branchof that exhibition could have developed into what itwas , could have become the most important part ofthat imm ense undertaking, could have become thegreatest success of the year, and I do not hesitate tosay, could now take its place as one of the mostmemorable events in the history of the world ?As it seems to me

,those to whom the great success

of this oecumenical council was chiefly due , I meanPresident Bonney and Dr. Barrows, hardly mad e itsufficiently clear at the beginning what was their realpurpose and scope . Had they done so

,every one who

cares for the future of religion might have felt it hisbounden duty to take part in the congress . But itseemed at the first glance that it would be a mereshow

,a part of the great show of industry and art.

But instead of a show it developed into a reality ,which, if I am not greatly m istaken, will be re

membered , aye, will bear fruit, when everything else

Substance of 8 Lecture delivered in Oxford in 1894, reprintedby perm ission ,

from the Arena.

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326 LAST sssars.

unknown , or known to the stones of their pedestalsonly.

But there is one fact in connexion with the Parliament of Religions which no sceptic can belittle, and'

on which even contemporary judgement cannot be at

fault. Such a gatheri ng of represen tatives of theprincipal religions of the world has never before takenplace it is unique, it is unprecedented ,

nay,we may

truly add , it could hardly have been conceived beforeour own time . Of course even this has been denied

,

and it has been asserted that the meeting at Chicagowas by no means the first realizati on of a new ideaupon this subject, but that similar meetings had takenplace before . Is this true or is it not ? To me itseems a complete mistake . If the religious parliament was not an entirely new idea, it was certainlythe first realization of an idea which has lived silentlyin the hearts of prophets, or has been uttered now andthen by poets only

,who are free to dream dreams and

to see visions . Let me quote some lines of Browning’

s ,

which certainly sound like true prophecy‘Better pursue a pilgri mageThrough ancient an d through modern times ,To many peoples, various climes ,Where I may see saint, savage, sage

Fuse the ir respective creeds in one

Before the general Father's throne.

’

Here you have no doubt the idea,the vision of the

religious parliament of the world ; but Browningwas not allowed to see it You have seen it

,and

America may be proud of having given substance toBrowning’s dream and to Browning’s desire

,if only it

will see that what has hitherto been achieved mustnot be allowed to perish again.

THE PARLIAMENT or w ire les s AT CHICAGO . 327

To compare that parliament with the council of t heBuddhist King Asok a

,in the third century before

Christ, is to take great liberties with historical facts .

Asoka was no doubt an enlightened sovereign,who

preached and practised religious to leration more trulythan has any sovereign before or after him . I am thelast person to belittle his fame ; but we must remem

ber that all the people who assembled at h is councilbelonged to one and the same religion, the religion ofBuddha, and although that religion was even at thatearly time (242 B . C. ) broken up into numerous sects ,yet all who were present at the Great Council professed to be followers of Buddha only . We do nothear of Gaines nor Agivikas or Brahmans , nor of anyother non-Buddhist religion being represented at theCouncil of Pataliputra.

It is still more incongruous to compare the Councilof Chicago with the Council of Nicaea . That councilwas no doubt called an oecumenical council

,but what

was the oixovpévn, the inhabited world . of that time(325 A. D.) compared with the world as represented atthe Columbian Exhibition of last year ? Nor was

there any idea under Constantine of extending thehand of fellowship to any non Christian religion . Onthe contrary the object was to narrow the lim its ofChristian love and toleration , by expelling the followers of Arius from the pale of the Christian church .

As to the behaviour of the bishops assembled at

Nicaea , the less that is said about it the better ; butI doubt whether the members of the Chicago council ,including bishops

,archbishops, and cardinals , would

feel flattered if they were to be likened to the fathersassembled at N icaea .

328 LAST ESSAYS.

One more religious gathering has been quoted as

a precedent of the Parliament ofReligious at Chicago ;it is that of the Emperor Akbar. But although thespirit which moved the Emperor Akbar (1 542 1 605 )to invite representatives of different creeds to meetat Delhi , was certainly the same spirit which stirredthe hearts of those who ori ginated the meeting at

Chicago , yet not only was the num ber of religionsrepresented at Delhi much more limi ted

,but the

whole purpose was different. Here I say again,I am

the last person to try to belittle the fame of theEmperor Akbar. He was dissatisfied with his ownreligion , the religion founded by Mohammed ; and foran emperor to be dissatisfied with his own religionand the religion of his people

,augurs , generally, great

independence of judgement and true honesty of purpose . We possess full accounts of his work as areligious reform er, from both friendly and unfriendlysources ; from Abufazl on one side, and from Badaoni

on the other (Introduction to The Science ofReligion ,

p . 209 et seq).Akbar

’

s idea was to found a new religion,and it

was for that purpose that he wished to becom eacquainted with the prominent religions of the world .

He first invited the most learned ulemahs to discusscertain moot points of Islam , but we are told byBadaoni that the disputants behaved very badly , and

that one night, as he expresses it, the necks of theulemahs swelled up, and a horrid noise and confusionensued . The emperor announced to Haddoni that allwho could not behave, and who talked nonsense ,should leave the hall

,upon which Badaoni remarked

that in that case they would all have to leave

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330 LAM ESSAYS.

religions of the world have all one common ground(loc. cit ., p .

‘One man,

’ he wri tes (p .

thinks that he worships God by keeping his pass ionsin subj ection ; another finds self-discipline in watching over the destinies of a nation . The religion of

thousands consists in clinging to a were

are happy in their sloth and unfitness ofjudging forthem selves . But when the time of reflection comes ,and men shake off the prejudices of their education

,

the threads of the web of religious blindness break .

and the eye sees the glory of harmoniousness. ’ But,

’

he adds , ‘ the ray of such wisdom does not ligh t u pevery house

,nor could every heart bear such know

ledge. ’ Again ,

’ he says,although some are enlight

ened , many would observe silence from fear of fanatics .who lust for blood though they look like man . Andshould any one muster sufiicient courage

,and openly

proclaim his enlightened thoughts,pious simpletons

would call him a madman,and throw him as ide as of

no account,whilst the ill-starred wretches would at

once think of heresy and atheism , and go about withthe intention of killing him .

’

This was written , more than three hundred yearsago , by a minister of Akbar

,a. contemporary of

Henry VIII ; but if it had been written in our own

days,in the days of Bishop Colenso and Dean Stanley

,

it would hardly have been exaggerated , barring theintention of killing such ‘madmen as openly declaretheir enlightened thoughts ’

; for burning heretics isno longer either legal or fashionable . How closelyeven the emperor and his friends were watched by hisenemies we may learn from the fact that in some caseshe had to see his informants in the dead of night

,

THE PARLIAMENT or RELIGIONs AT CHICAGO . 33 1

sitting on a balcony of his palace , to which his guesthad to be pulled up by a rope 1 There was no necessityfor that at Chicago . The parliament at Chicago hadnot to consider the frowns or sm iles of an emperorlike Constantine ; it was encouraged , not intim idated ,by the presence of bishops and cardinals it was a freeand friendly m eeting, nay , I may say a brotherlymeeting

,and what is still more— for even brothers

will sometimes quarrel— it was a harmonious meetingfrom beginning to end . All the religions of the worldwere represented at the congress , far more completelyand far more ably than in the palace at Delhi, andI repeat once more

,without fear of contradiction, that

the Parliament of Religious at Chicago stands unique ,stands unprecedented in the whole history of theworld .

There are, after all,not so many religions in the

world as people imagine. There are only eight greathistorical religions which can claim that name on thestrength of their possessing sacred books . All thesereligions came from the East ; three from an Aryan ,three from a Sem itic source , and two from China .

The three Aryan religions are the Vedi c,with its

modern offshoots in India, the Avestic of Zoroaster inPersia

,and the religion of Buddha , likewise the

offspring of Brahmanism in India. The three greatreligions of Sem itic origin are the Jm ish

,the Christian

,

and the Mohammedan . There are,besides, the two

Chinese religions , that of Confucius and that ofLeia-tee, and that is all ; unless we assign a separateplace to such creeds as Cainism ,

a near relative ofBuddhism ,

which was ably represented at Chicago ,or the religion of the Sikhs

,which is after all but

332 LAM seem s .

a compromise between Brahmanism and Moham

All these religions were represented at Chicago ;the only one that m ight complain of being neglectedwas Mohammedanism . U nfortunately the Sultan, inhis capacity as Khalif, was persuad ed not to sen da representative to Chicago . One cannot helpthinkingthat both in his ewe and in that of the Archbishop ofCan terbury ,who likewise kept aloof from the congress ,there m ust have been some unfortunate misappre~hension as to the real objects of that meeting. The

consequence was that Mohammedanism was left without any authori tative representative in a generalgathering of all the religions of the world. It wasdifferent with the Episcopalian Church of England,for although the archbishop withheld his sanctionhis church was ably represented both by English and

But what surprised everybody was the large attendance of representatives of all the other religions of theworld. Thm'e were Buddhists and Shintoists fromJapan, followers of Confucius and LAO-tzé from China ;there was a Parsee to speak for Zor‘oaster, there werelearned Brahmans from India to explain the Veda andVedAnta. Even the most recent phases of Brahmanismwere ably and eloquently represented by Mozoomdar,the friend and successor of Keshub Chunder Sen, andthe modern reformers of Buddhism in Ceylon hadtheir powerful spokesman in Dharmapfl a. A brotherof the King of Siam came to speak for the Buddhismof his country . Judaism was defended by learnedrabbis

, while Christianity spoke through bishops andarchbishops

,nay, even through a cardinal who is

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even among the savages of Africa,and who could not

help seeing the excellent influence which even lessperfect religions may exercise on honest believers .

Much also is due to travellers who stayed long enoughin countries such as Turkey

,China, or Japan to see

in how many respects the people there were as good,

nay , even better, than those who call themselvesChristians . I read not long ago a book of travels byMrs. Gordon, called Clear Round . The author startswith the strongest prej udi ces against all heathens

,but

she comes home with the kindliest feelings towardsthe religions which she has watched in their practicalworking in India

,in Japan

,and elsewhere .

Nothing, however, if I am not blinded by my own

paternal feelings, has contributed more powerqy tospread a feeling of toleration, nay, in some cases , ofrespect for other religions , than has the publicationof the Sacred Books of the East. It reflects thehighest credit on Lord Salisbury , at the time Secretaryof State for India, and on the university of whi ch heis the chancellor, that so large an undertaking couldhave been carried out and I am deeply grateful thatit should have fallen to my lot to be the editor of thisseries

,and that I should thus have been allowed to

help in laying the solid foundation of the large templeof the religion of the future— a foundation which shallbe broad enough to comprehend every shade of honestfaith in that Power which by nearly all religions iscalled OW Father, a name only, it is true, and it maybe a very imperfect name ; yet there is no other namein human language that goes nearer to that for-everunknown Majesty in which we ourselves live andmove and have our being.

V

Ts s PARLIAMENT or nameless AT carcaoo. 335

But although this feeling of kindliness for and thedesire to be just to non-Christian religions has beengrowing up for some time

,it never before found such

an open and solemn recognition as at Chicago. Thatmeeting was not intended , like that under Akbar atDelhi, for elaborating a new religion

,but it established

a fact of the greatest sign ificance, namely, that thereexists an ancient and universal religion

, and thatthe highest dignitaries and representatives of all thereligions of the world can meet as members of onecommon brotherhood, can listen respectfully to whateach religion had to say for itself, nay , can join ina common prayer and accept a common blessing, oneday from the hands of a Christian archbishop , anotherday from a Jewish rabbi

,and again another day from

a Buddhist priest (Dharmapfila). Another fact, also,was established once for all, namely, that the pointson which the great religions difi'

er are far lessnumerous

,and certainly far less important, than are

the points on which they all agree . The words,‘ that God has not left Himself wi thout a witness ,

’

became for the first time revealed as a fact at thiscongress .Whoever knows what human nature is will not

feel surprised that every one present at the religiousparliament looked on his own religion as the best,nay , loved it all the same, even when on certa inpoints it seemed clearly deficient or antiquated ascompared with other religions . Yet that predilectiondid not interfere with a hearty appreciation of whatseemed good and excellent in other religions . Whenan old Jewish rabbi summed up the whole of hisreligion in the words , ‘Be good, my boy, for God

’s

336 LAM ESSAYS.

sake,’ no member of the Parliament of Religious would

have said No ; and when another rabbi declared thatthe whole law and the prophets depend on our lovingGod and loving our neighbour as ourselves , there arefew religions that could not have quoted from theirown sacred scriptures more or less perfect expressionsof the same sentiment.I wish indeed it could have been possible at this

parliament to put forward the most essential doctri nesof Christianity or Islam , for example, and to ask therepresentatives of the other religions of the worldwhether their own sacred books said Yes or No toany of them . For that purpose , however, it wouldhave been necessary , no doubt, to ask each speakerto give chapter and verse for his declaration

,— and

here is the only weak point that has struck me , andis sure to strike others , in reading the transactions ofthe Parliament of Religious . Statements were putforward by those who professed to speak in the nameof Buddhism

,Brahmanism

,Christianity , and Zoroas

trianism— by followers of these religions who happenedto be present— which , if the speakers had been askedfor chapter and verse from their own canonical books,would have been difficult to substantiate

, or, at all

events, would have assumed a very modified aspect.Perhaps this was inevitable

,particularly as the rules

of the parliament did not encourage anything likediscussion, and it might have seemed hardly courteousto call upon a Buddhist archbishop to produce hisauthority from the Tripitaka, or from the nineDharmas.We know how much our own Christian sects difi

‘

er

in the interpretation of the Bible,and how they

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338 LAST seem s.

at Chicago have battled for tru th , for love, and forcharity to our neighbours.I know full well what may be said against all

sacred books . Mark,

first of all , that not one hasbeen written by the founder of a religion ; secondly,that nearly all were written hundreds, in some casesthousands, of years after the rise of the religion whichthey profess to represent ; thirdly, that even afterthey were written they were exposed to dangers andinterpolations ; and fourthly, that it requires a veryaccurate and scholarlike knowledge of their languageand of the thoughts of the time when they were composed . in order to comprehend their true meaning.

All this should be honestly confessed ; and yet thereremains the fact that no religion has ever recognizedan authority higher than that of its sacred book

,

whether for the past,or the present, or the future .

It was the absence of this authority, the impossibilityof checking the enthusiastic descriptions of the supremeexcellence of every single religion , that seems to meto have somewhat interfered with the usefulness ofthat great oecumenical meeting at Chicago .

But let us not forget, therefore, what has beenachieved by this parliament in the world of deeds .Thousands of people from every part of the worldhave for the first time been seen praying together,Our Father

,which art in heaven,

’ and have testifiedto the words of the prophet Malachi

,Have we not

all one Father, hath not one God created us ?’ They

have declared that ‘ in every nation he that fearethGod and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him.

’

They have seen with their own eyes that God is notfar from each one of those who seek God , if haply

TRE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS AT CHI CAGO. 339

they may fee] after Him . Let theologians pile upvolume upon volume of what they call theology ;religion is a very simple matter

,and that which is

so simple and yet so aH-it tant to us, the livingkernel Of religion , can be found , I believe , in almostevery creed , however much the husk may vary. Andthink what that means ! It means that above andbeneath and behind all religions there is one eternal,one universal religion, a religion to which every man,whether black, or white, or yellow, or red, belongs ormay belong.

What can be more disturbing and distressing thanto see the divisions in our own religion , and likewisethe divisions in the eternal and universal religion Of

mankind ? Not only are the believers in differentreligions divided from each other

,but they think it

right to hate and to anathematize each other on ac

count Of theirbelief. As long as religious encouragesuch feelings none Of them can be the tw o one.And if it is impossible to prevent theologians from

quarrelling, or popes,cardinals , archbishops and

bishops , priests and ministers , from pronouncing theiranathemas, the true people Of God , the universal laity ,have surely a higher duty to fulfil. Their religion ,whether formulated by Buddha

,Mohammed , or Christ,

is before all things practical, a religion of love andtrust

,not of hatred and excommunication.

Suppose that there are and that there always wi llremain difi

'

erences Of creed , are such difi'

erences fatalto a universal religion ? Must we hate one anotherbecause we have different creeds, or because we expressin different ways what we believe ?Let us look at some Of the most important articles

2 2

340 LAST ESSAYS.

of faith , such as m iracles, the immortality of the soul,and the existence Of God . It is well known that bothBuddha and Mohammed declined to perform miracles

,

nay , despised them if required as evidence in supportOf the truth Of their doctrines . If, on the contrary ,

the founder Of our own religion appealed, as we aretold, to His works in support Of the truth Of His teaching, does that establish either the falset or thetruth Of the Buddhist, the Mohammedan , or theChristian religion ? May there not be truth evenwithout m iracles ? Nay

,as others would put it

,

may there not be truth even if resting apparentlyon the evidence Of miracles only ? Whenever allthree religions proclaim the same truth , may theynot all be true

,even if they vary slightly in their

expression, and may not their fundamental agreementserve as stronger evidence even than all m iracles ?Or take a more important point, the belief in the

immortat Of the sou l. Christianity and Mohammedanism teach it

,ancient Mosaism seems almost to

deny it , while Buddhism refra ins from any positiveutterance , neither asserting nor denying it. Doeseven that necessitate rupture and excommunication ?Are we less immortal because the Jews doubted and

the Buddhists shrank from as serting the indestructiblenature Of the soul ?Nay

,even what is called atheism is , Often , not the

denial Of a Supreme Being,but simply a refusal to

recognize what seem to some m inds human attributes,unworthy of the Deity. Whoever thinks that he canreally deny Deity

,must also deny humanity ; that is ,

he must deny himself, and that , as you know, is alogical impossibility.

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342 LAST EsSArs .

LETTER TO THE REV. JOHN HENRY Baasows, D.D . ,

Easter Sunday , April 2nd, 1 893 .

DEAR SIR,—What I have aimed at in my Gifi'

ord

Lectures on ‘Natural Religion ’

is to show that allreligions are natural, and you will see from my lastvolume on Theosophy or Psychological Religion thatwhat I hope for is not simply a reform

,but a complete

revival of religion , more particu larly of the Christianreligion . You wi ll hardly have time to read the

whole of my volume before the opening Of your Reli

gious Congress at Chicago , but you can easily see thedrift Of it. I had often asked myself the questionhow independent thinkers and honest men like St .Clement and Origen came to embrace Christianity

,and

to elaborate the first system of Christian theology .

There was nothing to induce them to accept Christianity, cr to cling to it, if they had found it in any

tions. They were philosophers first, Christians afterward . They had nothing to gain and much to lose byjoining and remaining in this new sect Of Christians .

We may safely conclude therefore that they foundtheir own philosOphiéal convictions , the final outcom eOf the long preceding development Of philosophicalthought in Gmece, perfectly compatible with the

religious and moral doctrines of Christianity as conceived by themselves.Now, what was the highest result Of Greek philo

sophy as it reached Alexandria,whether in its Stoic

or neO-Platonic garb ? It was the ineradicable con

THE PARLIAMENT or RELIGIONs AT CHICAGO . 343

viction that there is Reason or Logos in the world.

When asked, Whence that Reason, as seen by the eyeOf science in the phenomenal world, they said : Fromthe cause of all things which is beyond all names andcomprehension , except so far as it is manifested or

revealed in the phenomenal world .

’

What we call'

the different types or ideas,or logoi ,

in the world , are the logoi or thoughts or wills Of thatBeing whom human language has called God . Thesethoughts , which embraced everything that is , existedat first as thoughts , as a thought-world (coo-nos vonrds) ,before by will and force they could become what wesee them to be

,the types or species realized in the

visible world («dam spars ) . SO far all is clear andincontrovertible

,and a sharp line is drawn between

this philosophy and another,likewise powerfully

represented in the previous history Of Greek philosophy, which denied the existence Of that eternalReason, denied that the world was thought andwilled , as even the Klamaths , a tribe Of Red Indians ,profess and ascribe the world, as we see it as men Of

science , to purely mechanical causes , to what we nowcall uncreate protoplasm ,

assuming various casualforms by means Of natural selection , influence Of

environment,survival Of the fittest , and all the rest.

The critical step which som e Of the philosOphersOf Alexandria took , while others refused to take it,was to recognize the perfect realization Of the DivineThought or Logos of manhood in Christ, as in the truesense the Son Of God ; not in the vulgar mythologicalsense

,but in the deep metaphysical meaning of which

the term vibe povoym is had long been possessed inGreek philosophy. Those who declined to take that

344 LAM ESSAYS.

step, such as Celsus and his fri ends, did so eitherbecause they denied the possibility Of any DivineThought ever becoming fully realized 111 the flash or

in the phenomenal world or because they could notbring themselves to recognize that realization in Jesusof Nazareth. St. Clem ent’s conviction that the phenomenal world was a realization of the Divine Reasonwas based on purely philosophical grounds , while hisconviction that the ideal or the Divine concept ion Of

manhood had been fully realized in Christ and in

Christ only , dying on the Cross for the truth asrevealed to Him and by Him , could have been basedon historical grounds only.

Everything also followed . Christian morality wasreally in complete harmony with the morality of theStoic school of philosophy, though it gave to it a newlife and a higher purpose. But by means Of Chri stian philosophy the whole world assumed a newaspect. It was seen to be supported and pervadedby Reason or Logos, it was throughout teleological,thought and willed by a rational power. The sameDivine presence was now perceived for the first timein all its fullness and perfection in the one Son Of

God, the pattern Of the whole race Of men henceforthto be called ‘ the sons Of God .

’

This was the groundwork Of the earliest Christiantheology, as presupposed by the author Of the fourthGospel, and likewise by many passages in the Synoptical Gospels, though fully elaborated for the first timeby such men as St. Clement and Origen. If we wantto be true and honest Christians , we must go back tothose earliest ante-N icene authorities, the true Fathersof the Church . Thus only can we use the words :

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WHY I AM NOT AN AGNOSTIC 1.

HEN I was lately ask ed to take par-t in a

Symposium in the Agnostic Annual on thequestion Why live a Moral Life ? ’ I felt it an honourto join a company of thinkers and writers so eminent,each in his own subject, as the supporters of thatjournal But I felt bound at the same time to declarethat I had really no right to claim the title of Agnostic.If, as we have been told, Agnosticism implied no morethan a negation of Gnosticism , and if by Gnosticismwere meant the teaching of such philosophers asCerinthus or Valentinus or Marcion , I believe I mightsay that I do not hold their opinions, that I am

certainly not a Gnostic, although I strongly sympathizewith what was meant originally by Gnos'is, as distinct

But this merely negative definition of Agnosticismwould hardly be satisfactory to the leading Agnosticsof our time. For though Agnosticism excluded Alexandrian Gnosticism,

it m ight include ever so many viewsof the universe, opposed to each other on many points ,thoughagreeingina common renunciation ofGnosticism .

Agnosticism ,however, as now understood, seems to

mean something very different. It has been explainedto mean that a man shall not say he knows or

believes that which he has no scientific grounds for

Ninetrmlh Century, December, 1894.

war I AM NOT AN o os'rtc. 847

professing to know or believe. ’ Perhaps this, too, isan article which fewmen would object to sign, thoughit leaves the door open to a good deal of controversyas to what is meant by ‘ scientific grounds .’ Someastronomers held that the earth formed the centre ofthe world, others denied it ; both , as they thought, onscientific grounds. The opponents of Galileo producedwhat they considered scientific grounds for theiropinions ; Galileo produced scientific grounds for hisown conviction, and no one would wish that the twoparties should have confined themselves to mereAgnosticism

,to a profession of ignorance of the true

position of the earth or the sun in our planetarysystem- should have shrugged their shoulders andsaid Who knows '

l’

We enter into a new atmosphere of thought if, asAgnostics, we are asked ‘ to confess that we knownothing of what may be beyond phenomena .

’ Butthis , too , if properly interpreted, is an article whichfew who can see through the meaning of wordswould decline to accept, while people accustomed tophilosophical terminology might possibly considersuch a statement as almost tautological. What maybe, or even what is, beyond phenomena is the same aswhat we call transcendent ; that is, what transcendsor lies beyond the horizon of our knowledge , andtherefore leaves us ignorant, orAgnostics . Phenomenalmeans what appears to be , in distinction from whatis, and if knowledge were restricted to what is , thenwhat only appears to he could not possibly claim toproduce real knowledge .But if all these propositions are so self-evident as

to mak e controversy almost impossible, it may seem

348 u sr resars.

strange that Agnosticism , not only the name , but the”

thing itself, should of late have been represen ted asthe peculiar property of the nineteenth century . Thewhole history of philosophy forms but one continuouscommentary on the fact that there are things wh i chwe can , and others which we cannot, know ; nay, itis the chief object of all critical philosophy to drawa sharp line between the two . Ifwe begin the historyof systematic philosophy with Socrates , as representedto us by his disciples , we know that Socrates , thoughdeclared the wisest of men by the oracle of Delphi ,declared that he knew one thing only, and that wasthat he knew nothing. This has been thought bysome to be a mere expression of excessive humilityon the part of Socrates

,just as when

,in the Hippies

Minor,he says , ‘My deficiency is proved to me by

the fact that when I meet one of you who are famousfor wisdom ,

and to whose wisdom all the Hellenesare witnesses

,I am found out to know noth ing .

’

But there was really a much deeper meaning in hisconfession of ignorance, for he claimed this knowledgeof his ignorance as a proof of his wisdom . He

can only have meant, therefore, that he knew allhuman knowledge to be concerned with phenomenaonly, and that he knew nothing of what may bebeyond phenomena. If this was the beginning of allphilosophy

,the end of all philosophy was to find out

how we know even this ; how we know that we areignorant

,and why we must be ignoran t of everything

beyond what is phenomenal .That question had to wait for its final answer ti ll

Kant wrote his Kmitik der ref/nan m unft, and gavea scientific demonstration of the inherent limits of

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850 LAST sssxrs.

so far, but so far cnly , known to us . That w h ichappears is, before it appears , unknown to us

, bu t itbecomes known to us in the only way in which i t canbe known, that is by its appearance, by its phenom ena lmanifestation, by its becom ing an object of hum anknowledge. It is known to us as that without wh ichthe phenomenal would be impossible

,nay, unthinkable.

That without which the phenomenal would be nu

thinkable is sometimes called the noumenal , the real,the absolute, and if we call its absence unthinkable,we imply that there are certain forms of our though tfrom which our phenomenal knowledge cannot escape ,the well-known Kantian forms of intuition and under~standing. These, as Kant has shown, cannot be themere result of phenomenal experience because theypossess a character of necessity which no phenom enalexperience can ever claim . To take a very simplecase . It is well known that we never see more thanone side of the moon. Yet such are the powers bothof our sensuous intuition (Ansehaw ngsfom en) andof the categories of our understanding, that we knowwith perfect certainty

,a certainty such as no ex

perience , if repeated a thousand times , could evergive us, that there must be another side which on thisearth we shall never see , but which to our consciousnessis as real as the side which we do see . These formsof sensuous intuition adm it of no exception. The rulethat every material body must have more than oneside is absolute . In the same way

,if we think at all ,

we must submi t to the law of causality, a categoryof our understanding

,without which even the simplest

phenomenal knowledge would be impossible . Wenever see a horse, we are only aware of certain states

war I AM nor AN acsosrlc. 3 5 1

of our own consciousness,produced through our senses ;

but that these affections presuppose a cause, or, as wecall it, an object outside us , is due to that law ofcausality within us which we must obey , whether welike it or not.If, then ,

we have to re cognize in every single objectof our phenomenal knowledge a something or a powerwhich manifests itself in it, and which we know,

andcan only know

,through its phenomenal manifestation

,

we have also to acknowledge a power that mani festsitself in the whole universe . We may call that powerunknown or inscrutable. but we may also call it thebest known

,because all our knowledge is derived

from a scrutiny of its phenomenal manifestations .

That it is, we know ; what it is by its elf, that is , outof relation to us or unknown by us , of course wecannot know, as little as we can eat our cake andhave it ; but we do know that without it the manifestor phenomenal universe would be imposs ible .

This is the first step which carries us beyond thelim its of Agnaia , and by which I am afraid I shouldforfeit at once the right of calling myself an Agnostic.

But another and even more fatal step is to follow ,

which, I fear, will deprive me altogether of any claimto that title. I cannot help di scovering in the uni

verse an all-pervading causali ty or a reason for everything ; for, even when in my phenomenal ignoranceI do not yet know a reason for this or that

,I am

forced to admit that there exists some such reason ;I feel bound to admit it , because to a mind like oursnothing can exist without a sufficient reason. But

how do I know that ? Here is the point where I ceaseto be an Agnostic. I do not know it from experience ,

352 LAST ESSAY&

and yet I know it with a certainty greater than anywhich experience could give. This also is not a newdiscovery. The first step towards it was ma de ata very early time by the Greek philosophers, whenthey turned from the observation of outward natureto higher spheres of thought, and recognized m naturethe working of a m ind or No w, which pervades theuniverse. Anaxagoras, who was the first to postu latesuch a Nazi ; in nature, ascribed to it not much morethan the first impulse to the interaction of his Hom oio

meries. But even his N06; was soon perceived to bemore than a mere primum mobile, more than thexwoiiv da

‘

ro'

v. We ourselves , after thousands of yearsof physical and metaphysical research , can say no morethan that there is Nails, that there is mind and reasonin nature. Sa Majesté la Howard has long beendethroned in all scientific studies

,and neither natural

selection , nor struggle for life, nor the influence ofenvironment, or any other aliases of it, will accou ntfor the Logos, the thought, which with its thousan deyes looks at us through the transparent curtain of

nature and calls for thoughtful recognition from the

Logos within us . If any philosopher can persuadehimself that the true and well-ordered genera of

nature are the result of mechanical causes,whatever

name he may give them, he moves in a world altogether different from my own . He belongs to a periodof thought antecedent to Anaxagoras . To Plato thesegenera were ideas ; to the Peripatetics they were wordsor Logos ; to both they were manifestations of thought.U nless these thoughts had existed previous to theirmanifestation or individualization in the phenomenalworld, the human mind could never have discovered

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generations of the natural world,not simply the

unknown , or a substance and power that is ia

scru tabla but the thoughts and will of a m imi , that

m ind, so far from being inscrutable, undergoes aconstant scrutiny in its m dless manifestations at the

hand of human science . It is in fact the one su bjectof all our knowledge , from the first attem pts atroughly grouping and naming it to the latest smar tsof scientific research , intended to classify , to comprehend , and understand it. The whole of our knowledge of nature becomes thus a recognition of the

logoi of nature by the Logos of ourselves . Eachgenus becomes a logos, an eternal thoughteternal word ; nay , it seems to follow from this thatthere is in nature no room for anything but gen era ;no room for species or (my; in the proper sense of

these terms . Here we see how the Science of Language becomes the Science of Thought. If it re uni tyof origin that constitutes a genus, true science knowsindeed of individuals which represent a genus, but notof species

,though for practical purposes the human

mind may give that name to varieties in their moreor less inheritable and perman ent form ; such varieties being in reality no more than the necem ryconsequence of individualization and manifoldness .

If each individual differs, and must differ, by som ething from all other individuals of the same gen us

,

the accumulation of these differentiating somethingsleads naturally to the formation of what is calleda, species. We may then speak, for instance , of

war 1 AM nor AN as sosrrc. 35 5

different varieties or even species of horses,includ

ing the three-toad hipparion ; but there is but oneim am , if we have but the eye to see it, as Platoused to say.

I hardly venture to say whether I know all this, orwhether I only believe it. I cannot help seeing order ,law

,reason or Logos in the world, and I cannot

account for it by merely ex post events , call themwhat you like— survival of the fittest , natural selection, or anything else . Anyhow , this Gnosis is to me

irresistible , and I dare not therefore enter the campof the Agnostics under false colours . I am not awarethat on my way to this Gnosis I have availed myselfof anything but the facts of our direct consciousness,and the conclusions that can be logically dedumdfrom them . Without these two authorities I do notfeel bound to accept any testimony

,whether revealed

or unrevealed. It is history alone which can tell ushow these ideas arose and how they grew from century to cent

ury. What I have tried to do, however

imperfectly , is to discover the causes which in thehistory of the world have led men to accept what,according to some philosophers, rested neither on theevidence of their senses nor on the logical conclusionsof their reason. I have lately attempted to tracethese causes and their historical progress in myGifi

'

ord Lectures,more particularly in the last volume ,

called Thcowphy , or Psychological Religion . In onesense I h0pe I am , and always have been, an Agnostic,that is

,in relying on nothing but historical facts and

in following reason as far as it will take us in mattersof the intellect, and in never pretending that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or

A a z

356 LAST ESSAYS.

demonstrable . This attitude of the m ind has alwaysbeen recognized as the conditio sinequa, n on of allphilosophy . If

,in future , it is to be called Agnosti

cism , then I am a true Agnostic ; but if Agn os ticismexcludes a recogni tion of an eternal reason perv adingthe natural and the moral world

,if to postulate a

rational cause for a rational universe is called G nosti

cism , then I am a Gnostic, and a humble follow er ofthe greatest thinkers of our race, from Plato an d the

author of the Fourth Gospel to Kant and Hegel .

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358 LAST sssars .

books and probably a good many more ! Knowledge possessed by men can have but oneIt begins with the senses. It does not endfrom it. But, j ust as every man has to begin wi thbeing a babe, all human knowledge , however abstractand sublime in the end, must make its first en trythrough the narrow gate of the senses .

easily be m isunders tood. But if properly un derstoodit cannot be denied, whether by Gnostics or Agnosti cs .

If, then, no human eye has ever seen , no hum anear has ever heard, no hum an hand has ever handledthe soul, how are we to know the soul , and how arewe to predicate anything of it, particu larly such apredicate as imm ortal, which likewise has never comewithin the sphere of our sensuous experience ? If Iattempt to answer this question, it is chiefly becauseI believe it offers a good opportunity for showingonce more what I have tried to prove in several ofmy books, and more particularly in my Scsience ofThought, 1 887

— namely,that all philosophy m ust

in the end become a philosophy of language, and

because it is from this point of view alone that I mayhope to throw a new ray of light on the problem of

the immortality of the soul .I am quite aware that this ray of light will seem

anything but light to many among the

readers for whom these papers on‘The Immortal ity

of the Soul are intended . But that cannot be helpedWe must learn Hebrew if we wan t to understand theOld Testament. We must know English if we wishto appreciate Shakespeare .

I therefore warn my readers that a certain ac

quaintance with the language of ph ilompby will be

13 MAN mnosru ? 85 9

required if they wish to know something about thesoul , something more than its name, which we all useso glibly.

of m ine, the inseparability of word and thought, wasgreeted when first put forward

,its truth

,its palpable

truth has since been recognized, directly or indirectly,

by many philosophical writers who take the troubleto think for themselves

,instead of merely repeating

the watchwords whether of Locke or Hume,of Kant

or Hegel . That I do not claim to have been the firstto discover this self-evident truth I have tried to showin an article on

‘My Predecessors,

’ published in TheContemporary Review, vol . liv ‘.One lesson in the philosophy of language which

hardly anybody would venture to deny , though fewseem inclined to avail themselves of it, is that beforewe reason, before we combine our terms, we are induty bound to define them . Before we say that thesoul is or is not immortal we must say what we meanby the word soul .

The word we have,we hear it, we learn it, and we

use it constantly in all kinds of meanings , but beforewe use it

, and before we reason about it, we oughtsurely to try to find out whence the word came to us

and how it first arose . The history of the words forsoul in the various languages is a very long history , fartoo long to be given here . I have given it in severalof my books (Anthropological Religion ,

1 892 , p . 1 96

seq), and the result may be summ ed up in a few words .

Words for soul mostly turn out to have been at firstwords for the visible or tangible wind, or the breath

Last Essays, series i. p. 27 .

360 LAST sssars.

issuing from the month . They became grad uallydivested of their material and visible attribu te s tillthey were brought to mean the vital breath or som e

thing stirring and striving within us, someth ing of

which breath was the visible sign , and when th isbreath of life also had been discovered as some thingaccidental, something that comes and goes

,then what

remained— that which was not breath or anim a, bu tof which anima, as living breath , formed on ly an

attribute,was singled out and signed by its own

name , whether psyche or thymos , or soul or dme,

all having m eant ori ginally breathing or commotion.

Whenever the old words for the visible breath wereretained in their material meaning, a new word hadto be form ed to distinguish that which breathed fromits outward manifestation— the actual breath ; wh ile ,if new words had been used for the breath that wen tin and out of the nose and mouth

,the old word for it

was often retained in a higher and immaterial sense .

It must be clear that a word cannot m ean more thanwhat it was meant to m ean , so that we may truly callthings the meanings of our words . This true nom inalism is nowhere more clearly recognized than inSanskrit

,where even in ordinary parlance things are

called parlarth as— i . s . meanings of words . Evenwhen we do not know a. thing we ask in SanskritKam padartham pasyasi

'

l What thing do you see 2literally, What word-meaning do you see ? I doubtwhether any other language can match this .By the ordinary process of divestment or abstrae

tion the word which,after being freed from its ety

mological and traditional m eanings , remained forsoul no longer meant anything visible . It no longer

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362 u ser sssu s.

combination, is a very difi'

erent process from selectingany natural object and taking away from it all that

To use a practical illustration , we may take a man

and remove his hair and heard , his nails, his fing ers ,

hands , arms, feet, and legs , and yet, if he happ ilysurvive the process , as we know he may , the li vingstump remains and is still the man. He is not a m er ecentaur. In the same way the indistinct embry o

,

without as yet feet and legs and fingers and han dsand arms

,is something, whatever we may call i t— is ,

in fact, the man, and not a mere product of fancy .

And so it is with the soul of man , if we simply d efin esoul as that without which breath , life, feeling, m ovement

,and thought could not be, and which is itsel f

neither breath , nor life , nor feeling, nor mov ement,

nor thought : we may not know what this sou l isapart from its living body, but we do know that itis something— nay, something more real— than anything that has been taken from it , and not a m erechimera sprung from

'

the poet ’s brain .

It may also be said that we have never establish edour right to this kind of abstraction , to this violentprocess of dives ting things of what belongs to themin rerum natwra . This , however, would be tantamountto saying that we have no right to think . We shouldhave no longer any right to speak

,for instance , of

a circle, but only of a cart-wheel or a choose Weshould not be allowed to say that a circle is a figurein which the radii from the centre to the circumferencemust be equal. All we m ight possibly be allowed tosay would be that a wheelwright has to cut all thespokes of a cart-wheel of the same length . We could

rs NAN m acs-ran ? 363

not speak of a centre or a circumference , but only ofan axle and a felly

,and such an expression as must '

would have to be altogether tabooed. All such propositions as that the radii of a circle must be equal ,or that the straight line— lined . d/irccta—must be theshortest or most direct line

,would have to be set

aside as merely nominal defin itions ; and as there is inthe world of the senses no such thing as a circle ora straight line—as these

,in fact, are mere words— we

are told that soul also is nothing but a word. It iscurious that philosophers who hold such opinions donot see that they themselves would have no argumentswhatever to support them , no words even with whichto form a syllogism ,

for every syllogism requiresgeneral terms

,and every general term would in their

eyes he a mere word or noise . But the world we livein is not a world of empty noises , but of significantwords . Our knowledge , though it is not a mereknowledge of words

,is certainly knowledge by means

of words. We know nothing, not even a stone, or

a tree, or an animal, except through words . The

senses,which we share wi th the animal , never give us

an animal , or a tree, or a stone . There is no suchthing as an animal in the whole world. There is nota quadruped or a bird , there is not even a dog or

a sparrow . All these are the creatures of language .Nay

, our whole world as really known— that is , asconceived by us— is the creation of language , and inthis sense nothing is truer than that in the beginningwas the word , and all things were made by it, andwithout it was not anything made that was made .

This may be called neo-Platonism or Mysticism or

anything else . It is nevertheless the truth,the whole

3 64 m ar assu re.

truth and nothing but the truth, though no doubt itrequires a certain effort to see through the v e il ofwords and realize the truth that 18 behind them andin them . Many words are certainly imperfect andmisleading, so much so that the whole hi story ofphilosophy may truly be called a battle agains t w ords.The words for soul also have played us many trick s.A man speaks of his soul, but who or what the

possessor of a soul could be we ask in vain. The so u lmay be said to possess the ego

—not the ago the

soul . If spirit is used for soul, people have actuallymainta ined that they have seen spirits , and ghos tsare recognized as visible spirits or souls. It is d ifficultto frame a word for cord . The best name I know isthe Sanskrit name atm an , which means self. Thisatm an is very carefu lly dis tinguished from the a h am

,

or ago. It lies far beyond it, and , while the s ham has

a beginning and an end and is the result of circumstances, the a tman is not, but is and always has beenand always will be itself only. We must accept thisatm an

,this self, or the soul, as something of which

we know that it is. This may seem very little , butto be is really far more important and far m orewonderful than to breathe, to live , to feel , or to think .

Thinking, feeling , living, and breathing are impossiblewithout a being. Being may be called the poorest ,but it is at the same time the most marvellous conceptof our whole m ind, for the soul, being that which

is at the same time that without whichnothing else can be . It i s the sanequa non. of all weare

,we see, we hear, we apprehend and comprehend.

It is not our body nor our breath, nor our life nor ourheart, nor what is most difficult to give up— our mind

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366 LAST sssars.

we do not know what the soul was before this lifenay, even what it was during the first years of ourchildhood . Yet we believe on very fair evidenc e thatwhat we call our soul (though it is not ours, but weare his) existed from the moment of our birth. W hatground have we, then , to doubt that it was even be forethat moment ? To ascribe to the soul a beg nm ng on

our birthday would be the same as to claim for it an

ning has an end . If,then, in the absence of any other

means of knowledge, we may take refuge in an alog ,

might we not say that it will be wi th the soul hereafteras it has been hera and that the souLafter its earthlysetting

,will rise again , much as it rm here ? Th is is

not a syllogism ,but it is analogy , and in a cosmos

like ours analogy has a right to claim some weigh t,at all events in the absence of any proof to the

contrary.

Soon , however, follows another question, a quest ionwhich has probably been asked by every humanheart. Granting that what we mean by the wordsoul cannot, without self-contradiction, be mortal ,will that soul be itself, know itself, and will it knowothers whom it has known before ? For the nextlife

,it is said, would not be worth living if the soul

did not recollect itself, recognize not only itself, bu tthose also whom it has known and loved on earthin fact, if it did not retain its mundane experience,its knowledge of Greek , Latin, and English . Here

,

too,analogy alone can supply some kind of answer .

‘ It will be hereafter as it has been ’ is not,in the

absence of any evidence to the contrary, an argumentthat can be treated with contempt, leas t of all by

18 MAN numera l 367

those who hold that all our k nowledge must bepositive, must be based on past experience. In thiscase, it is true that we have had but one experience ;but is that any reason why, because it is unique, weshould reject it ? Our soul here may be said to haverisen without any recollection of itself and of thecircumstances of its former existence . It may noteven recollect the circumstances of its first days on

earth,but it has within it the consciousness of its

eternity, and the conception of a beginning is as

impossible for it as that of an end, and if souls wereto meet again hereafte r as they met in this life, asthey loved in th is life, without knowing that theyhad met and loved before, would the next life be sovery different from what this life has been here onearth—would it be so utterly intolerable and reallynot worth living ?Personally I must confess to one small weakness .

I cannot help thinking that the souls towards whomwe feel drawn in this life are the very souls whom weknew and loved in a former life, and that the soulswho repel us here, we do not know why , are the soulsthat earned our disapproval , the souls from which wekept aloof in a former life . But let that pass as whatothers have a perfect right to call it -a mere fancy .

Only let us remember that if our love is the love ofwhatis merely phenom enal

,the love of the body

,the kind

ness of the heart, the vigour andwisdom of the intellect,our love is the love of changing and perishable things

,

and our soul may have to grope in vain among theshadows of the dead. But if our love, under all itsearthly aspects , was the love of the true soul, of whatis immortal and divine in every man and woman

,that

368 LAST ESSAYS.

love cannot die , but will find once more what seemsbeautiful , true, and lovable in worlds to com e as in

worlds that have passed . Thi s is very old w isdom,

but we have forgotten it. Thousands of years ago an

Indian sage, when parting from his wife ,told h er in

plain words : We do not love the husban d in the

husband,nor the wife in the wife, nor the children in

the chi ldren. What we love in them , what w e trulylove in everything

,is the eternal atm an

,th e im m ortal

self,

’ and,as we should add

,the immortal God , for the

immortal self and the immortal God must be on e .

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370 rsnsx.

Daw son-piracy,Brthman life, four stages of, 1 1 2

1 1 3 .

Brinton, Dr.. 1 3.

Brinton ,Myth: of theNewWorld .

49'

Browning quoted , 3 26.

Buddha condemnsmysticism, 1 2 2

ldehstatue of, 308 .

B’

adeath, 144 , 145. 1 59 .

— its en teric meaning , 1 44 ,

covered. 233- 235.

shown to Asoka. 236.

Buddhism , 70.

does not allow prayer as peti

and Christianity, likenesses between , 99.

change of Brahmanism into,1 2 1 .

numerous sects in, 1 28 . 1 29.

in China , 285 , 308 , 309.

why divided, 304.with Sanskrit Canon, 307 .

the one accepted in China,307°

spread of, in Asia, 308 .

Buddhist priests in Oxford, 7 1 .m ake, 1 2 1 .

Canon, complete16 - 1 7

teachers in China, 300-301 .

Canon, 302 .

monasteries in China, 303 .

MSS. in China, 303 , 304 .

Council. the fourth, 306.

monasteries in China, 3 14.

0

‘

ms in fifth century 322.s um from India in China

,

303 - 303persecutions of, in Chma, 304.

CALDWELL , Bishop,Centaur, 36 1 .Ceriuthus, 346.

2

—li v Christianity, 25 7 .

2 78 a.

and Lao-uni, 282 .

— agree in several points , 28

m ama -56, 7—belief in 1nterm

Confucius , 259, 361 .did not found a

261 .

INDEX.

Congresses, international, 2 1 3.

Csoma Khalid and his Tibetan

DARWIN , 19—22 .

great influence of, 23 .

Darwinism, 22.

Dayananda Sarasvati , 102 , 107 .Decrees ofGod , 253.

Deeds, world of, 337 , 338 .

Devan, or Brights , 14.

Docta Igam'

antia, 349.

Douglas, Mr . A rchibald,184.

h is disproof of Notovutch'

s

story, 1 85- 193 .

his vu it to Himis, 1 85 , 190 .

Dugald Stewart, 25 2.Dv i-ga, twice-born , 34 1 .

Dyan» Zens. 38

EGYPTIAN PRAYERS, 68 , 69 .

Madt, 99 1 n .

has, the, 89.

El t_ ,War of the , 244.

Brod ie» 349‘

Esoteric Buddhism, 100

1 5 2 .

numbers many converts , 106 .

Sinnett’s explanation of

,149.

Ethnic religions, 40, 41 .

1 5 .

Evans , lArthur,quoted. 1 7 .

Evolution, 18.

FA-HIAN, 303.

Fer-ram , Mn ,and the Katha-(law

,

2 28.

Fetishium. 266- 269.from 10.

Fatah-M ppc’

rs ,

Filial piety, 273- 27F0

, or Buddha, 300.

Fom t life , 1 1 3 , 1 14, 1 16 .

Pu ncher , forschung, 37 .

Fuhrer, Dr. 233 .

Future life in Koran, 254, 255

Grimm, 5 , 20.

HAHN , Dr., 1 3 .

Hale,Horatio , 13 .

Heaven, will of, 27 2 .

Hegel. 18. 160. 359,

Hekataeos, 82 .

Helmholtz, 2 2 .

Hermann, Gottfried , 19 .

his doctrine of man'

s creation .

GALILEO , 347 .Gsutenm Buddh a, 1 1 7 , 1 20.

his teaching resuppoees Brah

G

mango) , 1 1

eorge, 39. 3 1 °

Ghosts nnmid te,tween, 4 1 .

G ifford Lectures, 355 .

Gnos tic, 346, 349.

Gnosticism , 356.

God , existence of, 340.

Godhead ,unity of the, 248, 249 .

Gods of nature , 39, 40.

Goethe, 1 8 .

Golden rule found inConfucianism ,

2 0.

General, 320.

Greek fables borrowed from India,8 2.

his travellers’

tales, 83 , 84.

in Persia, 86.

Hem dn and Alfi re, 3 1 5 .

Himis monastery, 1 73 , 1 78 , 1 80,1 8 1 . 204

- 206 .

Hinnyfinn in China, 287 .

or Pi li canon , 304.

denies a God , 304.

to

Bud ists, 305 , 307 .

hove no chronolog , 306 .

in Ceylon,Burmnh , and

Sinm , 307.

Hiouen -thn ng, 232 , 234, 235 ,

303 , 3 1 2 .

H issarlik , Schliemann at, 16, 1 7 .

Historical end theoretical schools ,4- 1 7 .

Historical“ sehool, 5. 1 1 .‘3 M. l 5~ 1 1 7. N . 3 1 . 3 3

m 3 !

Hsinn-tu, monument of, 3 10.

Heilo-n'

the, ’Q' 274, 278 .

Humboldt, A. and 20.

Hum . 352

IMMOBTAL, 358.Immortality of the soul,Index verborum of Rigwrm2 28.

India, truvellsrs ' tales of, 87-9 2.

mysterious wisdom m , 92, 96 ,

1 . 69.

the, 14.

50, 25 1 .

facts of

N ew . 8

Islsm many sects in, 247 .

JACOLLIOT La Bible dam

l'I udc, 94

-97 .

quoted, 105 .

Jesuits in Chins under Rice-T, 3 15 .

tutors to Crown Prince,their work condemnedPope, 3 7

Jewish merchants 1n India, 1 76.

Jews in Arabic , 244.Joldnn

’

s decls rstion, 193.

Judgement, dsy of, 25 2.

Julian , Stanislas , 238 , 269.

KALACHAKRA, wheel of time,304°

Ksndinr, 1 77 , 236.

Ksnerkes, 307.King, 306.

Kent.W

1

3“ 350

-359

"We“ 343

Knpilsvh tu, 23 1- 236.

Karma, 154.

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INDEX.

QAT and MARAWA , 44-

45 .

BED AND YELLOW MONKSof Ladakh, 197 .

Religion, three cleeses of, 40.

number of followers of each,2 19

- 22 1 .

Chinese ides of, 301 .

s universel, 339.

fundsmentsl doctrines , 34 1 .

Religious with and without M d

Books , 1 1 .

Australians , 1 2 .

number of, 33 1 .

all of Eastern ori in, 33 1 .

ch shout slien,

03337 335.di visi ons 111 , 339.

Remuent on theTao-teh-King, 284 .

Roman,M .

,1 79.

Reville, M ., 49.

Rhys Davids , 238.

Ricci , Jesuit father, 3 1 5 , 3 19.

Rig reds , preyers in, 56-63.

Rits , 2290- 293.

Roman See , its pretensions in

Chins, 3 14.

SACRED BOOKS, relative age

of, 2 1 7—2 19.

— of the East 3 1 3 1 I 3 3 1 I 331334. 337. 338ofpurelyhistoricsl interest,4.

Slsnisls s Jalien, 238, 269 .

Stanley, Dean , 26, 27.

SW Buffalo, 2 1 1 .

u h£vs tlSurplice, {cf

TAE-PINGS, rebellion of

u ni?3“

Tandjur, 1 77 , 1 78 , 2 26.The, doctrine of 283, 288- 29

or God, 289.

w tbe W u t 3

— none wri tt’

a§ bof a l

'

St. Clement. 3321324:Salisbury, M . 2 .

82mm or Smm s ns, 1 1 9 , 1

Savigny , 5 . 20 .

Schelhng , 1 8.

1 1, 70 .

v

2

bensuous intuition?S)

3 5

?02 3

Sham-Ti:264, 268 .

Shsp

g

i

rzah sMS. of the P ants

Shit, or four philoeolih ies , 2 5

W 31 2 . 3 1 3 .

Smnett, Mr. A . P. , 1 34 , 1 60

h is appeal to native,

16 1 .

INDEX.

Tao , or Rita, 290, 293 .

in nature, 293, 294.

in the individual, 294- 296.

applied to political life , 296

299.

Taoism , 2 78—300.

modern forms of, 279 , 280.

and the Emperor W0, 280,28 1 .

worship of spirits, 28 1 .

corruption of, 28 1 .

when established, 285 .

debased , 299.

Taoist temple, images in, 286.

Tao-teh -King, 279, 283 , 285 , 288 ,3 990Remuent on the, 284.

Ta-tsin,monastery of, 3 10

—3 1 3.

Terai ofNepal,236, 237 , 239.

Té-tsung separates the Buddhistmonks from Christians, 3 10.

Emperor, 3 1 3.Th changed to s

, 80.

Theoretical or synthetic school, 5 ,8 , 1 2 , 1 5 , 1 7 , 2 1 , 23 .

Theosophy, 141- 1 53.

Thymos, 360.

Tien , Chinese, 264.

word for heaven, 265 .

Supreme Lord, 268.Travellers’ tales, 83- 85 .

Trinity, false doctrine of, time of

Mohammed, 246 , 247 , 252 .

pitaka or Southern BuddhistCanon, 130.

3 7 5

VALENTINU S, 346.

V edanta doctrines called secret,

98 .

Virchow, 24.

WADDELL, Snrgeou-Major, andKapilavastu , 233 , 239.

Worden, (las, 18.

W ilford , Lieut., his articles on

Indian learning , 93 , 94.

W illiamson, Dr., and the Nse

torianmonument toHsian-fu ,

3 1 1

Word an(I thought, inseparable,359

XAV IER,Francois, 3 14.

YAGU R and Sims -vedas , 59.

Yellow Terror, 3 1 1ZOROASTRIANISM , 70 , 7 2

—74.

Tripitaka, written in Pali , 2 25 .

or Three Baskets, 2 25 .

Turkey, intercourse with, in

Elizabeth’s reign, 242 .

Turks,no drinking among, 241 .

morality among, 24 1European feeling aga1ust, 242 .

and Frederick the Great, 243 .

Tylor, Dr., 47.

U PANISHADS, 1 15 .

U rschleim , 1 8.

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