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But though the Buddhists remained on the whole true to the old view that the important thing was to understand and disseminate the substance of the Master's teaching and not merely to preserve the text as if it were a sacred formula, still we see growing up in Mahayanist works ideas about the sanctity and efficacy of scripture which are foreign to the Pali Canon.
'There are no true Buddhists among the Hills. But look at the folds of the drapery. Look at his eyes how insolent! Why does this make one feel that we are so young a people? The speaker struck passionately at a tall weed. 'We have nowhere left our mark yet. Nowhere! That, do you understand, is what disquiets me. He scowled at the placid face, and the monumental calm of the pose. 'Have patience.
The later Buddhists compose nothing in the style of the Nikâyas: they write about Gotama in new and fanciful ways, but no Acts of the Apostles succeed the Gospels. Though the Buddhist suttas are sui generis and mark a new epoch in Indian literature, yet in style they are a natural development of the Upanishads.
As there are seven Cardinal Virtues, the Prajnâ-Pâramitâs, or Perfections of Wisdom, of the Buddhists, so there are seven Cardinal Vices, and these must be cast out by the spiritual will, before the repentant Mary, or Human Soul, can be purified. This is the mystery of the Helen, the "lost sheep."
At night, and also during the day upon certain festivals, both candles and a small oil-lamp are lighted in the butsuma a lamp somewhat differently shaped from the lamp of the miya and called rinto On the day of each month corresponding to the date of death a little repast is served before the tablets, consisting of shojin-ryori only, the vegetarian food of the. Buddhists.
As all Buddhists wish to accumulate as much merit for themselves as possible, in order to be assured at death of a through ticket to Nirvana, the idol-making industry is in a flourishing condition.
The sanctity of the mountain-top in the eyes of Buddhists is said to be due to the fact that on the summit alighted the royal missionary, Mahahindo, when he came from India, 307 B.C.; he there met the King, who was out hunting, and having listened to a discourse, the King became an ardent Buddhist, a fact which later resulted in the conversion of forty thousand of his followers.
"Here, according to Buddhists," says Spence Hardy, "is a mere code of proprieties, an occasional opiate, a plan for being free from discomfort, a system for personal profit." Buddhism certainly taught the repression of human activity and influence.
It eventuated that after a millenium or so of Buddhism in India, the old gods, Brahma, Indra, etc., which at first had been shut out from the ken of the people, by Gautama, found their places again in the popular faith of the Buddhists, who believed that the gods as well as men, were all progressing toward the blessed Nirvana that sinless life and holy calm, which is the Buddhist's heaven and salvation.
Before speaking of the life of Jesus, I must say a few words on the history of Moses, who, according to the so-far most accredited legend, was an Israelite. In this respect the legend is contradicted by the Buddhists. We learn from the outset that Moses was an Egyptian prince, the son of a Pharaoh, and that he only was taught by learned Israelites.
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