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In Benares, moreover, Buddha preached 500 years before Christ, and at the present day he has more than 400 million followers; so to Buddhists also Benares is a holy place. The Hindus have three principal gods: Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver; and Siva, the destroyer. From these all the others are derived: thus, for example, Kali represents only one of the attributes of Siva.
We have often heard of the great sacrifices which the heathen of India will make and the great sufferings they will impose on themselves in order to make atonement for their sins and appease the anger of the gods. There may occasionally be something of the kind among the Buddhists of China.
Sakya Muni was considered greater than any of the gods. I would also mention here as 'jewels' of the Buddhists their tenderness for all living creatures. Legend tells of Sakya Muni that in a previous state of existence he saved the life of a doe and her young one by offering his own life as a substitute.
There is no doubt that the Buddhists preach most of the moral truths that are to be found in the Gospels, and Buddha was a Deliverer, who taught the necessity of a pure life, of self-denial and unworldliness. He exhorted his disciples to practise every virtue.
"No," Edith answered, rising in her turn; "I am not even sure whether the Buddhists believe themselves to have an over-soul. But why must you go? Wait, and let Arthur walk home with you." "Oh, I shall take a car," Helen said. "I don't in the least mind going alone; and it's time both of us were in bed. Good-night, dear; do try and get rested."
Bishop J. Boyd Carpenter, in speaking of the sad and cheerless spirit of Buddhism, has said: "There are moments in which we are all Buddhists; when life has disappointed us, when weariness is upon us, when the keen anguish born of the sight of human suffering appals and benumbs us, when we are frozen to terror, and our manhood flies at the sight of the Medusa-like head of the world's unappeased and unappeasable agony; then we too are torn by the paroxysm of anguish; we would flee to the Nirvana of oblivion and unconsciousness, turning our back upon what we cannot alleviate, and longing to lay down the burden of life, and to escape from that which has become insupportable."
With many thousands of India Buddhists whose minds were already steeped in Brahministic philosophy and mythology, who were more given to speculation and dreaming than to self-control and moral culture, and who mourned for the dead gods of Hinduism, the soil was already prepared for a growth wholly abnormal to true Buddhism, but altogether in keeping with the older Brahministic philosophies from which these dreamers had been but partially converted to Buddhism.
It was on the occasion of the visit of this Father that a famous discussion on religion took place in the Ibádat-Khána, at which the most learned Muhammadan lawyers and doctors, Bráhmans, Jains, Buddhists, Hindu materialists, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians or Pársís, each in turn spoke. The story is thus told by Abulfazl.
The same is not reported of the Hindoos and Buddhists, although we know, for instance, that Buddhism was driven out about the fifth century of our era by the Brahmans from its original home in the southernmost part of the Indian peninsula, and afterwards spread over the whole of Asia; yet we have, so far as I know, no definite information of any deeds of violence, of wars and cruelties by which this was brought about.
Thousands of Christians adore the relics of a saint whose life and doctrine are unknown to them; and the religion of thousands of Buddhists lies more in veneration of the Holy Tooth or some such object, or the vessel that contains it, or the Holy Bowl, or the fossil footstep, or the Holy Tree which Buddha planted, than in the thorough knowledge and faithful practice of his high teaching.
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