[1]‘Life of Alexander Duff, D.D., LL.D., by George Smith, C.I.E.,
LL.D.’ London: Hodder and Stoughton; published first in 1879,
and a popular edition in 1881.
[2]A reference to pages
74,
226,
232 of the following Lectures will
make the connexion which I wish to illustrate clearer. In many
images of the Buddha the robe is drawn over both shoulders, as in the
portrait of the living Sannyāsī. Then mark other particulars in the
portrait:—e.g. the Rudrāksha rosary round the neck (see ‘Brāhmanism
and Hindūism,’ p. 67). Then in front of the raised seat of the Sannyāsī
are certain ceremonial implements. First, observe the Kamaṇḍalu, or
water-gourd, near the right hand corner of the seat. Next, in front
of the seat, on the right hand of the figure, is the Upa-pātra—a subsidiary
vessel to be used with the Kamaṇḍalu. Then, in the middle,
is the Tāmra-pātra or copper vessel, and on the left the Pañća-pātra
with the Āćamanī (see ‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism,’ pp. 401, 402).
Near the left hand corner of the seat are the wooden clogs. Finally,
there is the Daṇḍa or staff held in the left hand, and used by a Sannyāsī
as a defence against evil spirits, much as the Dorje (or Vajra) is used
by Northern Buddhist monks (see
p. 323 of the present volume).
This mystical staff is a bambu with six knots, possibly symbolical of
six ways (Gati) or states of life, through which it is believed that every
being may have to migrate—a belief common to both Brāhmanism and
Buddhism (see
p. 122 of this volume). The staff is called Su-darṡana (a
name for Vishṇu’s Ćakra), and is daily worshipped for the preservation
of its mysterious powers. The mystic white roll which begins just
above the left hand and ends before the left knot is called the Lakshmī-vastra,
or auspicious covering. The projecting piece of cloth folded in
the form of an axe (Paraṡu) represents the weapon of Paraṡu-Rāma,
one of the incarnations of Vishṇu (see pp. 110, 270 of ‘Brāhmanism
and Hindūism’) with which he subdued the enemies of the Brāhmans.
With this so-called axe may be contrasted the Buddhist weapon for
keeping off the powers of evil (engraved at
p. 352).
[3]‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism.’ Third Edition. John Murray,
Albemarle Street.
[4]The heaven of Ṡiva is Kailāsa, of Vishṇu is Vaikuṇṭha, of Kṛishṇa
is Goloka.
[5]The Sāṅkhya system, as I have shown, was closely connected with
the Vedānta, though it recognized the separate existence of countless
individual Purushas or spirits instead of the one (called Ātman).
Both had much in common with Buddhism, though the latter substituted
Ṡūnya ‘a void’ for Purusha and Ātman.
[6]Freely translated by me in Indian Wisdom, p. 133, and literally
translated by Prof. E. B. Cowell.
[7]‘Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die.’ 1 Cor. xv. 32.
[8]See Dr. John Muir’s Article on Indian Materialists, Journal of
Royal Asiatic Society, N. S. xix, p. 302.
[9]It is difficult to accept the theory of those who maintain that
writing had not been invented.
[10]One hundred is given as a round number. The
actual distance is about one hundred and twenty miles.—
Corr.
[11]Tapas is a Sanskṛit word, derived from the root tap, ‘to burn,
torment.’ It is connected with Lat. tepeo, Greek
Θάπτω, which last
originally denoted ‘to burn,’ not ‘to bury’ dead bodies. Tapas
ought not to be translated by ‘penance,’ unless that word is restricted
to the sense poena, ‘pain.’
[12]Such men are called Pañća-tapās (Manu VI. 23). A good representation
of this form of Tapas may be seen in the Museum of the
Indian Institute, Oxford.
[13]According to Dr. Oldenberg, the Mṛityu of the Kaṭhopanishad.
[14]In the same way the Cistercian monks of Fountain’s Abbey lived
under certain trees while the Abbey was building.
[15]The Bhagavad-gītā (V. 28) asserts:—‘The sage (Yogī) who is
internally happy, internally at peace, and internally illumined, attains
extinction in Brahma.’ This is pure Buddhism if we substitute
Cessation of individual existence for Brahma.
[16]Or Kuṡa-nagara, identified by Gen. Sir A. Cunningham with
Kasia, 35 miles east of Gorakh-pore on an old channel of the Chota
Gandak.
[17]I give 420 as a round number. Rhys Davids has good reasons
for fixing the date of Gautama’s death about
B.C. 412, Oldenberg
about 480, Cunningham 478, Kern 388. The old date is 543.
[18]See Book of the great Decease, translated by Rhys Davids, p. 72.
[19]The Ṡatapatha-brāhmaṇa (p. 1064) and the Bṛihad-āraṇyaka
Upanishad (p. 455) affirm that the Ṛig- Yajur- Sāma- and Atharva-veda,
the Upanishads, Itihāsas, and Purāṇas were all the breath
(niḥṡvasitāni) of the Supreme Being. And Sāyaṇa, the well-known
Indian Commentator on the Ṛig-veda, speaking of the Supreme Being
in his Introduction, says, Yasya niḥṡvasitaṃ Vedāḥ, ‘whose breath
the Vedas were.’
[20]How else can we account for Pāṇini’s applying the term Bhāshā
to colloquial Sanskṛit? Professor E. B. Cowell holds that Pāṇini’s
standard is the Brāhmaṇa language as opposed to the Saṃhitā of the
Veda and to Loka or ordinary usage.
[21]According to Professor Rhys Davids, the Pāli text of the whole
Tri-piṭaka, or true Canon of Buddhist Scripture, contains about twice
as many words as our Bible; but he calculates that an English translation,
if all repetitions were given, would be about four times as
long. I should state here that in this chapter Koeppen, Childers, Rhys
Davids, and Oldenberg have all been referred to, though I have not
failed to examine the original Pāli documents myself.
[22]Upāli is said to have been originally the family barber of the
Ṡākyas. Professor Oldenberg rightly remarks that this did not make
him a man of low position, though he was probably the lowest in rank
of all the early disciples of Gautama.
[23]Professor Oldenberg, in his preface to his edition of the Mahā-vagga,
shows that in early times there were only two divisions of the
Piṭaka, one called Vinaya and the other Dharma (Dhamma), which
were often contrasted.
[24]The ten usually enumerated are the three above-named and seven
others, viz. power of admitting to the Order and confession in private
houses, the use of comfortable seats, relaxation of monastic rules in remote
country places, power of obtaining a dispensation from the Order
after the infringement of a rule, drinking whey, putting salt aside for
future use, power of citing the example of others as a valid excuse for
relaxing discipline.
[25]According to Professor Oldenberg’s calculation. The date is
doubtful. A round number (say 350
B.C.) might be given.
[26]Professor Oldenberg places the locality of the Pāli on the
eastern coast of Southern India in the northern part of Kaliṅga
(Purī in Orissa), and would therefore make it an old form of Uriya.
That country he thinks had most frequent communications with Ceylon.
[27]Professor Childers thought that Pāli merely meant the language
of the line or series of texts, the word pāli like tanti meaning ‘line.’
Pāli differs from the Prākṛit of the Inscriptions, and from that of the
dramas, and from that of the Jainas (which is still later and called
Ardha-māgadhī), by its retention of some consonants and infusion of
Sanskṛit. The Gāthā dialect of the northern books is again different.
[28]550 is a round number. The text of the Jātakas has been
edited by Fausböll and translated by Rhys Davids and others. See
a specimen at
p. 112.
[29]The seven are called: 1. Dhamma-saṅgaṇi, ‘enumeration of conditions
of existence,’ edited by Dr. E. Müller; 2. Vibhaṅga, ‘explanations;’
3. Kathā-vatthu, ‘discussions on one thousand controverted points;’
4. Puggala-paññatti, ‘explanation of personality;’
5. Dhātu-kathā, ‘account of elements;’
6. Yamaka, ‘pairs;’
7. Paṭṭhāna, ‘causes.’
[30]A list of these is given in Childers’ Dictionary.
[31]See Introduction to Buddha-ghosha’s Parables, by Professor Max
Müller; Turnour’s Mahā-vaṉṡa, pp. 250-253.
[32]They are in two quite distinct kinds of writing. That at Kapurda-garhi—sometimes
called Northern Aṡoka or Ariano-Pāli—is clearly
Semitic, and traceable to a Phœnician source, being written from
right to left. That at Girnār, commonly called Southern Aṡoka or
Indo-Pāli, is read from left to right, and is not so clearly traceable.
If it came from the west it probably came through a Pahlavī channel,
and gave rise to Devanāgarī. General Cunningham and others believe
this latter character to have originated independently in India.
James Prinsep was the first to decipher the inscription character.
[33]See Dr. R. N. Cust’s article in the ‘Journal of the National Indian
Association’ for June, 1879, and one of his Selected Essays, and
General Sir A. Cunningham’s great work, ‘The Corpus Inscriptionum
Indicarum.’ The General reckons thirteen rock inscriptions, seventeen
cave inscriptions, and six inscribed pillars.
The eight most important rock inscriptions are those on (1) the Rock
of Kapurda-garhi (at Shāhbāz-garhi), in British Afghānistān, forty miles
east-north-east of Peshāwar—this is in the Ariano-Pāli character;
(2) the Rock of Khālsi, situated on the bank of the river Jumnā, just
where it leaves the Himālaya mountains, fifteen miles west of the hill-station
of Mussourie; (3) the Rock of Girnār, half-a-mile to the east
of the city of Junagurh, in Kāthiāwār; (4) the Rock of Dhauli, in
Kuttack (properly Kaṭak), twenty miles north of Jagan-nāth; (5) the
Rock of Jaugada, in a large old fort eighteen miles west-north-west of
Ganjam in Madras; (6) Bairāt; (7) Rūpnāth, at the foot of the Kaimur
range; (8) Sahasarām, at the north-east end of the Kaimur. The second
Bairāt inscription is most important as the only one which mentions
Buddha by name.
The five most important pillars are: (1) the Pillar at Delhi known
as Firoz Shāh’s Lāṭ; (2) another Pillar at Delhi, which was removed
to Calcutta, but has recently been restored; (3) the Pillar at Allahābād,
a single shaft without capital, of polished sandstone, thirty-five
feet in height; (4) the Pillar at Lauriya, near Bettiah, in Bengal; (5)
the Pillar at another Lauriya, seventy-seven miles north-west of Patnā.
[34]Hiouen Thsang states that the three commentaries were engraved
on sheets of copper and buried in a Stūpa. Beal, I. 152-156.
[35]Our word
monk (derived from
μοναχός, ‘one who lives alone,’) is
not quite suitable unless it be taken to mean ‘one who withdraws
from worldly life.’ See
p. 75.
[36]Although he discouraged, he did not prohibit monks from living
solitary lives. See
p. 132 as to the Pratyeka-Buddha, and
note, p. 72.
[37]Some prefer to derive the Pāli Ṡamaṇo from the Sanskṛit root
Ṡam, ‘to be quiet.’ Ṡmāṡānika, ‘frequenting burning grounds,’ is a
later name, life being to monks a kind of graveyard.
[38]We may note that in the ‘Clay-Cart,’ a Sanskṛit drama written in
an early century of our era, a gambler becomes a Buddhist monk.
[39]I hear from Dr. Oldenberg that the mention in his ‘Buddha’ of
twelve years as the minimum is a mistake. The age of eight mentioned
by Prof. Rhys Davids as the minimum, must be a modern rule
peculiar to Ceylon, if it be admissible at all.
[40]I give these quotations to show the unsuitableness of the term
‘Ordination’ applied to Pabbajjā and Upasampadā in the S. B. E.
[41]In Mahā-vagga I. 30. 4, five kinds of dwellings are named besides
trees, viz. Vihāras, Aḍḍhayogas (a kind of house shaped like Garuḍa),
storied dwellings (prāsāda), mansions (harmya), and caves (guhā).
[42]Comparing Western with Eastern Monachism, I may remark
that the chief duty of the lay-brethren attached to the Cistercian
monastery at Fountain’s Abbey was to wait upon the monks, procure
food and cook it for them; and we learn from the
Times of December
24, 1885, that the same duty devolved on the Carthusian lay-brothers.
[43]The Chronicles of Ceylon state that 80,000 laymen entered the
paths in Kashmīr. Compare Divyāvadāna, p. 166, line 12; p. 271, 12.
[44]See Tevijja-Sutta, S. B. E. §§ 14, 15.
[45]The venerable Svāmī Ṡrī Saććidānanda Sarasvatī, in sending me
a copy of the Bhagavad-gītā with a metrical commentary, says, ‘It is
the best of all books on the Hindū religion, and contains the essence
of all kinds of religious philosophy.’ I find in the Madras
Times for
October 29, 1886, the following: ‘At a meeting of the “Society for
the Propagation of True Religion,” at 6 p.m. to-day, the Bhagavad-gītā
will be read and explained.’
[46]XIV. 7. 2. 17. This was first pointed out by Professor A. Weber.
[47]Centenarians (Ṡatāyus, Ṡata-varsha) seem to have been rather common in India in ancient times, if we may judge by the allusions to them in Manu and other works. See Manu III. 186; II. 135, 137.
[48]I here merely give the substance of what may be found fully
stated in Aristotle’s Ethics, I. 1 and IV. 3.
[49]That is, Saṃkhārā = Sanskṛit Saṉskārāḥ pl. (see
p. 109), ‘qualities
forming character.’ In the Vaiṡeshika system Saṉskāra is one
of the twenty-four qualities, the self-reproductive quality. In the
Yoga system Saṉskāra = Äṡaya, ‘impressions derived from actions done
in previous births.’ According to Childers, Saṃkāro is practically =
Karma, ‘act.’ It may also stand for ‘matter,’ and for a quality, or
mode of being; e.g. not only for a plant but for its greenness.
[50]The
Pāli in Mahā-v° I. 23. 5, is:—Ye
dhammā hetuppabhavā
tesaṃ hetuṃ Tathāgato āha tesaṃ
ća yo nirodho evamvādī Mahā-samaṇo.
The form Tathāgato is also common in Sanskṛit versions.
The metrical form of the sentence has become broken.
Professor Cowell informs me that the Sanksṛit given in an old
MS. at Cambridge is:—‘Ye dharmā hetu-prabhavā hetuṃ teshāṃ
Tathāgataḥ | Hy avadat teshāṃ ća yo nirodha evaṃ-vādī Mahā-Ṡramaṇaḥ.’
Burnouf gives a slightly different version, thus:—Ye
dharmā hetu-prabhavās teshāṃ hetuṃ Tathāgata uvāća teshāṃ ća etc.
Sometimes both avadat and uvāća are omitted.
[51]Sometimes a human being is said to be made up of the five
elements—ether, air, fire, water, earth—with a sixth called Vijñāna.
[52]The body is often compared to a city with nine gates or apertures,
which have to be guarded (viz. two eyes, ears, nostrils, etc.).
[53]In fact Gautama remained a Bodhi-sattva until he was thirty-four
or thirty-five, when he attained perfect enlightenment and Buddhahood.
[54]Their names are Dīpaṃkara, Kauṇḍinya, Maṅgala, Sumanas,
Raivata, Ṡobhita, Anavama-darṡin, Padma, Nārada, Padmottara,
Sumedhas, Sujāta, Priya-darṡin, Artha-darṡin, Dharma-darṡin, Siddhārtha,
Tishya, Pushya, Vipaṡyin, Ṡikhin, Viṡva-bhū, Krakućanda,
Kanaka-muni (or Koṇāgamana), Kāṡyapa.
[55]Beginning with Vipaṡyin. These are the only Buddhas mentioned
in the Dīgha-nikāya. If the coming Buddha Maitreya is reckoned,
then Vipaṡyin must be omitted.
[56]It must
not be inferred that the episode of the
Bhagavad-gītā is of great antiquity. This point I have made clear in
‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism’ (p. 63) as well as in ‘Indian Wisdom.’
My object at
p. 138 is simply to show that Nirvāṇa is an expression
common to Buddhism, Brāhmanism, and Hindūism.—
Corr.
[57]The expression Brahma-nirvāṇa is repeated several times afterwards.
Mark, too, that one of the god Ṡiva’s names in the Mahā-bhārata
is Nirvāṇam.
[58]Rāga, dvesha, moha. Eleven fires are sometimes enumerated.
[59]Dr. Rhys Davids holds that the Buddha only advocated the suppression
of good desires; Fausböll says ‘desire in all its forms.’ I
agree with the latter.
[60]When I was on the confines of Tibet, this was described to me by
a Tibetan scholar as the unchangeable state of conscious beatitude.
[61]Or
Anupādi-ṡesha, that is, Nirvāṇa without remains or remnants
of the elements of existence. See Childers’ Pāli Dictionary, s. v.
[62]This was remarked by Hooker when travelling in Sikkim. Sir
Richard Temple in his Journals (II. 216) asserts that he often found
married monks in Sikkim, and they make no secret of it. They are
free to resign the monastic character when they choose.
[63]The Vaibhāshika was divided into Sarvāstivāda (assertion of the
real existence of all things), Mahāsaṅghika, Sammatīya (said to have
been founded by Upāli), and Sthavira; the Sautrāntika had also its
own subdivisions.
[64]Another great king was the celebrated Harsha-vardhana or
Silāditya of Kanauj, who flourished about
A.D. 610-650, and who is
said to have founded an era formerly much used in Northern India.
He ruled from the Indus to the Ganges, and his doings are described
by Hiouen Thsang (Beal’s Records, I. 210-221.)
[65]The Mahā-yāna is said to be connected with the Mādhyamika
and Yogāćāra Schools, and the Hīna-yāna with the Vaibhāshika and
Sautrāntika.
[66]Professor Legge’s Travels of Fā-hien, p. 28.
[67]Translated from the Chinese by the Rev. S. Beal and more recently by Professor Legge.
[68]According to Dr. Legge’s orthography this name should be
written Hsüen Chwang.
[69]See Beal’s ‘Records of the Western World,’ which gives a
translation of these travels in two volumes.
[70]Hiouen Thsang describes the Sthavira form of the Mahā-yāna as
existing as far south as Ceylon. He found many monks studying
both the Great and Little Vehicles in Central India. Beal’s Records,
ii. 247, 254, 257.
[71]As I have shown in ‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism,’ the term
incarnation is not strictly expressive of the Hindū idea of Avatāra,
which means ‘a descent’ of a god (or a portion of his essence)
in various forms upon earth.
[72]Professor Legge’s translation, p. 56.
[73]There are four great Buddhist kings of India who may be called
historical, the dates of whose reigns may be fixed with fair certainty:—1.
Ćandra-gupta, who was at any rate a sympathiser with Buddhism,
B.C. 315-291. 2. Aṡoka, a decided Buddhist,
B.C. 259-222. 3.
Kanishka (see
p. 69). 4. Ṡilāditya, above. Some consider Kanishka
to have founded the Ṡaka era, dating from
A.D. 78.
[74]Translated in 1872 by Mr. Palmer Boyd, and published with an
interesting introduction by Professor Cowell.
[75]See Beal’s Records, ii. 167-172; a long account of this monastery
visited by Hiouen Thsang is there given.
[76]No doubt there are places in the South of India where there is
evidence of some violent persecution. I may instance among the
places I visited Tanjore and Madura. When I concluded the reading
of a paper on this subject at the meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society
on February 15, 1886, the then President, Colonel Yule, justly
remarked that the members of two religious communions who hold
very similar doctrines, often on that account hate and oppose each
other all the more; but my point was that the ultra-tolerance
which was of the very essence of both Brāhmanism and Buddhism
must have prevented actual persecution, except under special circumstances.
Brāhmanism was much more likely to have adopted
Buddhism as part of its system, than to have persecuted and expelled
it. In point of fact, the Brāhmans, as is well known, are ready to
regard any great teacher as one of Vishṇu’s incarnations, and in this
way are even willing to pay homage to the Head of Christianity.
[77]Buddhism began to lose ground in India about the fourth or fifth
century after Christ, but it maintained a chequered career for several
succeeding centuries even after Hiouen Thsang’s time. See
p. 161.
[78]First, the Vedic triad of gods, Agni, ‘Fire,’ Indra, ‘wielder of the
thunderbolt,’ and Sūrya, ‘the Sun,’ followed by the Tri-mūrti or
Brahmā, Ṡiva, and Vishṇu. Then the three Guṇas or constituents
of the material Universe, Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas, and lastly the triple
name of Brahmă, Sać-ćid-ānanda.
[79]Sarat Chandra Dās, in his interesting Tibetan journal, describes
them as the ‘three Holies.’
[80]Edited by Childers. See Journal R. A. S., N. S. iv. 318, and Kern’s
Buddhismus, ii. 156.
[81]Legge’s Fā-hien, pp. 112-116.
[82]Capt. Temple states that the Saṅgha is personified in Sikkim
under the form of a man holding a lotus in his left hand, the right
hand being on the right knee.
[84]According to Capt. Temple,
Dharma, ‘the law,’ is personified in
Sikkim as a white woman with four arms, two raised in prayer, the
third holding a garland (or rosary), the fourth a lotus.
[85]One legend says:—‘Thus, O monks, Buddha was born, and the
right side of his mother was not pierced, was not wounded. It remained
as before.’ Foucaux, p. 97. Hiouen Thsang relates that there
is a Vihāra at Kapila-vastu indicating the spot ‘where the Bodhi-sattva
descended
spiritually into the womb of his mother,’ and that
there is a representation of this scene drawn in the Vihāra. I have
myself seen many representations of it in Buddhist sculptures.
[86]Beal’s Records, i. 228.
[87]Beal’s Records, i. 134, note.
[88]This work, ‘Die Religion des Buddha,’ by Carl Friederich Koeppen,
has been long out of print, and has unfortunately never been translated
into English. The German is often difficult, but I have endeavoured
to give a correct idea of Koeppen’s statements in the instances in
which I have made use of them. It is now somewhat out of date.
[89]It is obvious to remark that in the same way those who are
intellectually self-dependent and self-raised among ourselves generally
rise to a higher level of popular esteem than those taught by other
men.
[91]See pp.
47,
104. Koeppen compares them to St. Peter and St. Paul.
[92]The Rev. S. Beal (Ind. Antiquary for Dec., 1886) shows that
Nāgārjuna and Nāgasena are two different persons. Sir A. Cunningham
is of the same opinion. It may be noted that Padma-sambhava
is credited with introducing the more corrupt form of Buddhism along
with magic into Tibet at a later date, probably in the eighth century.
[93]For the account of Nāgārjuna’s disciple Deva, mentioned by
Hiouen Thsang, see Beal’s Records, ii. 97.
[94]Of course not to be confounded with Gautama’s disciple of the
same name, who is generally called Mahā-Kāṡyapa.
[95]According to Eitel he is still revered as the patron-saint of all
novices, and is to be re-born as the eldest son of every future Buddha;
see Legge’s Fā-hien, p. 46.
[96]The use of the passive participle in an active sense is not uncommon
in Sanskṛit, but is generally confined to verbs involving some
idea of motion.
[97]See Beal’s Records, i. 114, note 107.
[98]Professor Legge tells us that an intelligent Chinese once asked
him whether ‘the worship of Mary in Europe was not similar?’
[99]Legge’s Translation, p. 46. Beal, i. 180, ii. 220. According to
Schlagintweit, a historical teacher named Mañju-ṡrī taught in the eighth
or ninth century
A.D.
[100]Even the Brahmās, after immense periods of life in the Brahmā
heavens, have to go through other births in one of the six ways of
migration. Sahām-pati may therefore mean ‘the lord of sufferers,’
‘all life involving suffering,’ and this excludes the idea of his ‘being
lord over the Buddha who has not to be born again.’
[101]See Wright’s Nepāl, p. 43.
[102]Beal’s Records, ii. 103, 174.
[103]The images of this deity represent him as coarse and ill-favoured
in form (his name in fact signifying ‘deformed’). He has sometimes
three legs. As guardian of the northern quarter he is sculptured on
the corner pillar of the northern gate of the Bharhut Stūpa. He had
a metropolis of his own, according to Hindū mythology (as we know
from the Megha-dūta), called Alaka, on the Himālayas.
[104]A very interesting specimen of ancient sculpture representing
a Nāga-kanyā may be seen in the museum of the Indian Institute,
Oxford. It belongs to a collection of Buddhist antiquities lent by
Mr. R. Sewell, of the Madras Civil Service.
[105]I give this as my own theory. I am no believer in the learned
M. Senart’s sun theory, or in its applicability to this point.
[106]These are described in Childers’s Pāli Dictionary, s.v.
[107]See my ‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism,’ p. 105.
[108]Quoted in Colonel Olcott’s ‘Yoga Philosophy,’ p. 282.
[109]See my ‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism,’ p. 35.
[110]Colonel Olcott and Mr. Sinnett mention this faculty as a peculiar
characteristic of Asiatic occultism.
[111]‘The Occult World,’ by A. P. Sinnett, Vice-President of the
Theosophical Society, pp. 12, 15, 20.
[112]At
a meeting of the Victoria Institute, where I repeated the
substance of the present Lecture, Mr. W. S. Seton-Karr, who was
for some time Foreign Secretary at Calcutta, stated that he also had
witnessed the performance of this feat in India.
[113]Colonel Olcott’s
‘Lectures on Theosophy and Archaic Religions,’
p. 109.
[114]Report in the
Times newspaper.
[115]See Mr. Walter Besant’s recent interesting story, ‘Herr Paulus.’
[116]Nāga-worship is not always identical with serpent-worship.
See
p. 220.
[117]The Naths are certain demons or spirits of the air more worshipped
in Burma than in Ceylon. See
p. 259.
[118]His proper title is Ṡrīpāda Sumaṅgala Unnānse. The title Unnānse
is used by all the superior monks of Ceylon for ‘venerable’
(Sanskṛit
vandya).
[119]Sumaṅgala informed me that this was the only prayer used in
Ceylon. It is no real prayer, but only an expression of reverence.
Often, however, wishes for good luck are expressed like prayers. They
are called Maṅgala or Jaya-maṅgala. For example: ‘May I for this
particular act of merit obtain some particular piece of good fortune!’
[120]Some connect the wizard-priest Shaman with the Buddhist
Ṡramaṇa.
[121]Lāma (written in Tibetan bLama) is the Tibetan name for a
superior teacher (Sanskṛit Guru), and from this word the hierarchical
system of Tibet is usually called Lāmaism. It seems, however, as
legitimate to form a word Lāmism from Lāma, as Buddhism from
Buddha. At any rate my adjective Lāmistic is less awkward than
Lāmaistic. As to ā in Lāma, see Rules for pronunciation at
p. xxxi.