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MAlunka asked Buddha to explain the origin of things, he made him no reply, as he considered that the inquiry tended to no profit. Buddhism takes things as they are, and shows how the existing evil and misery may be overcome. 135. Q. Does Buddhism teach the immortality of the soul? vex and enthral the ordinary man, he is lifted up into a condition which is best expressed in the term ‘ Nirvdnic.’ There is in Ceylon a popular misconception that the attainment of Arahatship is now impossible; that the Buddha had himself prophesied that the power would die out in one millennium after his death. This rumor, and the similar one that is every- where heard in India, — namely, that this being the dark cycle of the Kal Yug, the practice of Yoga Vidya, or sublime spiritual science, is impos- sible, —I ascribe to the ingenuity of those who ought to be as pure and psychically (to use a non-Buddhistic but very convenient term) wise as were their predecessors, but are not, and seek an excuse. The Buddha taught quite the contrary idea. In the Digha Nikaya he said: “ Hear, Subhadra! The world will never be without Rahats if the ascetics (Bhikku) in my congregations well and truly keep my precepts ” (Zmecha Sabadda Bhikku Samma Viharaiyum asanyo loke Arahantehi). 5 66 A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. A. “Soul”! it considers a word used by the ignorant to express a false idea. If everything is subject to change, then man is included, and every material part of him must change. That which is subject to change is not permanent; so there can be no immortal survival of a changeful thing. 136. Q. Lf the idea of a human “soul” 2s to be rejected, what zs that in man which gives him the impression of having a per- manent individuality ? A. Tanha, or the unsatisfied desire for existence. The being having done that for which he must be rewarded or pun- ished in future, and having Tanha, will have a re-birth through the influence of Karma. 137. Q. What ts tt that ts born ? A. A new aggregation of Skandhas, or personality,? caused by the last yearnings of the dying person. [| With us “soul” is commonly said of the spiritual and conse- quently imperishable and changeless principle of the human constitution ; ji. e. sfzrit, in the proper sense. In the text, “soul” is that semi-material and changeful part of man which enters into his present constitution, and may survive the dissolution of the physical frame, but is not thereby become “immortal.” It is Plato’s “psyche” or Paul’s “spiritual body;” the “ghost” of exoteric religions; the ‘‘ perisprit ” of French psychists; the “astral form” or “biogen body” of some; and has many other names. — C.] 2 Upon reflection, I have substituted “ personality ” for “individuality,” as written in the first edition. The successive appearances upon one A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 67 138. Q. How many Skandhas are there? A, Five. 139. Q. Will you name the five Skandhas ? A, Ripa, Védand, Sannd, Samkhérd, and Vinndna. or many earths, or “descents into generation,” of the tazhazcally cohe- rent parts (S#andhas) of a certain being are a succession of personalities. In each birth the fersonalzty differs from that of the previous or next succeeding birth. Karma, the dews ex machind, masks (or, shall we say, reflects ?) itself now in the personality of a sage, again as an artisan, and so on throughout the string of births. But though personalities ever shift, the one line of life along which they are strung, like beads, runs unbroken ; it is ever that particular line, never any other. It is therefore individual ; an individual vital undulation which began in Nirvana, or the subjective side of Nature, as the light or heat undulation through ether began at its dynamic source, is careering through the objective side of Nature, under the impulse of Karma and the creative direction of Tanha, and tends, through many cyclic changes, back to Nirvana. Mr. Rhys- Davids calls that which passes from personality to personality along the individual chain, “ character,” or “doing.” Since “character” is not a mere metaphysical abstraction, but the sum of one’s mental qualities and moral propensities, would it not help to dispel what Mr. Rhys-Davids calls “the desperate expedient of a mystery ”’ (“‘ Buddhism,” p. 101) if we regarded the life-undulation as individuality, and each of its series of natal manifestations as a separate personality? The perfected indivi- dual, Buddhistically speaking, is a Buddha, I should say; for a Buddha is but the rare flower of humanity without the least supernatural admix- ture. And as countless generations (“four asankheyyas and a hundred thousand cycles,”’ Fausbéll and Rhys-Davids’ “ Buddhist Birth Stories,” p. 13) are required to develop a man into a Buddha, and the iron will to 68 A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 140. QO. Will you briefly explain what they are? A. Ripa, material qualities; Védand, sensation; Sannd, abstract ideas; Samkhérd, tendencies of mind; Vinndna, mental powers. Of these we are formed, by them we are become one runs throughout all the successive births, what shall we call that which thus wills and perseveres? Character, or individuality, — an individuality but partly manifested in any one birth, but built up of fragments from all the births? The denial of “soul” by Buddha (see Sanyutto Nikdya, the Sutta Pitaka) points to the prevalent delusive belief in an independent, trans- missible personality, — an entity that could move from birth to birth unchanged, or go to a place or state where, as such perfect entity, it . could eternally enjoy or suffer. And what he shows is, that the “I am I” consciousness is, as regards permanency, logically impossible, sinte its elementary constituents constantly change, and the “I” of one birth ' differs from the “I” of every other birth. But everything that I have found in Buddhism accords with the theory of a gradual evolu- tion of the perfected man—namely, a Buddha—through numberless natal experiences; and in the consciousness of that person who at the end of a given chain of beings attains Buddhahood or who succeeds in attaining the fourth stage of Dhyana, or mystic self-development, in any one of his births anterior to the final one, the scenes of all these serial births are perceptible. In the Yatakatthavannand—so well trans- lated by Mr. Rhys-Davids — an expression continually recurs, which I think supports such an idea: “ Then the Blessed One made manifest an occurrence hidden by change of birth; ” or “that which had been hidden by,” etc. Early Buddhism, then, clearly held to a permanency of records in the akdsa, and the potential capacity of man to read the same when he has evolved to the stage of true individual enlightenment. A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 69 conscious of existence, and through them we communicate with the world about us. 141. Q. Zo what cause must we attribute the differences in the combination of the five Skandhas which make every indi- vidual differ from every other individual ? A. To the Karma of the individual in the immediately eee birth. . Q. What ts the force or energy that is at work, under a gin of Karma, to produce the new being ? A. Tanha, the “wit To ive,” } 1 The student may profitably consult Schopenhauer in this connec- tion, Arthur Schopenhauer, a modern German philosopher of the most eminent ability, taught that “the Principle, or Radical, of Nature, and of all her objects, the human body included, is intrinsically what we our- selves are the most conscious of in our own body; namely, Will. Intellect is a secondary capacity of the primary will, a function of the brain, in which this will reflects itself, as nature and object and body, as ina mirror .. . Intellect is secondary . . . but may lead, in saints, to a com- plete renunciation of ‘will,’ as far as it urges life, and is then extin- guished in Nirvana” (L, A. Sanders, in the “Theosophist”” for May, 1882, p. 213). [ Will-power, or conscious volition, may be conceived as force in the abstract, and is the only “force” conceivable as apart from matter; but its operation is absolutely unknown except in connection with matter, and its effect is only knowable as some mode of motion of matter. “ Latent force” is not a force, and the phrase is meaningless; but if it be permis- sible to conceive of the nower of the spirit as ever inoperative, or “ static,” 79 A BUDDHIST CATECHISM. 143. Q. Upon what ts the doctrine of re-births founded ? A. Upon the perception that perfect justice, equilibrium, and adjustment are inherent in the universal law of Nature. Buddhists do not believe one life long enough for the reward or punishment of a man’s deeds. The great circle of re-births will be more or less quickly run according to the preponderating purity or impurity of the several lives of the individual. 144. Q. Is this new aggregation of Skandhas, this new per- sonality, the same being as that in the previous birth,’ whose Tanha has brought it into existence ? A. In one sense it is a new being, in another it is not. During this life the Skandhas are constantly changing; and / matter itself may be said, by way of contrast, to be dynamic spirit, or spiritual kinetics. — C.] , , [1 Nothing in esoteric Buddhism — or in Theosophy, which is much the same thing —is more recondite and difficult to grasp than the ideas upon which the Doctrine of Re-birth is grounded; Nirvana itself is scarcely farther from Occidental forms and modes of thought. In a catechism for young persons the author of course touches only upon the leading points categorically and, in a sense, dogmatically. One or two thoughts occur to me in reading along the text. The illustration of Ques- tion 144 is a happy one, and may be a little amplified. As to the body, the physique, the man A.B.