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In the same manner again, you think that a highest form of intelligence exists, answering more nearly to what we conceive of the Deity, but you do not censure those who think such a supposition unnecessary. Your own reason indeed for making it, seems to be chiefly an application of the analogy of body and soul, to the world and God ; or else a per- ception of the fitness of giving symmetry to the various gradations of intelligence by admitting one form higher and more perfect than the rest ; and not in the least any need of attributing the world to a creator ; for life and death, decay and quickening, succeed each other, you imagine, in a cyclical series, which may be compared to bubbles and waves rising and falling in alternation around a ball. You are all agreed in resting your essential belief upon the last supreme Buddha, or Sdkya ; and he, having been once a man, became so enlightened as to share the highest intelligence, and to have authority in matters of belief, though his divinity seems a kind of growth or develop- ment rather than an original inheritance; and his doctrine, though superhuman, may more nearly be described as an aspira- tion than as a revelation ; but on this point I found some difficulty in reconciling all that dropt from you. You conceive however of the standard both of your belief and practice as being some- thing external to yourselves, and will not have it described as SUMMARY^ 41 a mere deification of anj individual man's reason ; and lastly, while you appeal to the authority of Sdkya, you admit your religious practices in the present day to vary considerably from his doctrine. For while his life might almost seem a solemn mission against caste and sacerdotalism, its result seems to have been the establishment of a system more elaborately sacerdotal than the one against which he protested ; and among many of those who are called Buddhists, as well as the neighbours who should be converted by them, the grossest idolatry and super- stition prevail. But such things you would probably say were no strong argument against the original truth of your religion, supposing its evidences, and especially its miracles, to be satis- factory, and its sacred books to be written, as you believe, both in an humane spirit, and also by divine inspiration. In other respects you appear to agree with Hindtis in general in the belief of the transmigration of souls, and in the endeavour to attain a certain tranquillity in a future life, as the reward of certain conduct here ; and this tranquillity appears from what you said of Sdkya to consist in freedom from the necessity of being bom again, so that some would consider it but a negative kind of enjoyment." Saug. " As far as I observe, your summary is, for a brief one, tolerably correct ; though as we have seen that some of our terms are misapprehended by Europeans, so perhaps I should make allowance for the inadequacy of your language to express the fulness of our sacred truth.'' NOTES ON CHAPTER I. The Bauddhas have many sects, of which the Saugatas are one. Those who wish to test the assertions of the speaker in this dialogue, may compare them with the numerous citations in Colebrooke's Col- lected Works ; with Eugene BumouT s splendid and critical Analysis ; 42 AUTHORITIES. with Mr Hodgson's Aooount of the Nepaulese Buddhists, Trana B.A.S., YoL II. ; with Taiious notices in the Writings of Professor H. H. Wilson, especiallj in his edition of the Yishnu Purdna ; with Mr Tumour's Introduction to the Cingalese Mahiwansa; with A. R^musat's Melanges Asiatiques, Yola I. and Y. ; and with Lassen's Indische Alterthumskimde. Some of the above books may be con- sidered as standing references for subsequent chapters in this Tolume. M. Y. Coosin has somewhere described Buddhism as v/n nikUUms abaolu ; and Mr Hodgson as a deification of human reason ; while Mr Tumour argues that it should be rather considered afi a revelation \ and again, Lassen finds no clear intimation of a Deity, he says, in the primitive Sutras. On the whole, however, the citations in Bumouf and Tumour, with the statements of Colebrooke, and the ingenious criticism of A. R^iLsat, point to some such doctrine as that of the Baugata Muni in the text For Bauddha histoiy. Colonel (now Lieut- General) Sykes's paper in the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal hajs also a real, though a controversial sort of interest His results cannot be considered probable, but his reasons are worth reading. 8ANKHYA PBIORITY. 48 CHAPTER n. 9Vk€U ike VcMnava Safkkhyad tJUnhs. " The higtorian ... will be painfully stnick by the inferiority of the ethical deve** lopment to the physical and merely speculative. The [Gernuui] mind i^pears overpowered by the contemplation of God as Nature and as Thought. His mani- festation as conscious Spirit and Will is neglected : abstract reasoning absorbs the mystery of conscience, and the feeling of reality." — BuirsKN, On Qtrvuxn Thought, ''Tlie distinction which the Sankhya draws between the Hntwmi conteiouaneu and the ^df-contciouaneMB, is a proof of the very strong disposition to refer the inner development of our sensuous conception to a higher and more general force, and thereby to separate it from man's true personality.** — Ritteb, Hiti. PhUo9ophy, '' It appears then/' said Blancombe, now taming to Sadananda, *' that much of the doctrine which the MAni has been explaining finds its justification in the treatises of the Sankhya philosophy." " With respect to some portion of it," answered the other, " the case is so." " Well then," continued Blancombe, " if your treatises are older than the time of Sdkya, such a circumstance may be thought somewhat to detract from his originality as a teacher ; for there will be some tilings which he will appear not so much to have revealed or to have discovered, as to have borrowed from others." '*Just so," assented Sad^anda* " Well now," resumed Blancombe, " I am curious to know whether in virtue of this speculative aflSnity between your philo- sophers on the one hand, and the followers of Sdkya on the other, you consider yourselves as on the whole his allies and votaries, or whether you are still to be classed as professors of what is more properly the Hindii religion." " Evidently," answered Saddnanda, " the fact of Sdkya's having learnt from our treatises — ^which is the case, for Capila our teacher is at least of far earlier date — no more renders us Buddhists than the Brahmans themselves in general are so. For Sikya had Brah- manical teachers, some of whom he may have subsequently seduced, as the Saugata has asserted ; yet the great body retained their £uth ; and in the same way our agreement or our priority 44 VISHNU. as regards Sdkya in some subjects of speculation has never led us to imitate him in rejecting the authority of the Hindd Sdstras, and especially of the Vedas. You have heard that the Buddhists admit only two sources of knowledge, whereas we, not thinking that the knowledge enjoyed by mankind is too great as it stands, consider it prudent to retain the third source, namely revelation, or its tradition, as embodied in the sacred books of our race.'* Blan. *• In fact then you practise the rites of the Hindd religion, and worship its deities." Sad. " Certainly, I practise the rites so far as my own weakness and the deplorable degeneracy of this Cali age will permit, and I do not intentionally omit due honour to any of the deities, but especially to Vishnu, the great preserver of all things.'' Blan. " Vishnu then, it seems, is your name for the Supreme ; and pray do you associate with him also his wife either as Sri, or as Saraswatl?" Sad. " Certainly, as the goddess of plenty, Sri, and of prosperity, Lakshmi, but hardly as the Queen of eloquence, or speech, Saraswati ; for most think that this last name belongs properly to the wife of Brahm4, nor do I quarrel with their mode of considering it." Blan. ** But I had imagined you, perhaps erroneously, to be in some things a disciple of Kdmdnuja's, and he I conceive worshipped Kama." Sad. " You say correctly, in some things, for we are not bound by his metaphysical opinions; he however considered Kama as an incarnation of Vishnu, which is also our belief." Blan. " You extend then the same incarnation theory to Crishna?" Sad. "Yes, I am inclined to consider the deity Crishna as a form of Vishnu, becoming incarnate in Kama." Blan.