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" The Budhist legends agree with revelation in teaching that all men were originally of one race ; but with this truth they have mixed up the error that the aborigines of mankind were many. There is also an agreement with the Scriptures, in the statement that men were originally pure, and that they fell from eating a product of the eartL There appears to be an intimate connexion between the institution of caste and the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Almost in every place where the former has existed, we can trace, the presence of the latter. Indeed, the custom of caste is so contrary to right reason, that its establishment seems to be impossible without calling in the aid of some 80 A MANUAL OF BUDHISM. superoatural power to assist in its confinnation. In this respect there is consistency in the teachings of G6tama ; as he re- jects caste, and his dootiine on the origin of the intellectual powers, and their extinction at death, is not transmigration. There is caste among the Budhists of Ceylon, but this is con- trary to the tenets of the founder of their religion ; and their notions on the subject of that which constitutes the ego, the individual man, have been modified in a similar manner ; the custom on the one part, and the popular notion on the other, being homogeneous deviations from primitive Budhism. By Professor Mill, 66tama has been designated " a philo- sophical opponent of popular superstition and brahmanical caste." The future sage having enumerated the qualities he would require in the woman who aspired to be his wife, his royal father directed his principal minister to go into the great city of Kapilawastu, and to enquire there in every house after a woman possessed of these good qualities, shew- ing at the same time the prince's enumeration of the neces- sary virtues, and uttering two stanzas, of the following mean- ing : " Bring hither the maiden that has the required qua- lities, whether she be of the royal tribe, or the brahman caste ; of the respectable, or of the plebeian class. My son regardeth not tribe, nor family extraction : his delight is in good qualities, in truth, and in virtue alone." With the Brahmans, caste is primeval, essentia], immutable and of divine appointment. But according to the Budhists there was at first no distinction of caste ; all the inhabitants of the earth were of one and the same race. When the dis- tinction arose, it was accidental ; or it was. embraced by the progenitors of the race of their own free will ; or, as in the case of the first king, it arose from the suffrages of a general assembly. At the commencement of Budhism, persons of all castes were admitted into the priesthood ; and when so admitted, the lowest Sudra held equal rank and received equal honours, with the Brahman or the Kshatriya. That which gives to caste its real importance, and by which it is exhibited in its most repulsive aspect, is, however, held as m. nOMITIVE INHABITANTS OF THE EAETH. 81 firmly by the Budhists as the Brahmans ; inasmuch as they teach that the present position of all men is the result of the merit or demerit of former births ; a doctrine which, if true, would make the scorn with which the outcast is regarded a natural feeling, as he would be in reality a comdemned criminal, undergoing the sentence that has been pronounced against him by a tribunal that cannot err in its decrees. By the Brahman, the Sudra is represented as an object of con- tempt, because he at first proceeded from the feet of Brahma ; but for this statement to have any power, it must be proved that the Sudra was in every previous birth, from the begin-* ning of the kalpa, a Sudra ; and if the Brahman be honour- able on account of having proceeded from the mouth of Brahma, it must be proved that he has never been any other than a Brahman in all previous generations. Yet it is said by Manu, (Inst. ii. 168) : — " A twice-born man, who not having studied the Ydda, applies diligent attention to a different and worldly study, soon falls, even when living, to the condition of a Sudra and his descendants after him." From this inconsistency the doctrines of G6tama are free. The existence of the four great tribes is recognised con- tinually in the J4takas; and inferiority of caste is repre- sented as giving rise to the same usages, and as being attended with the same degradation, as in the works of the Brahmans. In the Sambhiita Jdtaka there is an account of two low-caste youths who attempted to acquire learning ; but for this they were attacked by people of the higher castes, and left for dead. They then went to a distant city, assumed a different dress, that their design might not be frustrated, and passed for Brahmans. One of them completed his edu- cation, but whilst the other was yet at school, a stranger, who was detained all night at the same place on account of a storm, had some hot food placed before him ; when, as he seized it too eagerly, his mouth was burnt, and he cried out from pain. The scholar called out to him to put it away quickly ; but in so doing he used a low-caste word from f or- getfulness, by which his caste was discovered. In the same a 82 A MANUAL OF BUDHISM. J4taka, the Sadol, or ChancULla, is represented as one who is bom in the open air, his parents not being possessed of the smallest hut, where, as he lies among the pots when his mo- ther goes to cut firewood, he is suckled by the bitch along with her own pups. But it was uniformly declared by G6- tama that there is no essential difference between the four tribes.* It having been said that alms given to the more honourable castes, punya-ksh^trayo, would have a greater reward than when given to the man of mean birth, he com- bated the assertion, and said, that as in wet weather the hus- bandman sows on the hills, and during the dry weather in the valleys, and at all times in the ground that at any season can be irrigated ; so the man who wishes to be blessed in both worlds will give alms to all ; as he alone is not to be re- garded as honourable who can only boast of his birth and worldly eminence. At another time he declared that when the man of low caste attains nirwdna, his reward is the same as that of the man of high caste ; thus, when the festive hall is looked at, the colours of the diflferent flowers by which it is adorned can be distinguished, but in the shadows proceed- ing from the same flowers, no difference of colour can be per- ceived. The immediate disciples of G6tama propounded similar doctrines upon the subject of caste. The Madhura-siitraf was spoken by Maha Kachino, son of the Brahman pr6hita of the king of Ujein, soon after the death of G6tama Budha ; and forms part of the Majjhima-nikdyo. According to this * In the Agganna-But^n, addreBsed by Budha to two descendants of an Ulustrious Brahman, TVisettho, there is this sentence. '* Descendants of Wasettho ! even a Khattijo, who has sinned, in deed, word, or thought, and become a heretic ; on account of that heresy, on the dismemberment of his frame at his death, he is bom in the tormenting, eyerlasting, and unendurable heU. Such is also the fate of the Br&hmo, the Weeso, and the Suddo, as well as of the Sumano, or ascetic. But if a Khattijo lead a righteous life, in deed, word, and thought ; and be of the true or supreme faith ; by the merit of that ffiith, on the dismemberment of his body at deatb, he is reproduced in the felicitous suggaldka heayens." — Tumour, Joum. As. Soc. Aug. 1838. t The whole of this sutra appears in the Colombo Observer, March 11, 1844, translated from the Pali by Mr. Louis de Zoyza, then a student in the native institution at Cotta, under the caxe of the Church Missionaries, and afterwards principal translator to the gOTemment of Ceylon. HL PKIMITIVE INHABITANTS OF THE EABTH. 83 siitra the king of Awanti having heard of the fame of Maha Kachano, went to visit him, and addressed the sage in the following manner : " The Brahmans say that they alone are the high caste, that others are of low caste ; that they are of the white caste, others of the black caste ; that the Brahmans .