630 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



closely connected with reading, and was taugbt by a stick in the sand ; 

 then on palm-leaves with an iron point, and at last on plantain-leaves 

 with a kind of ink. In the higher schools at Benares, the esoterics 

 (which might include members of the second and third classes) were 

 taught grammar, prosody, and mathematics ; the esoterics, poetry, 

 history, philosophy, astronomy, medicine, and law. The pupil is a list- 

 ener for five years ; then he is allowed to take part in the discussions. 

 The period of study lasts from twelve to twenty years, and the high- 

 est instruction is furnished by a study of the Vedas. Though the 

 Indians had no theory of education, they expressed wise educational 

 maxims most beautifully by fable and poetry. " War-skill and learn- 

 ing are both renowned, but the first turns to follv in old aire, while 

 the second appears worthy for every period of life." " Culture is 

 higher than beauty and concealed treasure, it accompanies you upon 

 your journeys through foreign lands and gives an indestructible 

 power." "As the tree shadows him who would cut it down, and as 

 the moon illumines the huts of the lowest, so should a man love those 

 that hate him." " Be humble, for the tender grass bows itself unin- 

 jured to the wind, while mighty trees are rent in pieces by it." "The 

 wise man should strive to attain knowledge as though he were not 

 subject to death, but he should fulfill the duties of religion as though 

 death were settling upon his lips." 



Did the special purpose of the present paper allow, it would be 

 instructive at this point to notice the reformation in the religion of 

 India. Brahm and Nirwana as root-ideas appear to have been essen- 

 tially the same, and the highest glory of man was absorption in the 

 all. That which is especially instructive here is the fundamentally 

 different development of this common idea in Brahminism and Buddh- 

 ism. For the Brahman, God is in everything : everything is God : from 

 this come the deification of Nature and all forms of animal-worship. 



For the Buddhist, on the contrary, since the highest blessing is the 

 loss of one's self in Nirwana, everything that has independent exist- 

 ence must be cursed by the very fact of existence. We must pity, 

 not worship, anything that is. From this interpretation of the com- 

 mon idea, what are wealth and social distinctions ? Where all is 

 wretched, how can one thing be better than another? Buddha, well 

 called the Luther of India, could cut clean through the caste-distinc- 

 tions and make a way for what, long afterward and under, other in- 

 fluences, so mightily prevailed in Christendom, the conventual system, 

 the order of monks. 



Buddhist education was training in Buddhist religion. The prin- 

 ciples of this education are found in the catechism of the Buddhists, 

 and take the form of such commandments as these : " Thou shalt not 

 steal. Thou shalt commit no act of impurity. Thou shalt do no wrong 

 by thy speech. Thou shalt drink nothing intoxicating. Thou shalt 

 not kill any living being." 



