254 Notes to Mr. B. H. Hodgson's Sketch of Buddhism. 



(27) The three first sins should be rendered, all destruction of life, all taking 

 without right, and all sexual commerce whatever. The ten are the cardinal sins o*" 

 Buddhism, and will bear a very favourable comparison with the five cardinal sins of 

 Brahmanism, 



(28) The Buddhas mentioned in the Bauddlm scriptures are innumerable. Many of 

 them, however, are evident non-entities in regard, to history. Even the Buddhas of 

 mortal mould are vastly numerous, and of various degrees of power and rank. These 

 degrees are three, entitled, Pratyeha, Sruvaka, and Maha Ydnika. Sa'kya Sinha is often 

 said to be the seventh and last Mnmtshi Buddha who has yet reached the supreme grade 

 of the Malid Ydnika. In the Lalita Vist/ira, there is a formal enumeration of the 

 perfections in knowledge and virtue i-equisite for attaining to each of these three grades 

 — a monstrouslj' impracticable and impious array of human perfectibility ! The three 

 grades are known by the collective name of " Tri Jdna," or " Tri Ydtia." 



(29) Genuine Buddhism never seems to contemplate any measures of acceptance with 

 the deity : but, overleaping the barrier between finite and infinite mind, urges its 

 followers to aspire by their own efforts to that divine perfectibility of which it teaches 

 that man is capable, and b}' attaining which man becomes God — and thus is explained 

 both the quiescence of the imaginary celestial, and the plenary omnipotence of the 

 real Mdnushi Buddhas — thus too we must account for the fact, that genuine Buddhism 

 has no priesthood: the saint despises the priest; the saint scorns the aid of mediators, 

 whether on earth or in heaven : " conquer (exclaims tlie adept or Buddha to the novice 

 or Bodhi-Satwd) — conquer the importunities of the body, urge your mind to the 

 meditation of abstraction, and you shall, in time, discover the great secret (Prajna) of 

 nature; know this, and you become, on the instant, whatever priests have feigned of 

 Godhead— you become identified with Prajna', the sum of all the power and all the 

 wisdom which sustain and govern the world, and which, as they are manifested out of 

 matter, must belong solely to matter; not indeed in the gross and palpable state of 

 pravritfi, but in the archetypal and pure state of nirvritti. Put off therefore the vile, 

 piavriffiiia necessities of the body, and the no less vile affections of the mind ; urge 

 your thoughts into pure abstraction ( Dhydn), and then, as assuredly you can, so 

 assin-edly you shall^ attain to the wisdom of a Buddha ( Budhijnan), and become 

 associated with the eternal unitv and rest of nirvritti." Such, I believe, is the esoteric 

 doctrine of the Pn'ijnikas—l\\!ii of the Swahlu'irikas is nearly allied to it, but more timid 

 and sceptical ; the}' too magnify the wisdom and power of natui-e so abundantly diffused 

 throughout /irarnW, but they seem not to unitize that wisdom and power in the state 

 of nirvritti, and incline to conceive of nirvritti as of a state of things concerning which 

 nothing can be predicated ; but which, even though it be nothingness (ShunyataJ, is 

 at least a blissful rest to man, otherwise doomed to an eternity of transmigrations 

 through all forms of visible nature : and while the Swabhavikas thus underrated the 

 nirvritti of the Pn'ijnikas, it is probable that thej' compensated themselves by magnify- 

 ing, more than the Prnjnikas did, that pravrittika omnipotence of which the wise man 

 {Buddha) is capable, even wpoti earth. It has been already stated that the second 



