CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



of an older world still ; and, on the other hand, 

 this world also will decay, and will in turn be 

 succeeded by another. An endless succession of 

 worlds and beings, each produced out of that 

 preceding it, because it and nothing else could be 

 produced out of it that is the Buddhist view of 

 the universe. Consistent with itself, it does not 

 affirm the eternity of matter. Nor does it affirm 

 the existence of spirit in the sense which we 

 .attribute to it in distinguishing it from matter. 



It is the quality of the actions done during life 

 called, in the Pali language, Karma that, in the 

 Buddhist view, determines the state into which, at 

 dissolution, a sentient being will be born, and it 

 does so as by a natural law, a necessity working 

 blindly ; such being the previous states, and such 

 the actions, the next state can be no other than 

 that which actually is entered upon. The ideas of 

 reward or punishment in our sense, i.e. of a right- 

 eous judge who rewards and punishes, are not 

 "known to Buddhism. The theory which accounts 

 for the succession of worlds, has also to account for 

 the successive states of being. But the order of 

 nature, according to the Buddhist view, is favour- 

 able to virtue, and, speaking generally, it is 

 according as a man's deeds have been good or 

 "bad, that in his next state he is advanced or 

 depressed, happy or miserable. A soul may be 

 born in any part of the Buddhist universe, and 

 may pass into any form. There are the hells for 

 evil-doers, the heavens for the righteous ; and 

 between the two, our earth, with all its varieties 

 of life, animal and vegetable, and even its innu- 

 merable forms of dead matter, in any of which, for 

 a degraded life, a being may have to dwell. Some- 

 times, it seems, a bad action may have no im- 

 mediate effect, and may even remain latent during 

 several existences ; but, sooner or later, it never 

 fails to tell either upon the state of being or the 

 fortunes of the doer. 



The endless succession of existences which the 

 transmigration doctrine presented to it, had ever 

 been felt as oppressive by the Hindu mind. Our 

 life, according to this theory, is a period of trial, 

 .and it will be followed by other periods of trial 

 without end in other states of being. Conscious as 

 every one is of having no recollection of previous 

 states, so that sufferings one may have to endure 

 in a future state will be, as it were, the sufferings 

 of another being, the theory, at anyrate, disposes 

 people to reflect upon life and its possibilities. The 

 mind in such meditation is apt to dwell more upon 

 the evil chances of life than upon its pleasures. And 

 throwing themselves imaginatively into the misery 

 they see endured by sentient beings around them, 

 men conceive of themselves as enduring such 

 misery. In a country like Hindustan, with arbi- 

 trary governments, classes separated from each 

 other by abysses, and a religion which has ex- 

 "hausted ingenuity in the invention of factitious sins 

 and punishments appropriate for them, there must 

 always have been among men alone enough to 

 sadden the reflective mind. But there is no animal 

 so vile but he is a being like man, no piece of 

 matter in which a soul may not be imprisoned ; and 

 there are, besides, the hells, with their unspeakable 

 tortures, against which the chance of heaven and 

 its joys is but a poor set-off. The survey thus 

 extended, it is intelligible how men should think 

 that life on the whole is not to be desired ; that 

 even if they find their present lot endurable, men 



430 



should shrink from being born again. There are 

 in life, as they conceive of it, too many lots they 

 shrink from, which they are glad they have not 

 been born into, the very worst of which may, 

 nevertheless, be theirs at some future time. High- 

 blooded and active people do not give themselves 

 up to theories. But among the Hindus, a race of 

 feeble organisation, fitter for contemplation than 

 for action, the issues of the transmigration theory 

 had from a very early period been fully considered, 

 with the result of a deep conviction being pro- 

 duced, that life, on the whole, is a burden, and its 

 continuance through endless shifting phases, a 

 misfortune, and almost a curse. 



Brahmanism, starting from these premises, had 

 propounded its method of getting rid of conscious 

 being ; the means being penance and the practice 

 of virtue, and the result, the absorption of the soul 

 into the Divine soul. The founder of Buddhism 

 declaring life to be wholly miserable, was cut off 

 by his atheistic philosophy from the Brahmanic 

 conclusion. His gospel is, that deliverance from life 

 is to be effected through extinction (Nirvana) ; and 

 that the means of obtaining it open to all, rich 

 and poor, learned and unlearned, alike consists 

 in perfect renunciation of love to self and to exist- 

 ence. All Buddhist teaching and discipline tend 

 towards producing the condition of mind which 

 is the indispensable condition of getting into 

 Nirvana. It is for this that virtue is to be prac- 

 tised, for this that the flesh must be crucified with 

 the affections and lusts. There has been dispute 

 as to the precise meaning of the word Nirvana, 

 and the schools of Buddhists do not all attach 

 precisely the same idea to it ; but the shades of 

 difference by which it has been attempted to dis- 

 tinguish it from extinction are inappreciable, and 

 most inquirers have concluded that it means simply 

 annihilation. Etymologically, it means a blowing 

 out, as of a candle. 



The Buddhist scheme of salvation rests on a 

 metaphysical theory, consisting of a concatenation 

 of causes and effects, which to the western intel- 

 lect has little coherence. The sum of it seems to 

 be, that it is our desires that attach us to existence, 

 and necessitate re-birth ; and that desires are 

 caused by illusory ideas, the result of ignorance 

 or error, attributing durability and reality to that 

 which is transitory and unreal. Find out their 

 illusoriness, and their spell is broken. Know- 

 ledge has come to you, and being is succeeded by 

 Nirvana. 



The bases of the Buddhist scheme for arriv- 

 ing at this consummation, are shortly stated in 

 what Sakya - muni called his Four Sublime 

 Verities. The first of these asserts that pain 

 exists ; the second, that the cause of pain is 

 desire or attachment (that being the cause of the 

 continuance of being) ; the third, that pain can be 

 ended by Nirvana ; and the fourth shews the way 

 that leads to Nirvana. Of the first three, it is 

 unnecessary to speak further. As to the fourth, 

 the way to Nirvana consists in eight things : right 

 faith, right judgment, right language, right pur- 

 pose, right practice, right obedience, right memory, 

 and right meditation. These eight parts or par- 

 ticulars of the way to Nirvana were developed by 

 Sakya-muni into a set of practical precepts enjoin- 

 ing the various duties of common life and of religion 

 all ostensibly intended as means of destroying 

 the chain of causes that tie men to existence, and 



