II 



103 



before. But they do not choose to look at the 

 matter in this light. 



The popular notion that, with practical, if not 

 metaphysical, annihilation in view, Buddhism must 

 needs be a sad and gloomy faith seems to be incon 

 sistent with fact ; on the contrary, the prospect of 

 Nirvana fills the true believer, not merely with 

 pheerf ulness, but with an ecstatic desire to reach it. 



Note 10 (p. 68). 



The influence of the picture of the personal quali 

 ties of Gautama, afforded by the legendary anecdotes 

 which rapidly grew into a biography of the Buddha ; 

 and by the birth stories, which coalesced with the 

 current folk-lore, and were intelligible to all the 

 world, doubtless played a great part. Further, 

 although Gautama appears not to have meddled with 

 the caste system, he refused to recognize any dis 

 tinction, save that of perfection in the way of salva 

 tion, among his followers ; and by such teaching, no 

 less than by the inculcation of love and benevolence 

 to all sentient beings, he practically levelled every 

 social, political, and racial barrier. A third im 

 portant condition was the organization of the 

 Buddhists into monastic communities for the stricter 

 professors, while the laity were permitted a wide 

 indulgence in practice and were allowed to hope for 

 accommodation in some of the temporary abodes of 

 bliss. With a few hundred thousand years of 

 immediate paradise in sight, the average man could 

 be content to shut his eyes to what might follow. 



