523 



CHAP. XI. 



BUDDHISM AND DEMOX-WORSHIP. 



It is dilFiciilt to attempt any condensed, and at tlic same 

 time perspicuous, sketch of the national rehgion of Ceylon 

 — a difficulty which arises not merely from the volumi- 

 nous obscurity of its sacred history and records ; but still 

 more from confusion in the variety of forms under Avhicli 

 Buddhism exliibits itself in various locahties, and the 

 divergences of opinion which prevail as to its tenets 

 and belief. The antiquity of its worship is so extreme, 

 that doubts still hano; over its ori<2;in and its chronolooical 

 relations to the rehgion of Brahma. Whether it took its 

 rise in Hindustan, or in countries farther to the West, and 

 whether Buddhism was the original doctrine of which 

 Brahmanism became a corruption, or Brahmanism the ori- 

 ginal and Buddliism an effort to restore it to its pristine 

 piuity ^, — all these are questions which have yet to be 



^ The details of the following 

 chapter have been principally taken 

 from Sir J. Emerson Tennexi's 

 Christianity in Ceylon, ch. v. 



"^ Those early wTiters on the reli- 

 gions of India who drew their infor- 

 mation exclusiyely from Brahmanical 

 soiu'ces, incline to favour the preten- 

 sions of that system as the most an- 

 cient of the two. Klaproth, a profovmd 

 authority, was of this opinion ; but in 

 later times the translations of the 

 Pali records and other sacred volumes 

 of Buddhism in Western India, Cey- 

 lon, and Nepal, have inclined the 

 preponderance of opinion, if not in 

 faA our of the superior antiquity of 

 Buddhism, at least in support of 

 its contemporaneous development. 

 A siunmarv of the ar"uments iu 



favour of the STiperior antiquity of 

 Buddhism will be found in the 

 " Notes" &.C., by Colonel Stkes, in 

 the 12th volume of the Asiatic 

 Journal — and in the Essai stir 

 rOrif/ine dcs Princijtaii.v Petiples An- 

 ciens, par F. L. M. Maupied, 

 chap. viii. The arguments on the 

 side of those who look on Brahman- 

 ism as the original, are given by 

 MoTJjSTTSTrART ELrinxsTONE in his 

 History of India, vol. i. b. ii. c. 4. 

 An able disquisition will be found in 

 Max IMtJLLEn's History of Sanskrit 

 Literature, pp. 33, 2G0, &c. Mr. 

 GoGEELT, the most accomplished 

 student of Buddhism iu Ceylon, says 

 its sacred books expressly demonstrate 

 that its doctrines had been preached 

 by the twenty-four Buddhas who 



