A RUN THROUGH KATHIAWAR. 297 



Biidhism and that of the East may be described, not 

 as Pantheism, but as Pandiabolism, to coin a much- 

 needed word. K"ot only our own lives but all sentient 

 existence is essentially misery and evil, consisting of 

 myriads of terrified and tortured beings who can sup- 

 port their own wretched existence only by torturing, 

 devouring, and destroying each other, with the abso- 

 lute certainty of being destroyed and devoured in 

 their turn. This is the teaching of all the Biidhists 

 from Shakya Miini downwards. The Jains have a 

 peculiar and rather striking statement of this doctrine 

 in their description of the Ages : to wit, the Happy 

 Age, the Happy mixed with Misery, and the Age of 

 Misery tinged with Happiness. It need scarcely be 

 said that the latter is the Age in which we dwell. 

 Unfortunately it is to have a duration of " one hun- 

 dred billions of oceans of years." 



But it is to be wished that the Biidhists could have 

 been a little more explicit on the other side of their 

 doctrine. It is useless, however, to ask them to be 

 so, because existence in itself must for ever remain 

 an unknown quantity to existence in operation the 

 phenomenon cannot compass the nomenon, the finite 

 and changeable can never comprehend the infinite 

 and absolute. But philosophy, they hold, leads us 

 up to that point ; and our practical acquaintance with 

 this awful self-devouring universe teaches us the wis- 

 dom of getting out of it as soon as possible, though 

 not by suicide, which is merely a change of garment. 



