46 CROONIAN LECTURES 



whole. After transmigration, the spirit was 

 thought to be utterly reabsorbed into the 

 divine essence. The vital powers, and the 

 elements of which the body consists, were 

 both considered to be absorbed absolutely and 

 completely. Both name and form ceased. 

 Immortality without members or parts began.* 

 The Brahman of the old religion and the 

 Buddhist of the later religion rejected entirely 

 the idea of the personal immortality of the 

 matter of the body ; but they differed com- 

 pletely in the idea of the state in which the 

 separated spirit ultimately existed. In the 

 later religion, Nirvana, or utter annihilation, 

 was the ultimate aim of the human spirit. 



* " From the doctrine of emanation sprung up the doctrine 

 of transmigration. The human spirit may be united with 

 the lowest species of organic life, may ascend in successive 

 births into the bodies of spiders, snakes, and chameleons, 

 until deemed worthy of inhabiting a human tenement. Then 

 an opportunity is given it of achieving its own liberation ; 

 and, according to the present quality of its actions, it will 

 mount directly upwards through the ranks of demigods and 

 gods, or plunge again into the lower region of existence, and 

 commence a fresh series of births. 



" The great object of Brahmin ical or Buddhist religion is 

 the discovery of the means of putting a stop to further trans- 

 migration ; the discontinuance of corporeal being ; the libera- 

 tion of the soul from the body." Archdeacon HardwicJ;, 

 vol. ii,, p. 295. 



