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L 

 "and the cause qf.it is to be found in the general belief of the 



Asiatics in the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, in the stages of 

 which the same spirit was supposed to animate, at different periods, 

 different human forms. Ingenious, however, as the attempted 

 solution of this difficulty may appear, it by no means effectually 

 removes it ; and the best explanation will be a concise, but fair, 

 statement of the genuine doctrines of Buddha, which have been 

 manifestly perverted by the sophists of India from their original 

 meaning. Buddha signifies a nise man, and Sacya, his other title, 

 means a feeder upon vegetables : this Avatar was, therefore, intended 

 not only to put an effectual termination to the barbarous custom of 

 profusely shedding bestial blood, its more professed object, but to 

 impress on the Indians the maxims of a sublime and sound 

 philosophy, the consequence of the practice of which would render 

 sacrificial atonement for crimes less necessary ; to animate them 

 to the attainment of purity and pardon by personal mortification 

 and severe abstinence rather than by the expiatory ablution of a 

 more innocent animal ; in fact, to inculcate, according to the pre- 

 cept and practice of Buddha, a total subjugation of sense and an 

 utter annihilation of passion. 



These general remarks will serve as no improper introduction to 

 such authentic Sanscreet documents of this Avatar as from various 

 sources I have been able to collect together for its more complete 

 elucidation. 



I cannot more properly commence the native accounts concern- 

 ing this Avatar of Buddha, than by inserting the subsequent extract 

 relating to him, from the Asiatic Researches. It is part of a transla- 

 tion, by Sir John Shore, of an inscription on a silver plate found 

 in a cave near Islamabad. The reader is already too well ac- 

 quainted with the romantic style in which all the Indian legends are 

 written to need any apology for my inserting it verbatim. From 



