18 SIR MONIER MONIER-WILLIAMS. 
4 is clear, then, from all we have stated, that, supposing 
Gautama to have made up his mind to renounce the world 
and devote himself to a religious life, his adoption of a course 
of Yoga was a most ordinary proceeding. 
In the first instance, as we have seen, he tested the value 
of painful self-mortification by a long sexennial fast. Then, 
after discovering the uselessness of mere bodily austerities, 
he took food naturally, and adopting the second method, 
‘applied himself to profound abstract meditation. 
A large number of the images of Buddha represent him 
sitting ona raised seat, with his legs folded under his body, 
and his eyes half-closed, in this condition of abstraction 
(samadhi)—sometimes called Yoga-nidra ; that is, a trance-like 
state, compared to profound sleep, or a kind of hypnotism. 
According to the account given in the Mahd-vagga (i. 1), 
he seated himself in this way under four trees in succession, 
remaining absorbed in thought for seven days and nights 
under each tree, till he was, so to speak, re-born as Buddha 
“the Enlightened.” ‘Tull then he had no right to that title. 
And those four successive seats probably symbolised the 
four recognised stages of meditation* (dhyana) rising one above 
another, till thought itself was converted into non-thought. 
We know, too, that the Buddha went through still higher 
progressive stages of meditation at the moment of his death 
or final decease (Pari-nirvana), thus described in the Maha- 
parinibbana sutta (vi. 11): 
«‘Then the Venerable One entered into the first stage of 
meditation (pathamajjhinam) ; and rising out of the first 
stage, he passed into the second; and rising out of the 
second, he passed into the third ; and rising out of the third, 
he passed into the fourth ; and rising out of the fourth stage, 
he attained the conception of the infinity of space (akasanan- 
cayatanam) ; and rising out of the conception of the infinity 
of space, he attained the conception of the infinity of intelh- 
gence (or second Aripa-brahma-loka). And rising out of 
the idea of the infinity of intelligence, he attained the 
conception of absolute nonentity (akificafifiayatanam); and 
rising out of the idea of nonenrtity, he entered the region 
where there is neither consciousness nor unconsciousness ; 
and rising out of that region, he entered the state in which 
all sensation and all perception of ideas had wholly ceased.’’ 
This strange passage shows that even four progressive 
* T give this as a theory of my own. M. Senart considers that the sun’s 
progress is symbolised. Iam no believer in the sun theory as applicable to 
this point, 
