22 SIR MONIER MONIER-WILLIAMS. 
say, ‘Who may this be who thus speaks? a man ora god?? 
Then, having instructed, incited, quickened and gladdened 
_ them with religious discourse, I would vanish away. But they 
knew me not even when I vanished away; and would say, 
‘Who may this be who has thus vanished away ? a man, or 
a god?’ ” (Muahda-parinibbana-sutta, ii. 22.) 
Such passages in the early literature afford an interesting 
exemplification of the growth of supernatural and mystical 
ideas, and account for the ultimate association of the Northern 
Buddhistic system, with Saivism, demonology, magic, and 
various spiritual phenomena connected with what has been 
called “ Esoteric Buddhism.” 
These ideas, however, originated in India, and we may 
now proceed to trace their development in the later Yoga or 
“aphorisms of the Yoga philosophy,” composed by Patanjali, 
to which I have already referred. 
In that work eight requisites of Yoga are enumerated 
(ii. 29); namely, 1, abstaining from five evil acts (yama); 2, 
performing five positive duties (niyama); 3, settling the 
limbs in certain postures (asana); 4, regulating and sup- 
pressing the breath (pranayama) ; 5, withdrawing the senses 
from their objects (pratyahara) ; 6, fixing the thinking faculty 
(dharana) ; 7, internal self-contemplation (dhyana) ; 8, trance- 
like self-concentration (samadhi). 
These eight are indispensable requisites for the gaining of 
Patanjali’s swmmum bonwm—the complete abstraction or 
isolation (kaivalya) of the soul in its own essence and for 
the acquirement of supernatural faculties. 
Taking now these eight requisites of Yoga in order, we may 
observe, with regard to the first, that the five evil acts to be 
avoided correspond to the five commandments in Buddhism, 
viz., ‘kill not,” “steal not,’ ‘commit no impurity,” 
“he not.” The fifth alone, ‘ abstain from all worldly enjoy- 
ments,” is different, the Buddhist fifth prohibition being 
‘drink no strong drink.” 
With regard to the second requisite, the five positive 
duties are—self-purification, both external and internal (both 
called sauca) ; the practice of contentment (santosha) ; bodily 
mortification (tapas); muttering of prayers, or repetition 
of mystical syllables (svadhyaya, or japa), and contemplation 
of the Supreme Being. 
The various processes of bodily mortification and austerities 
have been already described. 
As to the muttering of prayers, the repetition of mystic 
syllables such as Om (a symbol for the Triad of Gods), or 
of any favourite deity’s name, is held among Hindus to be 
