218 



that they spoke of their mission. But, beyond this, we have before us the actual 

 sculptures produced at that period ; and those who will take the trouble to visit 

 the first and second rooms in the Indian section of the South Kensington 

 Museum will be enabled to see how very strongly Greek influence did per- 

 vade those Buddhistic sculptures — for they certainly were Buddhistic — which 

 were made on the Indian frontier. Therefore,! say, M'e cannot altogether elimi- 

 nate Greek art from our calculations as to Buddhism, nor can we look upon the 

 statements of the historians as referring to a section of the Hindoos rather 

 than to the Buddhists, who, at the time of which we are speaking, ruled the 

 Punjaub, the records being preserved in stone to this day. I may add, that 

 this is further supported by the fact that actual Greek sculptures have been 

 discovered. For instance, a Pallas Athene has been found side by side 

 with undoubted Buddhistic carvings. This leads to the consideration that, 

 after all, profound as are the scholars who have gone into the matter, — 

 men like Mr. Davids and others,— and great as is the light they have thrown 

 on it, this question of Buddhism offers so wide a field, that it would not 

 suffer from any comparisons that might be brought from any other quarters 

 to bear on what has been put forward and established by those who have 

 examined the Buddhis)n of Ceylon, of Siam, and of Burmab. In what I may 

 call the Greek Buddhism of the north of the Punjaub, we find the same in- 

 fluence which characterises the works of the Greeks. The superhuman la 

 represented by the refined Human, and so also does the Buddhism of the 

 period to which I allude in that part of India ; already a point of difference 

 from Brahminism, which always seeks to represent the supernatural by that 

 which is most remote from the natural. For instance, the idea, say, of omni- 

 science, which the Greeks would represent by a refined expression of the 

 human face, the Brahmins represent by the use of many eyes, while for omnipo- 

 tence they would employ many arms. And this leads us to the consideration 

 generally of the representation of the supernatural, to which a mystic sense is 

 attached in the Hindoo representations of the Deity that has not by any 

 means been sufficiently explained ; as, indeed, the question, who or what 

 Brahma was, has by no means yet been taken out of the mist which surrounds 

 it. Referring to my own travels, I may say that beyond the Buddhism, the 

 accounts of which I read and admire in the writings of the scholars who have 

 been named, there is the Buddhism of Thibet. We know what Hue and 

 Gabet reported. They were two excellent men — Roman Catholic missionaries 

 belonging to the order of the Jesuits — but, still, men of remarkable simplicity 

 and goodness of mind, who record their impressions with the greatest clearness. 

 These men were so struck with the similarity of the Buddhism they there 

 saw with the Roman Catholic form of worship, that they thought the Evil 

 Spirit had been at work there in Order to bring their holy religion into con- 

 tempt. I do not know whether this is throwing anything like a light, or a 

 half-light, or even the faintest rush-light, on the point Mr. Collins has eluci- 

 dated ; but there is no doubt that, historically speaking, if we do not go into 

 the remote and obscure past, the Christian missionaries and others who peue- 



