BUDDHISM, AND "tHE LIGHT OP ASIA." 155 



Howbeit I have seen thee. Know, King, 

 This is that blossom on onr human tree 

 Which opens once in many myriad years, 

 But opened, fills the world with Wisdom's scent, 

 And Love's dropped honey ; from thy royal root, 

 A Heavenly lotus springs. Ah, happy House ! 

 Yet not all-happy, for a sword must jjierce 

 Thy bowels for this boy." 



This is pretty: but to the Christian reader it is too evidently 

 iUuminated, as also is the case not unfrequently in the rest 

 of the poem, with rays of beauty gathered from another source, 

 Avhich rays first probably entered Sir Edwin Arnold's mind at 

 his mother's knee. 



The first mention of this visit of the aged devotee is in the 

 Mahavagga of the Sutta-Nipata, where I think there are strong 

 e^ddences of its being an interpolation. But the fovm of the 

 narrative there is much more simple than in subsequent 

 Buddhist writings, an example of which later description 

 occurs in Spence Hardy's Manual of Buddhism, p. 147, which 

 is taken, I believe, from the Puja-waliya, a book written in 

 probably the thirteenth century of the Christian era. It is 

 to such later accounts that Sir Edwin Arnold is apparently 

 indebted for most of his imagery. But even to this he adds 

 embellishments from the Christian story, as, for instance, in 

 the expression " a sword must pierce thy bowels for this boy." 

 It may be added that there is no eAndence whatever, that 

 there was any Hindu expectancy, at the time of Buddha's 

 birth, of such a " blossom on our human tree," as should '' fill 

 the earth with Wisdom's scent, and Love's dropped honey," 

 and " save all flesh." 



Buddha himself, according to the earlier records, made no 

 claim to be divine, or, indeed, to be anything more than a 

 human teacher of a new path towards reaching peace of mird, 

 and deliverance from the ills of life. He was a religions 

 revolutionist in respect to religious methods. 



With regard to the nature of our authorities, the literature 

 of Buddhism is very extensive ; and consists of books written 

 at many different times. We cannot, of course, base the 

 original history of Buddhism on the later books. There are 

 also different phases of Buddhism in different countries; the 

 religion, if it is to be so called, having received many modifi- 

 cations in Thibet, China, Burmah, and Japan ; sometimes to 

 the almost absolute subversion of its original character. The 

 statement of Sir Edwin Arnold, therefore, in his preface to 

 The Light of Asia, that "Four hundred and seventy millions 



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