IGO THE EEV. E. COLLINS^ ON 



previous Hindu teachings, that have been handed down to 

 us in writing. Sir Monier Wilhams has said, that " Tiie 

 close relationship of Buddhism to the Yoga system is well 

 known " ; and it has been stated by very scholarly persons, 

 that Buddhism is merely a development of that system ; 

 some also have claimed the previous Sankhya system as 

 containing the seeds of Buddha's teaching. But though 

 Buddha no doubt began life as a Yogin with the accustomed 

 rites, austerities, and meditations, yet, whatever the first bent 

 of his meditations, he was ultimately forced, as we have 

 seen, upon an entirely new path, the regulation of human 

 conduct. I cannot resist the conviction that this new path 

 came to him from without ; though I am prepared to admit, 

 that it is not an impossibility, that it may have grown out of 

 traditions of moral truth, which, though not prominent in the 

 Hindu sacred books, belonging, as they did, to an age when 

 religious ritualism and mysticism had well nigh stamped 

 out all other religious objects, yet no doubt still existed in 

 the popular conscience. I cannot now discuss the question 

 of external influences bearing on Buddha's teaching, beyond 

 noting the extreme interest of the subject, and observing 

 that there waa qf, and before the time of Buddha — whose 

 death, ^i uue age of eighty, Professor Max Miiller places at 

 447 ji.c. — a centre of light in the lives and protests of 

 certain of God's own people in tlie north, and even in the 

 decrees of some heathen princes, against the wide influence 

 of which there is no, even presumptive, evidence ; and that, 

 however sceptical many may be as to the possibility of 

 Jewish light reaching North India, it is allowed by com- 

 petent scholars, that in and after Alexander's time, Grecian 

 art, at least, had power not only to reach, but materially to 

 modify, Buddhist art on the Indian frontier ; and that in 

 later times it is undoubted that Christian missionaries and 

 others, who have penetrated central Asia, have left traces of 

 their methods among the Buddhists of Thibet. We cannot, 

 therefore, too hastily put aside the possibility, at least, of 

 still earlier influences from without, as regards religious 

 and moral thought. 



We now come to ask, what was to be the end, the goal, 

 the ultimate purpose, of this new path of method in religion ? 

 To what was the rectitude of life to lead ? In the study of 

 this subject, we shall find ourselves often surrounded by 

 many most perplexing, recondite, questions in Buddhist 

 doctrine. As we try to reach tliereal goal, even the path 



