BUDDHISM_, AND '' THE LIGHT OF ASIA." 161 



itself begins to be tortuous, and sometimes we find ourselves 

 in quite a labyrinth of difficulties. But we must bear in 

 mind that the tirst direction, and apparently main direction, 

 we find to be on the lines of moral conduct. However 

 niucli the path seems to turn out of the way towards the 

 wilderness farther ahead, its first start, even viewed from a 

 Christian stand-point, is straight. I may here add to what 

 I haA^e said above, that the rock inscriptions of North India, 

 belonging, it is beheved, to the time of Asoka, the great 

 royal patron of Buddhism in the third century, B.C., favour 

 the idea, that Buddhism, even in that early age, was chiefly- 

 remarkable for its simple morality. There may still be 

 found on, I believe, more than one monument in North 

 India, the verse thus translated by Professor llhys Davids — 



" To cease from all sin, 

 To get virtue, 

 To cleanse one's own heart, 

 This is the religion of the Buddhas." 



(Dhammapada, 183). 



This sentiment must have been at the time one, at least, of 

 the fundamental positions of Buddhist teaching. 



But when we go to the Buddhist books, even the most 

 ancient ones, we find the end of the holiness preached not, 

 we think, alwa.ys sufficiently exalted to terminate so beauti- 

 ful a road. We may, perhaps, be sometimes more or less 

 blinded by our own ideas of what ought to be. We must, 

 no doubt, try, so far as we can, to surround ourselves with 

 the religious atmosphere in which Buddha lived, that we 

 may fully understand him ; and we can understand some- 

 thing of the Hindu religion as practised by the Brahmans 

 from our knowledge of the India of to-day, that which 

 Buddha speaks of under the general term "mortifications." 

 We also clearly discern, that Buddha's age must have been 

 one of great licentiousness, pride, and worldliness, as well as 

 consequent misery to thousands. In one respect we can 

 understand the end of his method of life ; it is " emancipa- 

 tion from sufiering"; it is "freedom from vice"; it is 

 '• peace " ; it is sometimes named " immortality," and the 

 "immortal place " [Dhammapada 21, 114). But as we study 

 the books, we find that the immortal end, named Nirvana 

 (in Pali, Nibbana) is, in fact, often described as a mere 

 deliverance from Metempsychosis, or re-birth. This seems 

 to be an altogether insufficient goal to inspire so arduous a 

 race ; and then, as we still further consider the path along 



