164 THE REV. R. COLLINS^ ON 



words, " I have penetrated this doctriue which is profound, 

 difficult to perceive, and to understand, which brings 

 quietude of heart, which is exalted, which is unattainable by 

 reasoning, abstruse, intelhgible only to the wise. This 

 people, on the other hand, is given to desire, intent upon 

 desire, dehghting in desire. To this people, therefore, who 

 are given to desire, intent upon desire, delighting in desire, 

 tlie law of causality, and the chain of causation will be a 

 matter difficult to understand ; most difficult for them to 

 understand will be also the extinction of all Sankharas (i.e., 

 all environments of the self), the getting rid of all the sub- 

 strata (of existence), the destruction of desire, the absence 

 of passion, quietude of heai't. Nirvana ! " (Mahavagga i, 5, 

 2.) Did all these mysterious doctrines arise in the one 

 mind of Gotama ? Or did they arise in the discussion of his 

 teaching by those who came after "? I incline to the latter 

 supposition, chiefly on the ground that the goal which 

 Buddha desired to reach after this life, and which is called 

 Nirvana, is spoken of under so many different attributes, 

 all sharing the idea simply of emancipation from the 

 ills, present and anticipative, of existence ; the actual 

 path to which is evidently a moral, well regulated, life 

 on earth. An actual definition of Nirvana is nowhere 

 found. Perhaps in ignorance of its real character Buddha 

 avoided any attempt at definition. But it is not annihi- 

 lation of existence, nor can it be merely deliverance from 

 the doom of re-birth, although that deliverance is so often 

 dwelt upon. A¥as it not, that this doctrine of the trans- 

 migration of souls was just the popular view of the future, 

 that must first give way before a truer light? The mere 

 prospect of successive changes of existence was not the real 

 terror to be met, but the possible condition of such existence. 

 We find descriptions in the Buddhist books of what amounts 

 to endless life in hell and physical torments. In the Maha- 

 vagga of the Sutta Nipata we find the question, "How long 

 is the rate of life, venerable one, in the Paduma hell ? " 

 To which Buddha replies, " Long, Bhikkliu, is the rate 

 of life in the Paduma hell, it is not easy to calculate either 

 by saying so many years or so many hundreds of years or 

 so many thousands of years or so many hundi-ed thousands 

 of years." He then gives an illustration of the length of 

 time in this hell, by supposing one sesamum seed to be 

 taken from an immense heap after the lapse of every hundred 

 years ; the heap he says, would in this way sooner dwindle 



