132 REV. G. U. POPE, D.D., ON 



sentience (vedana), sign (kurrippu ; saniia), representation (bhavanai ; 

 (sanskara), aud consciousness or clear apprehension (vinnanam). And the 

 utter perishing of these is deliverance (moksham).' This exposition of 

 the Buddhist creed in regard to God, the universe, and salvation, requires 

 no doubt much elucidation, and many volumes have been written about 

 it in East and West. A summary of it is given in the ' Sarva-Dar9ana- 

 Sangraha,'* though I am not sure that much light is thrown ii])on it in 

 that work. In Dr. Earth's work on ' The Eeligious Systems of India 't 

 fuller information is given, and the authorities there referred to afford 

 the student an ojiportunity to acquire a knowledge of almost all that has 

 been said and thought on the subject. Here oxir one object is to show 

 how the native mind in South India apprehended the system. Many of 

 the details of this disputation are doubtless not to be relied on, but they 

 show us what the traditional belief is, and explain why Buddhism lost 

 its hold. For indeed, though Buddhists existed for some centuries 

 afterwards in the South, they never recovered the blow inflicted upon 

 them b/ the events of which we are trying to gather iq) the current 

 traditions. To return to our disputants. The saint smiled in derision, 

 and looking into the blameless face of the (^ora king, said, ' What can I 

 reply to this Buddhist, who in unconscious frenzy utters such words as 

 these ? ' He then replied to the foreign heretic : ' Thou hast told us that 

 knowledge appears and in an instant of time disappears ; all is in a 

 ceaseless flux. If so, before thou didst finish uttering forth thy words 

 and meanings, since thine understanding must have passed away, what 

 revelation of truth and virtue can there be ? (Since all apprehension is 

 transient and momentarij, there ctn he no real hiower, or hnoiclcdge, or 

 thing hnovm.) Thus there can be in thy system neither code of laws nor 

 revelation of truth and Anrtue. Again, thou tellest us that thy Buddha 

 thy God, was born in many successive shapes. How then can one who 

 himself is subject to delusion and evil deliver othei-s from these ? You 

 say, your Lord was guiltless of murder ; but if he assumed all possible 

 forms on this earth, as you say, then as a ravening tiger or as a jackal, 

 when he was hungry was it grass that he ate, and tender shoots of trees ? 

 In thy false creed thou tellest us of Five Kandas ; and that when 

 these pass away the soul-body perishes ; and that Avhen form, etc., cease, 

 the soul-body is no more. If so, where is thy king, and how could he 

 survive and appear as saviour of many men ? {This idealism destroys law- 

 giver and deliverer alike.') 



' Again, since the embodied form, together wich its cause (the soul and 

 * Trilbner's Oriental Series. t Trlibner's Oriental Series. 



