THE HISTORY OF MANIKKA-VACAGAK. 183 



its deeds), perishes, your king, who sits under the arasu tree, is formless, 

 is non-existent. So annihilation is your salvation. The destruction of 

 the ' Five Kandas ' is deliverance ! 



' Yet again, you speak of twenty-one Buddhas, who existed before ' 

 (twenty-four are generally given) ; ' and you say that each of these in 

 heing born occasioned the death of his mother. Are such beings gods, 

 and not rather worthy of hell ? ' (The reference here is not clear.) 



The next objection to the Buddhistic sj'stem is that it makes no 

 ilistinction between organized living creatures, their life or soul being 

 nierely the temporary and delusive product of the same organization, 

 ' You also say that the only difference between living creatures (souls, lives, 

 breaths) is that they are formed of different mixtures of the same foui- 

 •elements ; yet in the night season, when thou wert asleep, if a serpent 

 climbed over thy face, thou wouldst discern a difference, O silly reasoner. 

 TLou hast denied the existence of any knowledge of spirit (soul, life) 

 beyond the form. When the form then has perished, how can the life 

 reappear under other forms? What and where is the Atman, the self^ 

 What is it that exists (the vnosTaa-is) when the form identical with the soul 

 has perished ?* You deny also the existence of the 'Fifth Element,' the ether, 

 through which sounds are transmitted ; and you say there are no spaces not 

 tilled with air, water, iire, and earth. In what medium then do your four 

 elements combine to form living beings ? Where then is your Buddha 

 (who, having gained Nirvana, must be freed from all elemental combina- 

 tions), in his northern dwelling under the shade of the arasu tree ? You 

 deny also that trees have souls ;■ and yet they grow,t and put forth leaves 

 by imbibing water, and become finally dry wood and leaves ! In them 

 souls of men can obtain suitable organisms for expiation of their deeds. 

 You say that to kill anything is a great crime, and yet you allow the 

 eating of the flesh of animals which others have slain. ^ Surely if they kill 

 for your sake, you are guilty of tlie murder which you cause.' (See 

 Manu V. 51.) It seems strange that this accusation should apparently be 

 true. The same thing is referred to in the Kurral (256), and it was the 

 source of a good deal of controversy between the Jains and the Buddhists ; 

 the Buddhists refusing to kill, but not refusing to eat the flesh of the 

 slain, while the more consistent Jains would neither slay nor eat. 



* See Oldenherg, ' Buddha,' Hoey's translation, p. 29, etc. (Williams and Norgate, 

 1882), and p. 243. What appears to man to be his body is in truth ' the action of 

 his past state, which then, assuming a form realized through his endeavour, has 

 become endowed with a tangible existence.' 



t Sir M. Monier- Williams, ' Buddhism,' p. 110. Prof. Ehys Davids on Buddliism, 

 and the Bishop of^Colombo's work on the same subject are indispensable. 



