﻿402 ON THE RELIGION AND MANNERS 



keep some constantly lighted in their houses, as well 

 as in their temples. The Boudhists pay no kind of 

 regard to it, because nothing of the kind was thought 

 of when their religion was formed. The Boudhists 

 eat animals, the Bramins do not. If it should be 

 held that reforms tend to the perfection of religion, 

 to decide on the question of priority of age on that 

 ground, it should be ascertained whether it be better 

 to eat a partridge than a potatoe, which being a 

 matter of taste, cannot be easily decided. But there 

 is a more direct way of coming to a conclusion on 

 this subject. All reformers attempt to throw a slur 

 on the individuals professing the religion they wish to 

 reform : now if the Boudhists had been the reformers, 

 they could not have reproved the Bramins for 

 eating rice, as they eat it themselves ; nor for eating- 

 rice only, for when the religion allows eating both 

 meat and rice, it is in every person's choice whether 

 he \vill eat only one of these. But if, on the coii' 

 trary, the Bramins had been the reformers, they 

 could throw blame on the Boudhists, by prohibiting 

 meat to themselves: these reasons make me believe 

 that the religion of the Bramius is not so ancient as 

 that of the Boudhists, and that Menu was the re- 

 former. But that is a question of no importance 

 to what I have to say further. 



AccoiiDiNG to all the old Singnlese authors, par- 

 ticularly NiMi GiATEKE*, and the Boudhou Gu^ 

 iiukatavef, Boudhou transmigrated during four 

 asankes, and one hundred thousand mahakalpes of 

 years, from the time he took the resolution to become 

 Boudhou, till that when he was born for the last 

 time according to some, or, as others will have it, 

 till he became Nivani. To form an idea of this pe- 

 riod, 



* An incarnation of BouDHotr, under the name of" king Nimi. 

 + Hisrory of the achievementf of Boudhou. 



