1836.] Authorities on Buddhism. 77 



which is the cause of (versatile) existence is the cause of the cessation 

 or extinction of ail (such) existence : so said Sdkya Sinha. (Bhadra 

 Kalpavadan.) 



4. Body is compounded of the five elements : soul, which animates 

 it, is an enamation from the self-existent. (Swayambhu purdna.) 



5. Those who have suffered many torments in this life, and have 

 even burned in hell, shall, if they piously serve the Tri Ratna (or Triad), 

 escape from the evils of both. (Avaddn Kalpalatd.) 



6. Subandu (a Raja of Benares) was childless. He devoted himself 

 to the worship of Iswara (A'di Buddha) ; and by the grace of Iswara 

 a sugar-cane was produced from his semen, from which a son was born 

 to him. The race* remains to this day, and is called Ikshava Aku. 

 (Avaddn Kalpalatd.) 



likewise (proprio vigore) the ultimate cessation of them. The epithet Tathagata, 

 therefore, can only be applied to A'di Buddha, the self-existent, who is never 

 incarnated, in a figurative, or at least a restricted, sense; — cessation of human 

 births being the essence of what it implies. I have seen the question and 

 answer, ' what is the Tathdgata ? It does not come again,' proposed and solved 

 by the Raksha Bhagavati, in the very spirit and almost in the words of the Vedas. 

 One of a thousand proofs that have occurred to me how thoroughly Indian 

 Buddhism is. Tath&gata, thus gone, or gone as he came, as applied to A'di 

 Buddha, alludes to his voluntary secession from the versatile world into that of 

 abstraction, of which no mortal can predicate more than that his departure and 

 his advent are alike simple results of his volition. Some authors substitute this 

 interpretation, exclusively applicable to A' di Buddha, for the third sceptical and 

 general interpretation above given. The synonyme Sugata, or ' well gone, for 

 ever quit of versatile existence,' yet further illustrates the ordinary meaning of 

 the word Talhagata, as well as the ultimate scope and genius of the Buddhist 

 religion, of which the end is, freedom from metempsychosis ; and the means, perfect 

 and absolute enlightenment of the understanding, and consequent discovery 

 of the grand secret of nature. What that grand secret, that ultimate truth, that 

 single reality, is, whether all is God, or God is all, seems to be the sole propo- 

 situm of the oriental philosophic religionists, who have all alike sought to 

 discover it by taking the high priori road. That God is all, appears to be the 

 prevalent and dogmatic determination of the Brahmanists ; that all is God, the 

 preferential but sceptical solution of the Buddhists ; and, in a large view, I 

 believe it would be difficult to indicate any further essential difference between 

 their theoretic systems, boch, as I conceive, the unquestionable growth of the 

 Indiau soil, and both founded upon transcendental speculations, conducted in 

 the very same style and manner. 



* Tiiat of Sdkya Sinha, and said by the Buddhists to belong to the solar line 



of Indian Princes. Nor is it any proof of the contrary, that the Paurdnika 



genealogies exhibit no trace of this race. Those genealogies have been altered 



again and again, to suit current prejudices or partialities. The Briihmans who 



M 



