808 Review of L'histoire [No. 167. 



worship of the Buddhists. Hence it is easily understood, why the 

 legends are so much occupied with the physical beauty of Sakya. The 

 Buddhists attribute, as is generally known, to the founder of their doc- 

 trine, the possession of the 32 characteristics of beauty and 80 secondary 

 signs. The image of Buddha is not, as those of Siva or Vishnu, an 

 exaggerated number of attributes, but simply of a man, seated in the 

 attitude of meditation, or making the sign of preaching. This image, 

 with the exception of inconsiderable differences, is invariably the same. 



Here must, however, be considered the modifications which Buddhism 

 underwent in the course of time. The worship indeed has not changed 

 much ; but new objects of adoration are associated with the image 

 of Sakya. In more ancient time these must have been the statues of 

 the four Buddhas, previously to Sakya ; in more modern times the 

 images of the five Dhyani Buddhas and the Bddhisattwas, known from 

 the exact drawings of Mr. Hodgson ; but on the whole, the type is the 

 same, viz. of a man who meditates and instructs. 



The second objects are the relics, which have the significant name of 

 Sarira (body.) This application of the term is entirely foreign to the 

 language of the Brahmans. It is the body of Sakya himself, adored in 

 the relics. They were collected on the funeral pile, where his mortal 

 remains were consumed, and according to the tradition, enclosed in 

 eight cylinders of metal, over which the same number of monuments, 

 called Chaityas, were raised. The monuments still extant in India, 

 corroborate most satisfactorily this tradition. From Clemens of Alex- 

 andria, who speaks of the venerable sages adoring a pyramid, under 

 which the bones of a god were entombed, to Fahian, the Chinese tra- 

 veller, to General Ventura, who in our time first opened these topes, 

 the uninterrupted tradition of seventeen centuries confirms the existence, 

 and even the destination of these monuments. 



But here we must pause, being afraid to have already trespassed 

 upon the indulgence of the reader, and at the same time feeling unable 

 to do justice in so short a sketch as this to the third part of the work, 

 in which the author enters into the intricacies of the metaphysi- 

 cal tenets of the Buddhists, and introduces us to their various schools. 

 We only observe, that it is full of important results, and that Mr. 

 Burnouf by discovering in one of the MSS. the names of the Buddhist 

 schools, as they occur in the controversial writings of the Brahmans, 

 has supplied the link, which appeared to be lost, between the historic 

 philosophy of the Brahmans and Buddhists. 



