124 General Observations on [Feb. 



Buddha is in Nivana, it is ' useless to worship him, and only requisite 

 to venerate his memory, and follow his precepts. Statues too are only 

 useful for refreshing the memory, for as the husbandman sows grain in 

 the earth and reaps the harvest, so he who believes in Buddha and 

 follows his doctrines will be saved. The earth and Buddha are both 

 per se inert.' 



Buddha too led a wandering life, followed by his disciples. As 

 Christ quoted the prophets, so did Buddha, and his disciples the four 

 Buddhas who preceded him. Buddha visited the infernal abodes, like 

 Christ, and he was treacherously poisoned at a supper, and although by 

 his prescience aware of his doom, yet he strove not to avert it, so did 

 Christ, and he ascended like Christ to heaven, and will at the end of 

 the five thousand years be succeeded by the fifth or last Buddha, so 

 Christ is to come again in the last day. 



The metempsychosis is a radical portion of belief both in brahmanism 

 and Buddhism, and has a ready type in Egypt. A misinterpretation 

 of the nature of Christ, of his, to be (alternate) changes from the divine 

 and spiritual essence to physical existence, might under circumstances 

 of priority of time, have led perhaps to the dogma just adverted to. 



" No supreme superhuman Buddha," observes Dr. Boer, "or Bud- 

 dhas, or Adhibuddhas, are found in these Nepal books." 



I have already expressed my belief that the apotheosis of the Bud- 

 dhas was borrowed from what was apparently at first a distinct form of 

 worship, that of heroes and great benefactors to the human race. 



From what can be gathered from Buddha's own oral discourses or 

 sermons, their sole aim was to direct his hearers in the road to Nivana, 

 a condition of eternal rest, undisturbed by migrations, or moved by any 

 thing external or internal. 



If future angelic or god-like super-power had been one of his objects 

 or his chief one, then the tiers of the Buddhist heavens might have been 

 filled with thousands of such spiritualities, all eternally exercising the 

 power of gods, and influencing, according to the creed of the degenerat- 

 ed Buddhas of later days, the destinies of man, and thus rivalling the 

 Hindus in the multitudes of their gods. 



Buddha himself, agreeably to the Pali Thatsa-chatta, in my posses- 

 sion, passed through ten states of existence, ending with that of Sakya 

 Muni. Thenceforward, he became dead to the universe either of mind 



