282 DR J. MUIR S ACCOUNT OF THE 



respects Buddha departed from the principles of the Brahmans, who originally held 

 that the highest knowledge was, primarily, at least, the exclusive privilege of the 

 superior castes, and who communicated that knowledge through the medium of 

 learned treatises in an abstract and scholastic shape. The new teacher rested his 

 pretensions, first, on the benevolence of his character and the sanctity of his life ; 

 and, secondly, on the supernatural knowledge and faculties which were regarded 

 as necessarily springing from that sanctity. His own past existence had not 

 been exclusively divine ; he had passed through various stages of transmigration, 

 gradually accumulating merit, and earning the favour of the preceding Biiddhas; 

 and by their grace, and his own efforts, he was now advancing to the highest 

 perfection. This system recognised no supreme Deity. The previous Buddhas 

 had risen to their divine dignity by the same stages as their successors were to 

 pass through. As Buddha prohibited the destruction of animal life, and was 

 therefore opposed to the sacrificial rites of the Veda, and as his doctrine evidently 

 tended to set aside the prerogatives of caste, he was certain to encounter the 

 opposition of the Brahmans. The Buddhistic legends recount the various dis- 

 plays of miraculous power by which he discomfited his opponents, and persuaded 

 multitudes to embrace his doctrines. The new creed triumphed over Brah- 

 manical opposition, gained an increasing number of adherents, and a few cen- 

 turies after the founder's death was not only widely diffused over Northern 

 India, but had also been propagated by zealous missionaries in the suiTounding 

 regions. It is, however, a remarkable fact, that this system, which retained such 

 a permanent hold on foreign countries such as Ceylon, Burma, and China, was 

 destined to die out on the soil from which it had sprung. The causes of this 

 decline and extinction of Buddhism in India have not yet been properly investi- 

 gated. It is greatly to be lamented that the illustrious scholar, EuGfiNE Buenouf, 

 who threw so much light on the origin of Buddhism,* should not have lived to 

 extend his researches into the later fortunes of this religion in its native country. 

 Whether it was that the Brahmans, by regaining their ascendant over the minds 

 of the Indian princes, or by accommodating their mythology and ceremonial to 

 the popular taste, succeeded in overpowering the Buddhists, and in expelling 

 them from Hindostan, or in terrifying them into submission, or whether it was 

 that Buddhism, by abandoning its original principles, had lost its early influence, 

 and so merged into the superstitions by which it was surrounded, — the fact is 

 undoubted, that it has now disappeared from every part of the Indian continent 

 except Nepal. As nirvana, the final goal to which Buddhism professes to conduct 

 its disciples, is considered by most scholars to mean nothing different or distin- 

 guishable from annihilation, the wonder is rather that this system should have 

 continued to flourish anywhere, than that it should have ceased to exist in India. 



* See his " Buddhisme ludien," from which the above sketch has been derived, either immediately 

 or at second hand ; M. Barthelemy St Hilaire's woi'k on the same subject ; Pi'ofessor H. H. 

 Wilson's paper on Buddhism, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1856; and Professor 

 Max Muller's Sketch of Buddha's career. 



