BAUDDHAS» &c. OF NEPAL. 435 



An accurate view of the Bauddha system of belief would involve the 

 perusal of a number of the voluminous works above specified, and would demand 

 more time than could be bestowed upon the task by any person, not otherwise 

 wholly unemployed : the time and application necessary would, no doubt, also 

 be unprofitably expended, as the works, from the short notice already given, are 

 evidently filled with endless subtelties and subdivisions of the most puerile 

 and interminable description : a very few observations must therefore suffice 

 in this place, on the Religious notions of the Bauddhas of this part of India. 



Speculative Buddhism embraces four very distinct systems of opinion res- 

 pecting the origin of the world, the nature of a first cause, and the nature and 

 destiny of the soul. 



These systems are denominated from the diognostic tenet of each, S'wab- 

 hdvi/ca, Aislvwarika, Ydtnika, and Kdrmika, and each of these again admits of 

 several subdivisions, comprising divers reconciling theories of the later Baud- 

 dha teachers, who, living in quieter times than those of the first Doctors, and 

 instructed by the taunts of their adversaries, and by adversity, have attempted 

 to explain away what was most objectionable, as well as contradictory in the 

 original system. 



The Swabhdvikas deny the existence of immateriality; they assert, that 

 matter is the sole substance, and they give it two modes, called Pravritti, and 

 Nirvrifii, or action and rest, concretion and abstraction. Matter, they say, 

 is eternal as a crude mass, and so are the powers of matter, which powers 

 possess not only activity, but intelligence. The proper state of existence of 

 these powers is that of rest, and of abstraction from every thing palpable and 

 visible, (Nir'vritti,) in which state they are so attenuated, on the one hand, and 

 so invested with infinite attributes of power and skill on the other, that they 

 want only consciousness and moral perfections to become gods. When 



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