110 



BUDHISM. 



earth and Maha Meru will be so completely destroyed that 

 no ashes of it will either appear or exist." 



The learned Budhists extend this destruction further 

 than is stated in this quotation from a Sermon of Budha's. 

 A learned Priest, residing near Bentotte, in a controver- 

 sial tract states : " The waters of the sea being dried up, 

 and seven suns shining simultaneously, the earth, the moun- 

 tains, Maha Meru, the Sakwala gala, and all other things 

 being destroyed by fire, the three Brahma worlds, namely 

 C3§e3^DSC3 parisadyaya, @<Kf©g®c£^3S)cs brahmapurohitya, 

 ©C£)3@£5®c8 mahabrahmay a,, together with the six heavens 

 will be burnt up : and thus one hundred thousand millions 

 of Sakwala @s£5i(3(3<d&!325$ esg&Q kelalakshayak sakwala, 

 will at once be burnt up and destroyed." (28) 



The worlds however thus destroyed will again come into 

 being, but not by the power of $$£9§) karmma or the power 

 of the moral merit of its preceding inhabitants, as some 

 among the Natives have affirmed, who should have been 

 better instructed in Budhism ; nor by the power of a Crea- 

 tor. In the Milinda Prashna, a book of very high autho- 

 rity among the Budhists, the Priest Nagasena, speaking of 

 the production of things, states : % All sentient beings are 

 -2ScD§)dD kammaja (that is, produced by the accumulation of 

 the merit or demerit of previous actions.) Fire and all 

 kinds of vegetables are ®ca-q)d& hetuja (produced by ma- 

 terial causes as seeds, &c.) The earth, the mountains, the 



(28.) The priest was considered to have been learned and was 

 a great controversialist. One subject of controversy in which he 

 was engaged with one Walegedere, a priest also of Bentotte, was on 

 the season of Was. His sect would not acknowledge the popular 

 time, which the other priests, both of the Amerapura and Siam 

 sects, would observe. He died some time ago. 



