4 



* absolute truth — as now, by way of confirmation, one 

 swears by what is best, by what is absolutely sure, and as 

 " the god swore by the subterranean water, there seems- 

 * :< to be implied- here this, that the essential principle of 

 " pure thought, the innermost being, the reality in which 

 ^consciousness has its truth, is water; I declare, as it 

 " were, this pure certainty of my own self as object, as 

 " God." 



That is to say, the-' basis of the oath is laid upon the^ 

 essential and purest form- of absolute reality. It is easy, 

 then, to see why the many different oaths of the Sinha- 

 lese Buddhists, who deny all such ideas as essence and 

 reality, do not fall within the canon laid down by Hegel, 

 and are not referable to any one distinct principle ; while 

 they are thus unlike the various forms of oath observed 

 by people of different race and religion. 



The most solemn Sinhalese oaths are governed by no- 

 considerations of the absolute and immutable reality of 

 their object, such as are characteristically assigned by 

 Hegel to the essence by which truth may be demonstrated. 

 They are various in form and arbitrary in principle;. The 

 respective weight which each carries with it is* due to an 

 estimation of the purely material advantage or disadvan. 

 tage which, in the end, it is likely to secure, rather than 

 to any belief in its real a priori efficacy. The* worst evil 

 which can happen to a Buddhist is the misfortune of re- 

 peated birth, and we have often heard Kandyans seriously 

 attribute their disasters in this life to some deficiency of 

 merit on their part in a previous state of existence. — Nir- 

 wana is the great final cause of life, and every thing 

 which is likely to stand in the way of attaining to Nirwana 

 is scrupulously and conscientiously avoided. Each Bud- 



