THE STATURE OF GOTAM A BUDDHA. 



75 



span," and thereby intended to give his height. He 

 does not anywhere state, on what authority he, nine and-a- 

 half centuries after the sage's deaths fixed the standard of this 

 measure, by which he would assign to Buddha's stature three 

 times the average height of a middle-size man of his age. 

 It is indeed extremely doubtful, that in this explanation he 

 simply translated what Mahinda had previously stated in 

 his Sinhalese Comment; for Buddhaghosa unquestionably 

 refers to the size of a span of this, i. e. } his age ; and it will 

 be observed, that 700 years had then elapsed since Mahinda 

 wrote his Sinhalese Commentary. That Buddhaghosa was 

 therefore led into an error, from a misapprehension of the 

 expression sugata, there is less reason to doubt, than that 

 he. was misled by any traditional account that might have 

 come down to his own times ; for, there is abundant testimony 

 in the Tepitaka to prove that Gotama was an ordinary man 

 of his age. What, therefore, was the height of man in the 

 6th century b. c, or what was meant by sugata vidatthi in 

 the Institute already noticed, will form the subject of 

 investigation in this paper which I respectfully submit to 

 this Society. 



Anciently people wrote the most extravagant things of 

 man and his nature. Their books abound in the mar- 

 vellous. We read of giants, and gigantic men. Even the 

 Old Testament, using the current phraseology of the times, 

 alludes to them in different places, in the same way that 

 the Mahavansa speaks of them as once existing in Ceylon. 

 But, I believe it may safely be affirmed that these giants 

 were no more gigantic than the Yakkhas of Mahanama ; 

 or that the latter were no more devils than the " evil 

 demons," who, according to Buchanan's History of Scotland, 

 "having been allied to the daughters of Dioclesian, begot 

 giants, whose descendants remained even at the landing of 

 Brutus." The giants of the Bible, and the Mahavansa were 



