No. 29. — 1884.] BUDDHISTICAL CEEEMONIES. 



205 



the ten commandments of Buddha, which are spoken of as 

 the kotiya samvara silaya — i.e. the ten million precepts, or 

 one hundred laks of precepts. The chief of these are 

 contained in Patimokkha, which in fact sets forth all that 

 is necessary. But it has been the delight of the priesthood 

 to sub-divide the 227 precepts, and to refine upon them until 

 the various sub-heads are of almost infinite number, and 

 have come to be proverbially known as the ten millions. 



3. Meditation.— It is of five kinds : (a) mettd, (b) 

 harund, (c) muditd, (d) upekhd, (e) asubhd— the perfect 

 exercise of (a) friendliness, (b) compassion, (e) goodwill, 

 (d) equanimity, and (e) the practice of indifference. The 

 end of this, as of all other forms of Buddhist meditation, is 

 to realise the impermanency and vanity of all things, the 

 decay and misery which are the lot of all things that are 

 born, to cast off all desires, and to look only to Nirvana, 

 which alone is permanent, where there is no birth, and there- 

 fore neither decay nor misery. There is an excellent account 

 of Bhavana in Hardy's " Eastern Monachism" pp. 243-252. 



4. The giving of merit. — Giving to others to share in the 

 merit acquired by one's own acts. The original merit is 

 not thus diminished to the giver ; the sharer partakes of 

 it, but in a lesser degree. The share of merit he obtains 

 depends on the spirit in which he takes part in the parti- 

 cular act of merit. The original merit remains, as has been 

 said, undiminished, just as a lamp from which a hundred 

 other lamps have been lighted continues to burn with un- 

 diminished lustre. A Buddhist mother will take her child 

 by the hand when she goes with her humble offering of 

 food to a Buddhist monastery, and will tell him to share in 

 the merit in full faith in this touching doctrine, and not 

 only to train him up in the path of love and charity. So, 

 when a man goes on a pilgrimage, he will call together his 

 friends and bid them share in the merit. Their good wishes 

 will attend him, returning to them as reflected merit, the 

 result of the merit acquired by the endurance of toil, and 

 pain, and suffering, in his pious journey. 



5. The sharing in the merits of another. — As explained 



a2 



