But now, maker of the tabernacle, thou hast been seen; thou shalt not make up this tabernacle again. All thy rafters are broken, thy ridge-pole is sundered; the mind, being sundered, has attained to the extinction of all desires." Prof. Max Müller, in commenting on these words, says: "Here, in the maker of the tabernacle, i.e., the body, one might be tempted to see a Creator. But he who is acquainted with the general run of thought in Buddhism, soon finds that this architect of the house is only a poetical expression, and that whatever meaning may underlie it, it evidently signifies a force subordinated to the Buddha, the Enlightened." 1 There is here,

undoubtedly, the idea of subordination, but its value depends on the meaning of the poetical expression, "maker of the tabernacle," and on the source of the power which breaks its "rafters" and sunders its "ridge pole." Now, although the "force" which acts in the making of the tabernacle may be subordinated to the Buddha, it does not follow that the spring of that force is so. The idea of creation, no doubt, is wanting in the reference to the formation of the body. It is simply the destiny of the soul under certain circumstances to clothe itself with the illusory material of this world. But this destiny, which is equivalent to the Karma,2 is only a necessity, a law, and there must be something beyond the law, a something which gives it vitality. It is only in a figurative sense that Karma can be said to be the maker of the tabernacle. That there is an existence outside of the "force" is implied by the very words of Gautama. It is impossible for a force, a law, to become visible except in the sense of being recognised, and, therefore, when Gautama says "maker of the tabernacle thou hast been seen," he can mean only that that which 1 Max Muller (Trübner's "Literary Record," p. 563). 2 Supra, p. 270.

underlies all things becomes visible to the eye of the soul. This spiritual sight, by the ecstatic feeling it generates, causes the extinction of all desires, and thus, in a figurative sense, sunders the mind from the body. It is at this point that the soul enters Nirvâna, the body thenceforth becoming a mere earthly covering waiting only to be put off by death. But what is that which the soul has seen, bringing it en rapport with the invisible? It must be of the same nature as the soul itself, and it can only be the fountain of Enlightenment, the source of Buddhahood. That, therefore, which the Buddha subordinated to himself is destiny, the karma which necessitates the continued birth and rebirth of the human soul on earth, but this only through his having become en rapport with that which is higher than destiny, which is outside of all law, and which is the Absolute and Eternal Existence.

If this be a true explanation of Gautama's philosophy, his religious notions would appear to have been a form of pantheism. It may be, that Gautama taught that the only beings exempt from destruction at the end of every Kalpa are "the Buddha, the Enlightened and truly Free; even the gods and the spirits "who in the circle of spirits have raised themselves to the world of gods," and the dwellers in the Brahma worlds, "purely spiritualized beings, without body, without weight, without desire, far above men and gods," being alike subject to the inevitable law of change. If so, however, it shows only that in these various spiritual beings Gautama found not the Absolute One. But above them are the dwellers in the higher Brahma world, the Enlightened, those who are alone not "affected or disturbed by the collapse of the Universe," and in these we have one phase of the Buddhistic idea of Deity.1 According

1 See Trübner's "Literary Record," (1869), p. 561.

to this view, each of the pure and formless spirits, the Buddhas, beings "without body, without weight, omnipresent and blessed within himself," may be esteemed God, as being purest expressions of His being. When, therefore, it is said that "according to the metaphysical doctrine of Buddhism, the soul cannot dissolve itself into a higher being, or be absorbed in the absolute substance, as was taught by the Brahmans and other mystics of ancient and modern times," it is not because Buddhism does not know the Divine, the Eternal, the Absolute. It is only because the soul itself is Divine and Eternal, the expression of the Absolute, which becomes man for a time by contact with matter, but which by penances and deep meditation is capable of again attaining to the Buddha state, of becoming again the Enlightened, the absolutely Free. The maker of the tabernacle the sight of which broke in upon Gautama's spiritual vision was the Divine Essence within himself. He truly then passed into Nirvâna, for in view of this wondrous revelation there was no more room for passion or desire, there is nought but an abiding sense of the Eternal.

In this way alone can the fact be explained that, in the very same canon in which the most extreme views of nihilism are put into the mouth of Gautama, he is still spoken of as living after having entered into Nirvâna, and even as showing himself to those who believe in him. The Tibetans, who address prayers to the Bodhisattvas and not to the Buddhas, do so, not because the latter have ceased to exist, but because when beings have "arrived at the estate of a most perfect Buddha it would be beyond their power to contribute to man's salvation, the Buddhas caring no longer for the world when they have once left it." This expresses the true 2 Chips, vol. i., p. 234.

1 Do., p. 563.

cit., p.

66

3

3 Schlagintweit, op. 37. The perfected Buddhas have much in common with the Pitris, or 'great progenitors of the Hindus." "The Ordinances of Menu," ch. iii. v. 192.

spirit of later Buddhistic teaching, and the indirect evidence it gives as to the nature of Nirvâna is none the less valuable because that spirit is on the whole intensely selfish.1

"2

Prof. Max Müller points out that in Brahmanic writings Nirvâna is used "as synonymous with Moksha, Nirvritti, and other words, all designating the highest stage of spiritual liberty and bliss, but not annihilation. Nirvana may mean the extinction of many things-of selfishness, desire, and sin, without going so far as the extinction of subjective consciousness." And this agrees well with what Gautama is himself reported to have said to the Brahmanic sage Rondraka, shewing that the latter understood what Nirvâna meant: "Friend, this path does not lead to indifference for earthly objects does not lead to freedom from passion, to the hindrance of the vicissitudes of existence, does not conduct to peace, to perfect intelligence, nor to the state of sramana, to Nirvana." The original idea embodied in this phrase may probably be ascertained from the popular sense now assigned to it. Koeppen says that "whilst the blissful nothing was praised as the highest good, though with negative predicates, it became imperceptibly a condition

3

1 This is quite consistent with the existence of individual Buddhists who show forth in their lives the benevolent spirit of the founder of their religion. It is pleasing to read the testimony borne by Mr Childers to the fine character of the Ceylonese priest Yátrámullé Dhammáráma, who died a few years ago. Mr Childers writes: "those who have had the good fortune to know him personally will recollect the singular fascination he exercised upon all with whom he was brought into contact, a fascination due to his gentle spirit, his deep piety, his modesty, his charity, his self-abnegation, his earnest faith. So warmly was he beloved by the simple villagers among whom his lot was cast that a fellow-townsman of his once said to me, 'there is not a native of Bentota who would not gladly give his life to save that of Yátrámullé."-Trübner's "Literary Record," No. 78, Mar. 1872, p. 123.

2 Trübner's "Literary Record," (1869), p. 563.

8 Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, op. cit., p. 23.

of everlasting peace, freedom from pain, apathy, without which the oriental man cannot imagine perfect happiness. This popular definition of the Nirvâna became especially necessary when Buddhism reached ruder and stronger nations than the tired-out Indians, and for whom total extinction had no great attraction. Without this popular conception of the Nirvâna the Buddha religion would scarcely have conquered the greater portion of Asia."1 There is really no evidence, however, that total extinction was more fitted to recommend itself to the Hindu mind than to that of any other people, and it is equally improbable that if Gautama had taught such a doctrine,2 his teaching would have recommended itself to his hearers. Extinction of being was not what they desired, it was escape from metempsychosis, and this is what the founder of Buddhism provided for them.

It is not surprising that in the latest schools of Buddhistic thought Nirvâna means "return into the universal soul, rising into the abstract Monas, divinity, the primeval Buddha." This Koeppen ascribes to the influence of Brahmanism and Sivaism, and probably rightly so, but the fact that such influence has been so strongly exercised renders it extremely probable that there was a more fundamental agreement between Hinduism and Buddhism than might be supposed from the meaning which came to be attached to Nirvâna by the philosophers. Whatever might be the practical opposi1 Op. cit., p. 307.

3

2 Dr Eitel thinks that Gautama left the question of the nature of Nirvâna undecided in his own mind, but he states that on that subject the most ancient Sutras which we possess coincide with the popular literature of modern Buddhism. Op. cit., p. 68.

3 Curiously enough the very comparison between the body and a tabernacle ascribed to Buddha (Supra, p. 290) is made in the Institutes of Menu and in a similar connection. In the 6th chap. Bhriga says, "The body is a mansion (for the soul), whose bones are rafters and beams; nerves and tendons, cords; muscles and blood, mortar; skin, outward covering. . . . Having gradually abandoned all earthly