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sometimes produce specimens of considerable beauty. While travelling among the Mongols, he says: "In a great temple, called the Temple of Gold, we saw a picture which struck us with astonishment. It was a life-size representation of Bouddha, seated on a rich carpet, surrounded by a kind of glory, composed of miniatures allegorically representing his thousand virtues. This picture was remarkable for the expression of the faces, the gracefulness of the design, and the splendour of the colouring. All the personages seemed full of life. An old Lama, who attended us, told us it was a treasure of remotest antiquity, comprehending on its surface the whole doctrine of Bouddha; that it was not a Mongol painting, but came from Thibet, and was executed by a saint of The Eternal Sanctuary," meaning the temple where the Grand Lama resides. Borri, a Jesuit missionary to Cochin China, says he saw an empty recess behind the high altar in Buddhist temples, and, upon inquiry, was informed that it was consecrated to the Supreme Being, who was invisible and incomprehensible, and therefore not to be represented by any image.

The monuments of Buddhist devotion are exceedingly numerous. On the terrace of a very old temple at Gaya, the following inscription, in the Birman language, was found a few years since: "This is one of the eighty-four thousand shrines erected by Sri Dharm Asôka, ruler of the world, at the end of the two hundred and eighteenth year of Bouddha's annihilation." Some remains of the places of worship are immensely massive, and bear marks of extreme antiquity. Mr. Knox, speaking of Ceylon, says: "The votaries of Bouddha took pride in erecting temples and monuments to his memory, as if they had been born solely to hew rocks and great stones, and lay them in heaps." The largest of the subterranean temples on that island is one hundred and ninety feet long, and forty-five feet high. It contains a recumbent figure of Bouddha, thirty feet in length. One of the most remarkable of these stupendous structures is the gigantic temple in Java, called

Boro Buddor. It is in a ruinous condition, but full of elaborate carving and colossal images. In Meaeo, a city of Japan, is a magnificent temple erected to Dai Bod, by which they mean the God Bouddha. It contains the image of a gigantic Bull, butting his horns against the Mundane Egg. This huge animal is said to be formed of massive gold, with a collar about his neck adorned with precious stones. The egg is on the surface of a large stone basin filled with water, in which the feet of the bull are immersed. The basis of the whole is a large square altar, engraved with many ancient characters. Prints of Bouddha's feet are shown on rocks in various countries. Several of these rocks are covered with sculptured writing, and on some of them he is represented as crushing a serpent under his heel. This was probably intended to signify that by his ascension he vanquished death. There are the same representations of Crishna on very ancient monuments in Hindostan, doubtless for the same reason, for the serpent was a common Oriental emblem for the destruction of life.

The Buddhists are exceedingly devout; but, with the exception of a few contemplative Lamas, they are not inclined to mysticism. They are generally fond of pageantry, such as showy processions to their temples and sacred places, and imposing ceremonies in the Lamaseries. They delight in pungent perfumes and gorgeous colours. Their worship is of a clamorous character, consisting of loud chants and prayers, accompanied by large and noisy instruments, such as gongs, drums, cymbals, trumpets, and fifes. They make frequent prostrations on their house-tops, and are always fingering a rosary, or murmuring prayers, even while engaged in their daily avocations. "As evening twilight approaches, all the Thibetian men, women and chil dren, stop business and meet together in the public squares, where they all kneel down and chant prayers. In a large town, these sounds produce an immense solemn harmony. These vesper prayers vary according to the season of the year."

They have solemn ceremonies to welcome the new moon and the full moon, and changes of the seasons. On the last day of the full moon all the Lamas in Tartary assemble at midnight, in state mantles and mitres, and chant prayers. The ceremony is concluded with loud cries, accompanied by a tremendous noise of drums, trumpets, and conch shells. This custom is said to have been established to drive away Evil Spirits, which infested the people and cattle.

On certain occasions, the Tartar Lamas recite prescribed formulas, and toss up little pictures of horses in the air, with the belief that Bouddha will transform the bits of paper into living horses, for the relief of travellers in the deserts.

There are festivals during which the Buddhists, in some countries, scourge themselves before the altars, as did the votaries of Isis in ancient Egypt. The degree of sin expiated is according to the number and severity of the blows.

The Feast of Lanterns in China bears strong resemblance to a Hindoo custom, and to the Egyptian festival in honour of Neith. On that evening every Chinese throughout the empire lights a lantern. Gorgeous lanterns of painted glass, illuminated with torches, are suspended from all the arches and towers. It is said two hundred millions of lamps are burning on that occasion.

In Birmah a white elephant is kept near the royal palace, sumptuously fed and magnificently caparisoned. People prostrate themselves before him, and bring valuable offerings, which he is taught to take with his trunk. This homage is said to originate in a belief that the soul of Bouddha once animated a white elephant in the course of its manifold transmigrations.

The doctrines and ceremonies of Buddhism vary considerably in different countries. This must necessarily happen to all religions that are extensively embraced; because a new faith unavoidably mixes with the previous. ideas and customs of nations where it is introduced. BudVOL. I.-21*

dhism was peculiarly subject to such admixture; because its teachers, wishing to avoid any coercive measures for the propagation of their religion, invariably adopted into their system all the deities their proselytes had been accustomed to revere. Thus Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Indra, the Gods of the Mongols, and the Spirits of the Chinese, all found a place in their legends, and were imaged in their temples, though always represented as inferior to Bouddha and his Saints. But though details vary much in different countries, the prominent features of Buddhism are everywhere the same. They all believe in One Invisible Source of Being, sometimes called The Supreme Intelligence, sometimes named The Void. From him emanated all things in the universe, and into him will all things eventually return. Not only this world will be destroyed and renovated, at stated periods, after immense intervals, but even those superior Spheres where happy Spirits dwell, must go through similar revolutions, and all the inhabitants pass into other forms. Whenever this world is created anew, Spirits who have so far wandered from the Supreme as to dwell in the lowest Paradise, will be sent into material bodies, for probationary discipline. Among them will be many who had been previously embodied on the old earth, before it was destroyed. After millions and millions of ages, the time will at last come, when everything in the universe, even the deities themselves, will be merged in the Original Source whence they came. Then new emanations will again commence, followed by new worlds, which will be again destroyed. Nothing is exempted from this perpetual, ever-revolving change, except those souls who, through perfect holiness, have become absorbed into the Supreme Being, and have thus become One with Him. Bouddha is said to have appeared four times, in worlds preceding this; and always with the benevolent purpose of withdrawing Spirits from the vortex of illusions, in which they were involved by their immersion in Matter. Into this present world he descended in the form of Bouddha Sakia. His mother was a beautiful and holy virgin, be

trothed to a king; and his birth was foretold in a miraculous dream. The object of his mission was to instruct those who were straying from the right path, expiate the sins of mortals by his own sufferings, and procure for them a happy entrance into another existence, by obedience to his precepts and prayers in his name. They always speak of him as one with God from all eternity. They describe him as "one substance, and three images." His most common title is "The Saviour of the World." As he has repeatedly assumed a human form, to facilitate the reunion of men with his own Universal Soul, so they believe that there always will be incarnations of his Spirit. Chinese Sacred Books predict the coming of a new Fo in the latter days, whose mission it will be to restore the world to order and happiness.

They all believe in the pre-existence of souls. The forms they take are merely transient apparent images; as metal may be moulded into the form of a lion, then dissolved into a mass of metal again, then be remoulded into the form of a man or a god. They never say a man is dead; they always say "his soul has emigrated." The connection of the soul with matter they consider an evil and a punishment; therefore enjoyment through the senses is incompatible with holiness, and it is necessary to despise the body and the outward world, in order to become saints. There are regions of Paradise, and regions of torment, where souls are rewarded or punished according to the exact amount of their deserts, before they again enter into some mortal form. These heavens and hells, of various degrees, are painted with great luxury of imagination by theologians. The lower the regions, the more unhappy the inhabitants, the more subject to miserable transmigrations. The higher the celestial abodes, the purer the bliss, and the more extended its duration. But even the highest spheres are not exempted from revolutions, consisting of the destruction of old forms, and the creation of new ones; though this will be after intervals so immense, that they seem like eternity.

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