better than to live defeated.' I awoke. A gentle perspiration covered my forehead, and I felt as though I had passed through a crisis in which I had gained a new lease of life. My dream had been so vivid that when I awoke I had the impression that I and all the visions that surrounded me had been annihilated; yet after a while, when my mind was again fully adjusted, the dream appeared empty to me, a mere phantasma and illusion. Will it not be similar, if at the moment of death we make our final entrance into Nirvana? Nirvana appears to us in our present existence as a negative state, but our present existence is phenomenal, while Nirvana is the abiding state."

Charaka replied: "I should think there is much truth in your words. But the Tathagata teaches that by attaining enlightenment, we shall enter Nirvana even in this present life; and if we do so, it seems to me that our main advantage lies in the comprehension of the transiency of all bodily existence and the permanence of our spiritual nature. Death has lost its terrors to him who sees the immortal

state. He knows that in death he sloughs off the mortal. But here my difficulty begins. I long for Nirvana only as a means to enrich this present life.

"The Tathagata teaches that life is suffering, and he is right. I do not doubt it. He has further discovered the way of emancipation, which is the eightfold noble path of righteousness. Now, I love life in spite of its suffering, and I am charmed with love. Love is life-giving, heart-gladdening, courage-inspiring! Oh, I love love, real worldly love! I admire heroism, the wild heroism of the battlefield! I long for wisdom, not the wisdom of the monks, but practical science which teaches us the why and wherefore of things and imparts to us the wizard's power over nature. Now, with all this I love righteousness; I feel the superiority of religious calmness, and the blissfulness of Nirvana. I do not cling to self, but desire to apply myself: I want a field of activity. All these conflicting thoughts produce in me the longing for a solution: there it lies before me as an ideal which I cannot grasp, and I call it God. Oh, that I could speak to the

[paragraph continues] Tathagata face to face; that I could go to him for enlightenment, that I could learn the truth so as to walk on the right path and find peace of soul in the tribulations of life. Since the Lord Buddha is no longer walking with us in the flesh, there is only one man in the world who can help me in my distress, and that is the great disciple of the Blessed Master, the philosopher and saint Acvaghosha of Magadha."

"Acvaghosha of Magadha!" replied the king. "Very well! We are waging war with the king of Magadha. Let the prize of combat be the possession of Acvaghosha!"

MAGADHA.