than two centuries later, by the Emperor Asoka and distributed throughout his Empire. He, of course, had ample means of knowing whether the relics were those of the Buddha or not, since they had been in charge of the royal house of Patna from the beginning.

(7) Many of the Buddha's disciples, being Arahats and thus having control over their vital powers, must have lived to great ages, and there was nothing to have prevented two or three of them, in succession to each other, to have covered the whole period between the death of the Buddha and the reign of Asoka, and thus to have enabled the latter to get from his contemporary every desired attestation of the fact of the Buddha's life. [**]

(8) The "Mahavansa," the best authenticated ancient history known to us, records the events of Sinhalese history to the reign of King Vijaya, 543 B.C.--almost the time of the Buddha--and gives most particulars of his life, as well as those of Emperor Asoka and all other sovereigns related to Buddhistic history.

105. Q. By what names of respect is the Buddha called?

A. Sakyamuni (the Sakya sage); Sakya Simha (the Sakya Lion); Sugata (the Happy One); Satthta (the Teacher); Jina (the Conqueror); Bhagavat (the Blessed One); Loka-natha (the Lord of the world); Sarvajna (the Omniscient One); Dharmaraja (the King of Truth); Tathagata (the great Being), etc.

Footnotes

^1:* The word 'religion' is most inappropriate to apply to Buddhism, which is not a religion, but a moral philosophy, as I have shown later on. But by common usage the word has been applied to all groups of people who profess a special moral doctrine, and is so employed by statisticians. The Sinhalese Buddhists have never yet had any conception of what Europeans imply in the etymological construction of the Latin root of this term. In their creed there is no such thing as a 'binding' in the Christian sense--a submission to or merging of self in a Divine Being. A'gama is their vernacular word to express their relation to Buddhism and the BUDDHA. It is pure Samskrit, and means 'approach, or coming;' and as 'Buddha' is enlightenment, the compound word by which they indicate Buddhism--Buddhagama--would be properly rendered as 'an approach or coming to enlightenment,' or possibly as a following of the Doctrine of SAKYA MUNI. The missionaries, finding A'gama ready to their hand, adopted it as the equivalent for 'religion'; and Christianity is written by them Christianiagama, whereas it should be Christiani bandhana, for bandhana is the etymological equivalent for 'religion.' The name Vibhajja vada--one who analyses--is another name given to a Buddhist, and Advayavadi is a third. With this explanation, I continue to employ under protest the familiar word when speaking of Buddhistic philosophy, for the convenience of the ordinary reader.