V. The closing period of Buddha's public life included the announcement of the Lotus of the Good Law, and the doctrine of Nirvana. Here, in prospect of death, the warmth of human feeling returns. Shakyamuni becomes sympathetic and touching, as in the days of youth when he founded the Hindoo monastic societies, and when, as an enthusiastic preacher, he visited one after another the great cities of Oude and Bahar.

At first Buddha appeared like the sun in the east illuminating the tops of the western hills. Bodhisattwas from immense distances were attracted, and came to recognise him as the teacher whose instructions would guide mankind to the highest truth. This was the Hwa-yen period. Next the sun shone on the valleys, and then upon the wide plains. After the Bodhisattwas had been taught, the first disciples of the human race, the Shramanas, or "listeners," were instructed in the valleys, and then all mankind in the plains. The changes of milk are referred to in illustration. The first teaching was like milk fresh from the cow. There are four subsequent

stages, cream, ordinary butter, rich butter, and the oil which appears on the surface in the last boiling process. In Mongolia and North China milk is boiled to make butter.

The Hwa-yen doctrine is described also as tun, "an abrupt outburst." The teaching of the Bikshus is "gradual and elementary" (tsien), proceeding step by step from the Book of the Forty-two Sections to the Leng-yen, or "Square and equal," and from thence to the Prajna paramita. Beyond that, in the later years of his life, Buddha unfolded the "secret" (pi-mi) and "unfixed" (pu-ting) aspects of his doctrine.

The scene of the delivery of the Hwa-yen Sutra was laid in nine places. The first was under the Bodhi tree of Aranya in the kingdom of Magadha. This is different from the Bodhi tree of the Agama Sutras of the Small Development school. Aranya is "wild," "a quiet place," "belonging to the woods;" and Aranyakah "a forester," "a hermit," "living in seclusion" (see Eitel). The addition of ka marks an agent. Before Buddha's time, and during his youth, the hermit life had already become a fashion in India. He would, when a young and enthusiastic hermit, find himself more at home with men of this class than any other. In some green glade of the forests that skirt the mighty Himalayas, Shakyamuni is pictured by his northern followers with numberless mythological personages assembled before him. P'u-hien, or, as he is called in Sanscrit, Samantabhadra, is the principal speaker. He is one of the fabulous Bodhisattwas. Manjusiri, another, follows hit.

The scene is then suddenly changed to the paradises of the Devas. Indra receives Buddha in one of his palaces