"See where, streaming forth radiance for thousands of miles,
Ever sits the compassionate Buddha, and smiles,
Giving joy to the victims of sorrow and strife
Who are saved by his law from the sorrows of life.
All his features of beauty no words can express,
For the sands of the Ganges in number are less;
Mark the flowers of the lotus encircling his seat
As if of themselves they sprang up round his feet.
Whoever would enter the home of the blest
In his innermost thoughts should incessantly rest
On that beautiful form like the clear moon on high
When she marches full-orbed through an unclouded sky.
By that halo of light that encircles his head,
On all living beings a radiance is shed.
The sun at noonday is less glorious than be,
His compassion resembles a bottomless sea.
Without ceasing his arms are outstretched to relieve
The afflicted that weep, and the orphans that grieve,
For his mercy is such as none else can display,
And long ages of gratitude cannot repay."

These descriptions are taken from a collection of poems called Tsing-tu-shi. The measure in the original is the usual one of seven words in a line. The Chinese words are monosyllables, and the diction consequently very terse. Our English tongue is different. A metre like that here adopted has more room in it than others for unaccented syllables. This circumstance renders it convenient. It has often been used by translators.

In these descriptions there is a prominent materialism in the expressions. Buddha in the Western heavens is thought of as like the monstrous gilt image seen by the worshippers as they go to a temple on a gala day. Idolatry loves to borrow from nature. Here there are flowers, and singing-birds, and the favourite jade-stone. Buddha is here made popular; there is no abstruse speculation. The boasted Nirvana is abandoned, and a paradise gratifying to the senses takes its place. Many a simple-minded dreamer spends his days in meditating on this picture, and indulging his imagination with the hope that he will one day be born from a lotus flower, in the very joyful world of Amida, and live there for ever gazing on his sacred form.

Footnotes

^156:1 Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i p. 538.

^156:2 Rhode, Religiose Bildung u. s. w. der Hindus.

^163:1 This description is taken from a little work of the T'ang dynasty, called Twan-tsi-sin-yau.

^169:1 Asengha, "Without attachment," was originally a follower of the Mahashasaka school. He first taught the Mahayana system, and wrote the books which contain the Wei-shi doctrines. Then he because the founder of the Yoga school, and wrote a book which he said was dictated to him by Maitreya in the Tushita paradise.--(See in Eitel.)