Death of Hwei-yuen, 8th month, 6th day.--A founder of the Tsing-tu school.

Death of the founder of the monastery,--also of a priest's own religious instructor, of the priests who admitted him to the vows, and of his parents.

5. SUPPLEMENTARY ANNIVERSARIES.

Commencement of summer (Li-hia), 4th month, 16th day.--This anniversary is traced to the usage of the earliest Hindoo Buddhists, who, when summer arrived, came together

and remained associated under strict monastic rule during the hot months. This period over, they began their begging excursions afresh.

"Yu-lan-p'en" (U-lam) ceremony, for feeding hungry ghosts, 7th month, 15th day.--The authority for this festival is the Yu-lan-p'en Sutra, translated into Chinese about A.D. 270. It terminates the summer, as the preceding began it.

End of summer, 7th month, 16th day.

Commencement and end of winter (Li-tung, Kiai-tung), 10th month, 15th day, and 1st month, 15th day.

First day of the year.--Special worship.

Birthday of Shakra, 1st month, 9th day.--Shakra, or Indra, god of the atmosphere, is, in the modern editions of Pe-chang-ts'ing-kwei, "Manual of Buddhist Regulations and Festivals," identified with the well-known Tauist divinity Yu-ti. Oriental religions are so mutually complimentary, that they sometimes adopt each other's divinities without scruple. The Sanscrit 'Indra Shakra' is rendered in Chinese Ti-shi (formerly shak).

Birthday of "Yo-wang p'u-sa" (Bhaishajyaraja), "Medical king and Bodhisattwa," 4th month, 15th day.

Birthday of the Bodhisattwa "Lung-shu" (Nagarjuna), or "Dragon-tree," 7th month, 25th day.--He was the fourteenth patriarch, and author of the "Hundred Discourses," one of the most noted of the Buddhist Shastras.

Birthday of the ancient Buddha Jan-teng, "Light lamp" (Dipankara Buddha), 8th month, 22d day.--Shakyamuni in a former kalpa was a disciple of this Buddha.

Winter solstice.--Special worship.

Birthday of the Bodhisattwa Hwa-yen, 12th month, 29th day.

The method of observing these anniversaries, and the prayers to be used, are very minutely detailed in the book from which these notices are translated.

The dates are those of the lunar months of the Chinese national almanac.

It may be doubted whether more than a very few of them are identical with the festivals of the Southern Buddhists, viz., those of Ceylon, Siam, and Birmah, there being several of the great Bodhisattwas who are not mentioned in works by foreign authors treating of the Buddhism of those countries.

In Ceylon the prevalent legend of Gautama's life states that he was born on the day of the full moon in the second month of spring. This differs irreconcilably.