Women began to ask and received permission to take the vows. They were called in India Bikshuni, and in China Niku. Ni is the Sanscrit feminine termination of Bikshu, and ku is a common respectful term used of aunts, young girls, &c.

In twelve years from the commencement of his public teaching Buddha's doctrines had spread over sixteen Indian kingdoms, the monastic system was founded, and the outline of the regulations for the monks and nuns was already drawn.

Shakyamuni taught morality by rules. He hedged

round his community with the strictest regulations, but he made metaphysics the staple article of his oral instructions. He tried first to bring his disciples out of danger from the world's temptations by introducing them to the spiritual association of the Bikshus. Here there was community of goods, brotherhood, the absence of secular cares, strict moral discipline, and regular instruction. The only respite was when the whole community went out into the streets of the city to receive the alms of the householders in the form of money or food. The instruction consisted of high metaphysics and a morality which speaks chiefly of mercy, and only looks at duty on its human side. Obedience to the law of God is in Shakyamuni's morality kept assiduously out of view. Instead of theology he taught metaphysics, and instead of a history of God's dealings with mankind, such as the Bible is to the Christian, he supplied them with an unlimited series of the benevolent actions of the Buddhas and Bodhisattwas.

This is true of Northern and Southern Buddhism, but the system prevailing in Ceylon and Siam has perhaps somewhat less of the metaphysical and more of the moral element than that found in China and Mongolia.

One of the most striking examples of the use of metaphysics as a cure for moral weakness, is found in the Leng-yen-king. The incident, which is of course legendary, is placed by Buddha's biographers in the forty-fifth year of his age and in the city Shravasti. Ananda, the favourite disciple, lingered one evening in the streets, where he proceeded alone from door to door begging. He accidentally met a wicked woman named Matenga. The god Brahma had already resolved to injure Ananda, and now drew him by a spell into the house of Matenga. Buddha, knowing of the spell, after the evening meal returned from the house of the rich man who entertained him, sent forth a bright lotus light from his head and received a charm. He then directed Manjusiri to take the charm