Imagine a life of Socrates composed by a modern author on the hypothesis that he really spoke all that Xenophon and Plato said in his name. Each or these authors imparted his own colouring to his account, and introduced his own thoughts in various proportion; and Plato's works certainly constitute the record of his own intellectual life rather than that of Socrates. His rambles in the world of thought have ever since his time been regarded as his own much more than they were those of his revered teacher. How foolish and useless would be the endeavour to construct a biography of Socrates on the principle that he wrote Plato, that the Platonic dialogues were all the products of his mind, that the incidents real or fictitious they record were all capable of arrangement in a self-consistent scheme, and that the philosophical principles they contain were all developed in a symmetrical succession, and at definite epochs in the life of Socrates! Such is the hopeless task undertaken by Buddha's Northern biographers.

Buddha, in the eighteenth year of his public teaching, is said to have gone to Ceylon, called in the Sutras Lenga island. He went to the top of Adam's Peak, and here

delivered the Lenga Sutra. A Bodhisattwa said to him, "Heretics prohibit the eating of flesh. How much more should Buddha enforce abstinence from flesh!" Buddha assented, and gave several reasons why Bodhisattwas and others should conform to this rule. Lenga Island is described as inhabited by Yakshas, and as unapproachable by men except by those who are endowed with magical power.

During the next year Buddha is said to have visited one of the heavenly paradises, in the middle of the second range of the heaven of colour and desire, where an assemblage of Buddhas and Bodhisattwas from the ten regions gathered before him. Here he delivered the Ta-tsi-king. Each P'usa appeared in the form of the element he governed, whether it were "air" (k'ung), water, or any other. The Devas and Nagas now came forward, and said, "We will henceforth protect correct doctrine. If any kings scourge members of the monkish community, we will not protect their kingdoms. The disciples of Buddha will abandon their inhospitable territories, which will then remain unblessed. Not having the religious establishments which bring happiness on a country, pestilence, famine, and war will commence, while wind, and rain, and drought will bring ruin on the agriculture."