After the gods and dragons had finished this speech, Buddha addressed himself to a son of a Deva called Vishvakarma, the patron of artisans, the Yaksha Kapila, and fifteen daughters of Devas, having eyes with two pupils, and directed them to become the patrons of China. Each of them was told to take 5000 followers and wherever there was strife, litigation, war, or pestilence, to put a stop to those evils, so that the eye of Buddha's law might long remain in that land.

The mythology of India appears in this description in its true light. The aboriginal inhabitants of a distant

island like Ceylon were thought of as a race of demons. The beings called Devas, the Theoi of Greece, and the Dei of the Latins, were a class subordinate to Buddha, the self-elevated sage. For want of a better word, the Chinese term for "Heaven," T'ien, is applied to them. The "dragons," or nagas,--with which the Hebrew nahash and English snake may be compared,--are here viewed as a class of celestial beings.

All these beings, however exalted, are regarded by the Buddhists as subject to the commands of their sage. Continuing to rule the world, they do so in the interest of the new law which Shakyamuni has introduced. Hence in Buddhist temples they are placed at the door, and are worshipped as invisible protectors of all faithful Buddhists.

When the legend says that "gods" (Devas) and "dragons" (Nagas) agreed to protect Buddhism, the meaning is, that at this period in Buddha's life the Indian kings began to favour his religion in a more public and extended manner than before.

Shakyamuni next delivered--according to the Chinese account of him--the Prajna Paramita (Pat-no-pa-la-mit-ta). Prajna is "wisdom." Para is "the farther side" of a river. Mita is "known," "measured," "arrived at." There are six means of arriving at the farther shore of the sea of misery. They constitute the six Paramitas. Of these, that called the Prajna is the highest. The original works containing this system were thought too voluminous to be translated in full by Kumarajiva. It was not till the seventh century that Hiuen-tsang the traveller, after his return from India, undertook the laborious task of translating one of these works, which extended to six hundred chapters, and one hundred and twenty volumes. Nagarjuna, the most noted writer among the twenty-eight patriarchs, founded on some of these works the Shastra

of the "Measure of Wisdom." The Chinese Chi-k'ai, the sage of T'ien-t'ai, made much use of the Prajna in constructing his system. He had only Kumarajiva's fragmentary translations, such as the "Diamond Classic."