In the view of Shakyamuni, a moral fate rules the world. Innumerable causes are constantly working out their retributive effects. These are the yin-yuen of which we hear the Chinese Buddhists say so much. This moral fate is impersonal, but it operates with rigid justice. Every good action is a good yin-yuen, securing at some future time an infallible reward. All virtuous and wise persons are supposed to be so, as the result of good actions accumulated in former lives.

Buddha was now approaching the last year of his life. In the eleventh month he said to the Bikshus gathered round him in the city Vaishali, "I shall enter the Nirvana in the third month of next year."

Footnotes

^35:1 Eitel's Handbook. The word Ho-shang is translated from Upasaka into the former language of Khoten. From Turkestan it was introduced into China.--(Fan-yi-ming-i).

^39:1 Eitel's Handbook.

^40:1 Nahash in Hebrew, "serpent," is said to be named from the hissing sound of the animal. To "utter incantations" is nahash or lahash.

^41:1 Chi-tu-lun. See Fo-tsu-t'ung-ki, xxx. 13.

^42:1 When at Galle in 1858 I noticed this.