Soon after this, several priests were put to death (A.D. 515) for practising magical arts. This is an offence attributed more than once by the Chinese historians to the early Buddhists. The use of charms, and the claim to magical powers, do not appear to have belonged to the system as it was left by Shakyamuni. His teaching, as Burnouf has shown, was occupied simply with morals and his peculiar philosophy. After a few centuries, however, among the additions made by the Northern Buddhists to popularise the religion, and give greater power to the priests, were many narratives full of marvels and impossibilities, falsely attributed to primitive Buddhism. These works are called the Ta-ch'eng, or "Great Development"

[paragraph continues] Sutras. Another novelty was the pretence of working enchantments by means of unintelligible formulae, which are preserved in the books of the Chinese Buddhists, as in those of Nepaul, without attempt at explanation. These charms are called Dharani. They occur in the Great Development classics, such as the "Lotus of the Good Law," Miau-fa-lien-hwa-king (Fa-hwa-king), and in various Buddhist works. The account given in the T'ung-kien-kang-muh of the professed magician who led the priests referred to above, says that he styled himself Ta-ch'eng, used wild music to win followers, taught them to dissolve all the ties of kindred, and aimed only at murder and disturbance.

The native annotator says that Ta-ch'eng is the highest of three states of intelligence to which a disciple of Buddha can attain, and that the corresponding Sanscrit word, Mahayana, means "Boundless revolution and unsurpassed knowledge." It is here that the resemblance is most striking between the Buddhism of China and that of other countries where it is professed in the north. These countries having the same additions to the creed of Shakya, the division of Buddhism by Burnouf into a Northern and Southern school has been rightly made. The superadded mythology and claim to magical powers of the Buddhists, who revere the Sanscrit as their sacred language, distinguish them from their co-religionists who preserve their traditions in the Pali tongue.

In the year A.D. 518, Sung-yun was sent to India by the prince of the Wei country for Buddhist books. He was accompanied by Hwei-sheng, a priest. He travelled to Candahar, stayed two years in Udyana, and returned with 175 Buddhist works. His narrative has been translated by Professor Neumann into German.

In A.D. 526, Bodhidharma, after having grown old in Southern India, reached Canton by sea. The propagation of Buddhism in his native country he gave in charge to one of his disciples during his absence. He was received with the honour due to his age and character, and immediately