"And now--his errand done--the sage,
Dismissed with gifts and human due,
Athwart the ether swanlike flew,
And reached again his hermitage."

Buddhism, the system of religion taught by Buddha, starts with the doctrine common to it and Hinduism of transmigration. [**] It then goes on to say that pain and

pleasure are simply the result of Karma (works), no notice whatever being taken of the existence or nonexistence of God. It assumes that existence is and must be miserable; and that the highest conceivable good is to obtain entire exemption from existence. Death does not necessarily bring this exemption; it may be but an entrance into a worse form of it than is at present endured. Buddha's four " Sublime verities," containing the germ of his system, are as follows:--The first is that pain exists; the second, that desire is the cause of pain; the third, that pain can be ended by Nirvana, or exemption from existence, practical annihilation; the fourth shows the way that leads to Nirvana. The great thing is to get rid of desire, and when this is accomplished, the soul is ready for complete Nirvana, and a man dying in this state will not again be born. He taught the evil of caste distinctions, and all who embraced his tenets became members of a great brotherhood. Instead of the painful mortifications and costly sacrifices by which the Hindus were compelled to make expiation for sin, he taught that confession and promise of amendment were all that was necessary. Its moral code is one of the most perfect in the world: the spring of all virtue is Maitri, which can only be translated as charity or love. "It does not express friendship, or the feeling of particular affection which a man has for one or more of his fellow-creatures, but that universal feeling which inspires us with good-will towards all men and constant willingness to help them." [**]

There is one peculiarity of the followers of Buddha as compared with the Hindus, viz. the preservation of and veneration for relics of their founder. With the exception of a legend stating that Krishna's bones were

placed in the image of Jagannath, and another teaching that Vishnu cut the dead body of Sati into fifty-one parts, each of which is now enshrined in a temple, we have no record of relics being preserved by the Hindus. But the Buddhists profess to have carefully preserved parts of their great leader, and enshrine them in Dagobas. One of the most celebrated of these is represented on page <page 226>. A tooth of Buddha is believed to be kept in it; in others a single hair is most religiously guarded. These Dagobas are not temples, though in some cases they form part of buildings that are, or have been, used for worship.

Footnotes

^225:* Goldstucker, Chambers's Cyclopaedia.

^225:+ "Hindu Mythology," p. 248.

^227:* Kennedy, "Hindu Mythology," p. 250.