prompted by passion. When going in search of food, he stands on a rock, or some other elevation, places his hind legs evenly, spreads his front legs before him, draws forward the hind part of his body, bends his back, breathes with a noise like the thunder, and shakes the dust from his body. In the same place he runs to and fro, like a young calf, at this time appearing like a fire-brand whirled round in the night. In compassion towards other beasts, he looks round and roars; at which time the elephants, bulls, and buffaloes, which are on mountains, or near ponds and lakes, fall down the precipice into the water. But can there be compassion in one that feeds on another's flesh? Yes. Thus he thinks: Of what use will it be to kill many? I must not destroy the smaller beasts; and so he has compassion. At his first roar he can be heard thirty miles, in every direction. No biped or quadruped that hears this roar can remain in the same place. When he sports himself, he can leap, to the right or left, an isba, and when he leaps upward, four or eight isbas. If he leaps on even ground, he can leap twelve or twenty isbas; if from a rock or elevated place, sixty or eighty isbas. If his course is intercepted by a tree or rock, he passes an isba round, in order to avoid it. When he roars the third time, he moves thirty miles, as rapidly as the sound of the roar, and at that distance he overtakes the echo of his own voice.*

In the same forest there is a Jambu, or Damba tree, from which Jambudípa, or Dambadiwa, derives its names. From the root to the highest part is 1000 miles; the space covered by the outspreading branches is 3000 miles in cir

* Sára Sangaha, Appendix, Note V. Anguttara Nikaya Wannaná.

cumference; the trunk is 150 miles round, and 500 miles from the root to the place where the branches begin to extend; the four great branches are each 500 miles long, and from between these flow four great rivers. Where the fruit of the tree falls, small plants of gold arise, which are washed into the river, and carried onward to the

This summary of what we may call the geography and astronomy of the Buddhists, is taken from works that are considered as authoritative by the followers of the Tathagato; but nearly every one of the propositions therein contained is proved to be false, unfounded, and unreal, by the demonstrations of science. On reading them, the European, or the native of India who is acquainted with European literature, is ready to say, "What nonsense! these things are too absurd to require to be refuted;" but, though they may appear in this light to those who have received superior instruction, it may be well to remember, that errors which have been regarded as revealed truth during thousands of years, are not to be set aside by an utterance of surprise or an expression of contempt. I shall, therefore, examine, one by one, the statements attributed to the Bhagawá; who is called sarwagnya, the all-knowing; buddha, he who knows all that can be known, and lókawidú, he who knows all worlds.

* Sára Sangaha. Note W. Wisuddhi Magga. Sárattha Dípani.

PART SECOND.-THE ERRORS OF THE

SYSTEM.

1. THE CHAKKA-WALA, OR SAKWALAS.

Ir was the thought of Buddha that there are numberless worlds on a plane level with the world in which we live. When he resided in the Nigrodháráma temple, at Kapila-wattu, his native city, he was asked by Anando about a certain sráwaka, called Abhibhu, who, whilst resident in one of the brahma-lokas, could cause his voice to be heard at the same time in a thousand worlds; and he was further requested by Anando to inform him whether he himself possessed a similar power. Buddha replied; "The Tathagato is unlimited, appameyya (in the exercise of this power.") The same question was asked by Anando three times. Buddha then enquired if he knew what chúlaní lókadhátu meant? And as he intimated, in reply, that this would be a proper time in which to instruct the priests upon the subject, the sage proceeded: "The space illuminated by one sun and moon is a lókadhátu, or world. A thousand of these are a chúlaní lókadhátu, or inferior series of worlds; so that in one chúlaní lókadhátu there are a thousand suns and moons, a thousand Maha Mérus, a thousand of each of the four continents, four thousand great oceans, and a thousand each of the déwa and brahma lókas; this is a chúlaní lókadhátu. Two thousand of these make a majjhimika lókadhátu, or middle series. Three thousand of the middle series make a maha sahassi lókad

hátu, or superior series. Anando! if the Tathagato is wishful, he can cause his voice to be heard in all these worlds, or even a greater number. And it is in this way. By the glory proceeding from the Tathágato, all these worlds are enlightened, and when the enquiry is made, whence this brightness proceeds, he speaks with his voice, (so that in all these worlds it can be heard).*

At another time, when Buddha resided in the Jétawana wihára, near the city of Sáwatthi, a certain déwatá, called Róhatissa, came to him by night, illuminating the whole place by his presence, and respectfully asked him, "Is it possible to know, see, or arrive at, the limit (of the worlds), or a place where there is neither birth, jayati; existence, jiyati; death, miyati; or re-production, chawati ?" Buddha replied, "I do not say there is such a limit;" but he repeated a stanza to this effect:

By journeying (one) cannot arrive at

The limit of the lóka:

(But) without arriving at the limit

There is (yet) freedom from sorrow (dukkha).

The déwatá afterwards said; "In a former birth I was

a rishi, of the same name as now. I had the power of irdhi, and could go through the air. How? As the arrow of the skilful archer cuts through the shadow of a tall tree, with the same ease and rapidity I could step from the eastern to the western boundary of the Sakwala. Being possessed of this rapidity of motion, and length of step, a desire arose in my mind to travel to the end of the world. In this way, and for this purpose, I travelled for the

* Anguttara Nikaya. Appendix, Note X.

period of one hundred years, never stopping unless for eating, drinking, sleeping, or the purposes of nature; but in that space of time I had not arrived at the end of the world; and I then died."*

No one but the Tathágato can know the extent of the infinite worlds. The Sakwalas are not the stars, as is sometimes supposed; they are tub-like masses, of the same shape as our own Sakwala, floating as ships in the great universe of waters, which is everywhere extended, and is itself supported by the air, everywhere extended also. But though the telescope of the astronomer has swept through every part of the heavens, north, south, east, west, above, and below, and revealed the existence of thousands of worlds never seen by the naked eye, he has not discovered anything like a Sakwala. It is not strictly correct that Buddha teaches that the Sakwala is itself a plane. The four continents and the great seas are on a level; but from Aswakanna to Maha Méru there is a series of rises, culminating in the heaven of Sekra. Yet no fact in science is more certain than that the earth is of a shape entirely different to that which is given it by Buddha. There is scarcely any part of it in which Europeans are not found, at any given moment, either as sailors, travellers, or colonists; and as no limit to it has been discovered by them, it is proved thereby that its shape is like that of an orange; not merely round like a circle, but globular like a ball or sphere. It is, therefore, of the same shape as the other worlds that travel through the sky, and can have no limit like a sakwala gala, or wall. To a line there are • Anguttara Nikaya, Note Y.