the chapters which precede it.) He is represented as disparaging miracles as credentials, because any one may say they were done by magic, or by virtue of ordinary austerities.1

They are far too common to be at all striking, and in no way associated with the person or peculiar gifts of Gotama. Gotama's disciples are not represented as owing their miraculous endowments to Gotama, or to their connection with him; nor is Gotama represented as doing anything which his followers could not also do.

ABSTRUSE QUESTIONS.

If the discussion of abstruse questions was discouraged by the Buddha, it is not because they were not—at any rate in the time of the compilers-much on men's lips. We read constantly of such questions as are raised by antinomian, fatalist, or materialist, theories of the eternity of matter, and so on; and also of schools which evaded all by asserting the impossibility of knowing. What became of the Tathágata after death was a question which the Buddha often declined to answer. Whether Tathá gata' in that place means, as elsewhere, 'the Buddha,' or, as is commonly said, 'the individual,' I cannot attempt to decide. The Buddha met such questions by the counter question: Where does the fire go

1 Dig. Nik. xi. ab init.

2 All these are called by a name, 'ditthi,' which, without absolutely calling them false, stigmatises them as mere 'views.' The word is generally rendered 'heresy.' Sixty-two are enumerated in Brahmajála S.

when it goes out?' which leads him to the idea of the cessation of being by the removal of that on which life depends.

It may be worth while to give an abbreviated translation of this 'Vacchagotta's Fire Sutta.'

Gotama was asked: Do you hold the view that the world is eternal?' He replied, 'No.' 'That the world is not eternal?' 'No.' 'That it has an end?' 'No.' 'That it has not an end?' 'No.' 'That the life and the body are the same?' 'No.' 'That the life is one thing and the body another?' 'No.' That the individual exists after death?' 'No.' That he does not?' 'No.' 'That he both exists and does not exist after death?' 'No.' 'That he neither exists nor does not exist after death?' 'No.'

'How is this? You say "No" to all these questions. What is the evil that you see, that you entirely refuse to adopt any of these views?

2

'Every one of these is a mere view (a heresy), is holding to a heresy-belongs to the desert of mere opinion, the vain show of opinion, the writhings of opinion, the bonds of heresy; and involves pain, vexation, despair, and distress; it does not tend to dissatisfaction, or putting away desire, or the destruction or the quieting of it, or to knowledge, or absolute Buddha-insight, or to Nirvana.'

'Have you then any view?'

1 Maj. Nik. 72.

"This phrase "view"

2 The word for 'holding' is like the word for jungle, and suggests the metaphor, which is carried on in the next word.

the Buddha has put away. The Buddha has seen this: What form is, and its cause and its end; what sensation, its cause and its end; what perception, what conformation, what consciousness, and the cause and ending of each. Thus by the elimination, the extinction, the destruction, the abandonment, the putting away, the disattachment of all fancied and imaginary notions of self-asserting individualist pride, the Tathagata is set free.'

'Whither does the monk, whose mind is thus set free, go to be reborn?'

The phrase "going to be re

6

born" does not apply.' Then is he not reborn?' The phrase as "not being reborn" does not apply.' Then is he both reborn and not reborn?' 'No.' 'Is he neither reborn nor not reborn?' 'No.'

To all these questions you answer, "No!" Here I am utterly at a loss, utterly confounded, and all the satisfaction I had in former conversation with you, Gotama, is gone.'

'Be not at a loss, Vaccha, be not confounded! This doctrine is hard to see, hard to understand, solemn,1 sublime, not resting on dialectic, subtle, and perceived only by the wise; it is hard for you to learn who are of different views, different ideas of fitness, different choice, trained and taught in another school. So let me ask you, Vaccha, this question, and answer it as you will. What think you? if fire is burning before you, you know: This is a fire burning before me. If asked what causes that fire to burn,

1 Translated, 'which brings quietitude of heart.' S.B.E. vol. xii. p. 84.

P

what would you say? Its catching hold of grass and sticks (or, the fuel, viz. grass and sticks). If the fire goes out, you know that it is gone out?' 'Yes.' 'And if asked where it is gone, east, west, north, or south, what would you say?'

'The phrase does not apply, Gotama. When, by the exhaustion of the fuel, the grass and sticks, on which it has caught, and by the want of other supply, the fire has nothing to feed upon, it is said to be extinguished.'

'Just so, Vaccha, when that form, in virtue of which the individual is so called, is abandoned, rooted out, felled, destroyed, so that it can never come up again, the individual is freed from the appellation of form, is (in a condition) deep, immeasurable, difficult to sound as the great ocean; the phrase "he is born" does not apply, nor "he is not born," or the rest. So when that sensation, and that perception, and those elements of being, and that consciousness, in virtue of which he was called an individual, are gone, none of the phrases about being born or not being born are applicable to the case.'

1 D. N. 72.

CHAPTER XVII

CASTE

T is not the case either that Gotama set himself to oppose the caste system, or that he announced as a prominent feature of his teaching— though he taught it-the equal admission of all (wellborn) men into his Community.

He is represented as often speaking of the miseries of low caste,' and recognising the advantage of high caste, ceteris paribus. The pride of his own Sakyan birth is owned, even in putting it aside; 3 and the observance of caste rules by Brahmans is commended.

3

As a matter of fact, he found, according to the records, most of his early followers in the two highest castes. He is thought, however, by modern Buddhists to have preferred middle rank, and to have held the cultivator class (gahapati) the most favourable for religion, because these were not tempted to take life either as princes for pride, or, as the very low castes, from poverty.

1 Sanyut. iii. 2. I, etc.

3 Culla Vagga, vii. 1, 4.

2 Angut. iv. 85.

4 Sutta N. ii. 7.