conduct is embodied in what is called the Eightfold Path, which (as interpreted by Professor Rhys Davids) is : Right views, right aspiration, right speech, right conduct, right mode of livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right rapture."

The gist of his ideas upon life was apparently, that all misery comes from individuality.

"Birth is attended with pain, decay is painful, disease is painful, death is painful, union with the unpleasant is painful, painful is separation from the pleasant; and any craving unsatisfied, that too is painful.”

Therefore if you get rid of this craving you get rid of the individuality, and attain the bliss of nothingness-the Nirvana or Neh'ban, which has been so frequently supposed to be a state of individual happiness in another world. Buddha's teaching is not so.

To rid oneself of suffering is the object, not to attain joy. What is the suffering caused by? The clinging to objects on earth. Therefore if one cuts oneself off from all environment the suffering must cease. But this desirable end cannot be attained all at once. For instance, no layman living a normal human life can attain to it, but he can earn progression toward a higher existence in a succeeding life, and eventually win it. To destroy the clinging threads is the work of more than one life-time. It can be begun by purity of conduct, self-control in regard to the sins of the flesh, and this enables the subject to

1 Early Buddhism. (Constable. 1914.)

meditate in utter self-forgetfulness of the world around until he finally gains insight.

The revelation which came to Buddha was that he himself was an Arahat, that is to say, he had passed through many previous existences and attained to that entire absence of "clinging," which carried with it Nirvana. He had no threads, no "suckers" attaching him to life. But instead of instantly resigning himself into a state of passionless non-existence as he was able, he chose to remain on earth and fulfil the span of man's life and pass on to others that vision which he had inwardly seen.

As was natural, an enormous accretion of teachings and legends sprang up after his death, encrusting and enlarging upon his own comparatively few and simple words.

In fact, believing Buddhists now know what, whether he knew it or not, he never revealed in his lifetime—namely, the whole of his 500 previous existences in the flesh. These are embodied in the Jatakas, a series of folk-lore tales, woven with the Buddha as principal actor in animal or human form. These form a favourite subject for paintings, and were gloriously painted, almost at full length, on the walls of one of the temples of Ceylon, "Demala-maha-seya," where, alas, wet and weather have not left much (see p. 233).

It will be seen that the necessity for passing onward from one life to another, as the individual climbs the Ladder of Existence, presupposes transmigration, an idea so deeply embedded in the human mind that it may almost be said to be natural to man. Its hold lies in the explanation

it apparently offers of the inconsistency and injustice of human fate as meted out to ourselves or those around us. If we are paying for what we earned in some previous though unremembered existence, we cannot prate of injustice. This doctrine, however, as expounded in the original Buddhist creed, is not the same as glibly quoted by people of the Western world. They apparently imagine that the soul or entity passes entire into a new body which happens to be there, and that somewhere, after the summit of perfection has been reached, the individual, who, even now, has glimpses of previous existences, will be able to look back over the whole sequence. Some sort of a heaven, or spiritual, and still individual, existence is usually postulated as the crown of endeavour.

Now Buddha admitted no soul, and in his belief individuality was the beginning and end of suffering; no heaven was to be the reward of effortonly extinction.

Professor Rhys Davids points this out emphatically.

"In the popular belief, followed also in the Brahmin theology, the bridge between the two lives was a minute and subtle entity called the soul, which left the one body at death and entered into the new body. The new body happened to be there, ready, with no soul in it. The soul did not make the body. In the Buddhist adaptation of this theory, no soul, no consciousness, no memory, goes over from one body to the other. It is the grasping, the craving, still existing at the death of one body that causes the new set of

skandhas, that is, the new body, with its mental tendencies and capacities, to arise. How this takes place is nowhere explained."

It is therefore merely the clinging to life which passes on in the present world, gathering to itself a body in which to clothe itself, and carry on the contact with that material environment for which it craves. The craving ensures continued contact, and final severance from all material things is only ensured when the last "feeler" is atrophied and there is no adherence of any kind to this world left in what, for want of words, must be described as the entity.

In the Buddhist creed the resumption of life may be in the form of an animal instead of a human being.

"Those who do not keep a guard over their passions, who are abusive, and who refrain from giving alms, will fall into the Bohng of animals. Just as one man by reason of previous merits is born a prince, while another barely scrapes into human existence as an outcast pagoda slave, a grave-digger, a leper, or a heretic, so there are grades in the state of animals. To be an elephant is, of course, nearly as good as being a man; to be a white elephant is usually very much better.

. . The vulture is highly honoured because it never takes life but lives entirely on carrion.” 1

Sir George Scott's version of the Buddhist Ten Commandments is :

"Not to take any kind of life, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to lie, not to drink in1 The Burman: His Life and Notions, by Shway Yoe (Sir J. George Scott). (Macmillan. 1896.)

toxicating liquor. Also, not to eat after midday, not to sing, dance, or play on any musical instrument, not to use cosmetics, not to sit, stand, or sleep on platforms or elevated places improper for one's position, not to touch gold or silver."

The first five are incumbent on all Buddhists, the second five only on the monks, but the laity are expected to observe them on sacred days.

Sir George Scott is writing of Burma, but the Buddhism of Burma and Ceylon is very closely akin, both being rooted in the Siamese school. For in 1750 King Kirti Sri brought over to the island twenty Siamese monks to revive the national religion, and with very few exceptions the island Buddhists follow their teaching. The monks wear the yellow robe with the right shoulder uncovered. To this fraternity belong the shrines of Kandy, Anuradhapura, Adam's Peak, Kelani, and Tissamaharama.

"

Though more properly described as "monks than priests, because ministerial duties do not enter into their vocation, yet these men do give discourses and read aloud the Buddhist sacred books to those who visit the shrines. The gramophone is now even adopted in some places so that these discourses may be repeated and preserved. To visit the shrines and make offerings is a very constant duty of the Buddhist laity, and the precepts of cleanliness, dislike of taking animal life, and charity may be very clearly observed in their daily lives.

It seems extraordinary that so apparently negative and colourless a creed should have spread and satisfied millions of people, and should have