were called Shakyans and belonged to the warrior or Kshatriya caste.

In spite of the fact that the Mahawansa describes the visits of Gautama, and the three preceding Buddhas, to Ceylon, there seems to be not the slightest historical evidence for such events, and though the course of his life is fairly well known, there is nothing in it which confirms the idea of this visit. When the chroniclers of Ceylon are dealing with facts which came within their own cognisance they have often been proved to be remarkably accurate, if the few natural flourishes to embellish and aggrandise their kings are allowed for; but when writing purely from imagination, it is evident that their possession of that quality was not despicable.

The continuance of any tradition rests more upon the will to believe than is commonly supposed, and annually thousands of Buddhists still gaze in awe and reverence on the monstrous fivefoot impression on Adam's Peak, supposed to have been there imprinted by Gautama on the last of his three visits to the island; while the other foot rested in the centre of Anuradhapura, on the spot where the most sacred of the dagabas, Ruanweli, now stands. How this remarkable feat was accomplished needs no explaining to the faithful. The print on Adam's Peak bears the sign of the sacred lotus, which emblem is invariably to be seen sculped on the soles of prostrate images of Buddha.

As the whole life of the people of Ceylon is bound up with their religion, and their ancient monuments are overwhelmingly of the religious rather

than of the civil life, it is necessary to give a very brief sketch of what this religion means to its votaries.

Gautama, who began life in luxury as the son of a raja, received "revelation" which enlightened him as to the riddle of life.

Sitting one night under the tree, which henceforth was called the Buddha-tree, he arrived at perfect insight into the nature and cause of sorrow, and the way of destroying it. He was then Buddha, the Buddha of the age. He had attained, unaided, and by direct insight and conscious realisation, the saving truth for the benefit of gods and men."'

For seven times seven days he sat thus, part of the time sheltered from storms and rain by the hood of a cobra, who watched over him tenderly.

Hence the origin of the many-headed cobras so constantly found in Buddhistic sculpture. Possibly this touch and that of the "Bodhi-tree were later additions designed to attract and bring into the fold the remnant of those who followed "Tree and Serpent worship," for a characteristic of early Buddhism was a vast catholicity. In its origin at all events it claimed to spring from Hinduism, and to embrace and develop the spiritual side of that religion, and, entirely different as it is from Hinduism at the present day, many educated Brahmins still hold this idea. It is certain, in any case, that many very ancient beliefs were incorporated into the new religion, such as that of transmigration.

The summary of Buddha's reflections as to 1 Buddhism in Ceylon, by Bishop Copleston, 2nd ed. 1908.

:

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."

1

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