Note 15 — Chapter XIII · NAGÂRA. FESTIVAL OF BUDDHA’S SKULL-BONE. OTHER RELICS, AND HIS SHADOW.

In Singhalese, Pasê Buddhas; called also Nidâna Buddhas, and Pratyeka Jinas, and explained by ‘individually intelligent,’ ‘completely intelligent,’ ‘intelligent as regards the nidânas.’ This, says Eitel (pp. 96, 97), is ‘a degree of saintship unknown to primitive Buddhism, denoting automats in ascetic life who attain to Buddhaship “individually,” that is, without a teacher, and without being able to save others. As the ideal hermit, the Pratyeka Buddha is compared with the rhinoceros khadga that lives lonely in the wilderness. He is also called Nidâna Buddha, as having mastered the twelve nidânas (the twelve links in the everlasting chain of cause and effect in the whole range of existence, the understanding of which solves the riddle of life, revealing the inanity of all forms of existence, and preparing the mind for nirvâṇa). He is also compared to a horse, which, crossing a river, almost buries its body under the water, without, however, touching the bottom of the river. Thus in crossing saṃsâra he “suppresses the errors of life and thought, and the effects of habit and passion, without attaining to absolute perfection.”’ Whether these Buddhas were unknown, as Eitel says, to primitive Buddhism, may be doubted. See Davids’ Hibbert Lectures, p. 146.