THE SEVEN WAYS TO NEIBBAN.

This is an abridgment of all the principles that constitute the system of Buddhism. In the Legend of Buddha the reader has become acquainted with the life of the founder of Buddhism, the establishment of his religion, and the promulgation of his chief doctrine. In the following pages he will find compressed within narrow limits the several observances to be attended to in order to reach the goal of quiescence. As it is chiefly and principally by the help of meditation and contemplation that such a point can ever be attained, the reader must be prepared to wade up to his very chin in the somewhat muddy waters of metaphysics if he has a wish to penetrate into the very sanctuary of Buddhism.

To encourage the reader, and console him in the midst of his fatiguing journey through such dreary tracts, the writer would remind him that he has first borne up the fatigues of such a journey, and that, impelled by friendly feelings, he has endeavoured to smooth the rugged path in behalf of those that would follow him on the same errand. How far he has succeeded in his well-meant efforts he will not presume to state. But he will say this much, that if his success be commensurate with his exertions he may entertain a well-founded hope that he will not be altogether disappointed in his anticipation, and feel somewhat confident that he has afforded to the uninitiated some help to go over the difficult ground of metaphysics.

Following, in this instance, the line of conduct he has adopted through the foregoing pages of this book, the writer will allow the Buddhist author to speak for himself and explain his own views on the different subjects under consideration. His sole aim will ever be to convey as faithfully and as succinctly as possible the meaning of the original he has under his eyes. The task, however simple it may appear, is far from being an easy one, as the Burmese are utterly incapable of fully understanding the metaphysical portion of their religious system. Their ignorance is calculated to render even more obscure what is per se almost beyond the range of comprehension, because they must have frequently put an erroneous interpretation on many Pali words, the meaning of which is far from being accurately determined.

Our Buddhist doctor begins his work with enumerating the advantages to be derived from a serious and constant application to the earnest study of these seven ways. “Such an exercise,” says he, “has the virtue to free us from all evils; it expands the intelligence in the highest degree, and leads straight to Neibban. Man, through it, is delivered from all errors, is happy, and becomes during his life an honour to the holy religion of Buddha.”

The various subjects he intends to treat of in this work are arranged under seven heads, which are laid down in his own original way as follows:—The observance of the precepts and the practice of meditation are the two-fold foundation of the spiritual edifice. The consideration of the nature and form of matter shall be the right foot of the sage; the investigation about the causes and principles of living beings shall be as his left foot; the application of the mind to find out the four high-roads to perfection, and the obtaining the freedom from all passions, shall be as his right and left hands; and the possession of the perfect science or knowledge shall be as his head. The happy man who shall have reached so far will be certain to obtain the deliverance.

This summary is thus divided by our guide into seven distinct parts, which will be condensed into six articles.

It is as well to add that this work, an abridged translation of which is now set before the reader, was composed at first in the Siamese language at Bangkok, and has been subsequently translated into Burmese. We find, therefore, that all the principles expounded throughout are received as genuine on the banks of the Irrawaddy as well as on those of the Meinam, and may be looked upon as a faithful exposition of the highest tenets of Buddhism, such as they are held in both countries. This observation confirms a notion which has been denied by many, viz., that the chief doctrines of Buddhism are pretty nearly the same in all the places where it has become the dominant creed. The discrepancies to be met here and there relate principally to practices and observances which present to the eyes of the observer an infinite variety of hues and forms. When Buddhism was established in several countries, it did not destroy many observances and practices that were found deeply engrafted on the customs and manners of the people; it tolerated them, and made with them a tacit compromise. As, for instance, the worship of Nats existed among the tribes of the Irrawaddy valley long before the introduction of Buddhism. Most of the superstitious rites now prevailing in Burmah originate from that belief. With the Chinese the worship of ancestors continues to subsist side by side with Buddhism, though the latter creed has nothing to do with it. In Nepaul and at Ceylon, Hindu superstitions obtrude themselves on the view of the observer to such an extent that it is not easy to state which of the two creeds obtains the preference.

ARTICLE I. OF THE PRECEPTS.

Our author, in a truly philosophical spirit, at first puts to himself the three following questions: What is the origin of the law? What is man, the subject of the law? What is the individual who is the promulgator of the law? The three questions he answers in the following manner: 1st. All that exists is divided into two distinct parts, the things which are liable to change and obey the principle of mutability, such as matter, its modifications, and all beings which have a cause;[45] and those which are eternal and immutable, that is to say, the precepts of the law and Neibban. These have neither author nor cause; they are self-existing, eternal, and placed far beyond the reach of the influence that causes mutability. 2d. As to the publisher of the law, Buddha, he is a mere man, who during myriads of centuries has accumulated merits on merits, until he has obtained the Neibban of Kiletha, or the deliverance from all passions. From that moment till his death this eminent personage is constituted the master of religion and the doctor of the law. Owing to his perfect science he finds out and discovers all the precepts that constitute the body of the law. Impelled by his matchless benevolence towards all beings, he promulgates them for the salvation of all. He is not the inventor of those precepts; he merely discovers them by the power of the supreme intelligence, in the same manner as we perceive clearly during the night, by the help of a light, objects hitherto wrapped in utter darkness. 3d. Man, who is to be subjected to the observance of the law, is distinguished by the following characteristics. He possesses more knowledge than the animals and other beings, except the Nats and Brahmas; his intelligence and thoughts reach farther than those of other beings; he is capable of reflecting, comparing, drawing inferences, and observing freely the rules of life;[46] despite the allurement of his passions, he can free himself from the three great passions, concupiscence, anger, and ignorance; finally, he is a descendant from those Brahmas who, in the beginning of this world, came from their seat, lived on earth, and, by their eating the rice Tsale, lost all their glorious privileges, and became beings similar to those who are known to us under the denomination of men.

The great end to be aimed at in the observance of the precepts of the law and the exercise of meditation is the obtaining of a state of complete indifference to all things. The state of indifference alluded to does not consist in a stupid carelessness about the things of this world. It is the result of a knowledge acquired with much labour and pain. The wise man who has possessed himself of such science is no longer liable to the influence of that vulgar illusion which makes people believe in the real existence of things that have no reality about them, but subsist only on an ephemeral basis, which incessantly changes and finally vanishes away. He sees things as they truly are. He is full of contempt for things which are at best a mere illusion. This contempt generates a complete indifference for all that exists, even for his own being. He longs for the moment when it shall be given to him to cast away his own body, that he may no longer move within the circle of endless and miserable forms of existence. In this sense must be understood the state of perfect quietism or indifference, which is the last stage the wise man may reach by the help of the science he possesses. The religious of the Brahminical creed have professed the same indifference for all the accidents of life. Hence our Buddha, when he became a perfected being, looked on the wicked Dewadat with the same feelings as he did on the great Maia, his mother. Numberless Rathees or anchorites have ever been eulogised for having allowed themselves to be devoured by ferocious beasts or bit by venomous snakes, rather than offer the least resistance that could exhibit a sign of non-indifference. Entire was their unconcern towards their very body, which they knew well is, as everything else, a compound of the four elements, a mere illusion, totally distinct from self.

Five commandments constitute the very basis whereupon stand all morals, and are obligatory on all men without exception. They include five prohibitions. (It is not a little surprising that the five precepts obligatory on all men are merely five prohibitions designed not to teach men what they have to do, but warning them not to do such things as are interdicted to them. This supposes that man is prone to do certain acts which are sinful. The Buddhist law of the five precepts forbids him to yield to such propensities, but it does not teach him particular duties to perform. It does not elevate man above his original level, but it aims at preventing him from falling lower.) The five prohibitions are: Not to destroy the life of any being; not to steal; not to commit adultery; not to tell lies; not to drink any intoxicating liquors or beverages.

Our author seems to be a perfect master in casuistry, as he shows the greatest nicety and exactness in explaining all the requisite conditions that constitute a trespassing of those precepts. We will give here but a few samples of his uncommon proficiency in this science. As regards the first prohibition, he says, five things are necessary to constitute an offence against the first commandment, viz., a being that has life, the intention and will of killing that being, an act which is capable of inflicting death, and the loss of life of that being consequent on the inflicting of that action. Should but one of these conditions be wanting, the sin could not be said to have taken place, and therefore no complete trespassing of the first prohibition.

Again, as regards the second precept, five circumstances or conditions are necessary to constitute a trespassing, viz., an object belonging to another person, who neither by words nor signs showed any intention to part with it; the knowing that the owner intends to keep possession of it; having the actual intention to take away secretly or forcibly that object; an effort to become possessed of the thing by deceiving, injuring, or by mal-practices causing the owner or keeper of the thing to fall asleep; and, finally, removing the thing from its place, however short may be the distance, should it be but that of the length of a hair of the head.

For the infraction of the third precept the following conditions are required: the intention and will of sinning with any person of another sex, which comes within the denomination of Akamani-jathan, that is to say, persons whom it is forbidden to touch; acting up to that intention and the consummating of such an act. Women that fall under the above denomination are divided into twenty classes. The eight first classes include those that are under the guardianship of their parents or relatives; the ninth class comprises those affianced before they be of age; the tenth, those reserved for the king. Within the ten other classes come all those who, owing to their having been slaves, or from any other cause, have become concubines to their masters, or married their seducers, &c.

The fourth prohibition extends not only to lies, but likewise to slander, coarse and abusive expressions, and vain and useless words. The four following conditions constitute a lie, viz., saying a thing that is untrue; the intention of saying such a thing; making manifest such an intention by saying the thing; and some one’s hearing and clearly understanding the thing that is uttered. That the sin of medisance may be said to exist, it is required that the author of it should speak with the intention of causing parties to hate each other or quarrel with each other, and that the words spoken to that end should be heard and understood by the parties alluded to.

The fifth precept forbids the drinking of Sura and Meria, that is to say, of distilled liquors and of intoxicating juices extracted from fruits and flowers. The mere act of putting the liquor in the mouth does not constitute a sin; the swallowing of it is implied.

Besides these five general precepts, obligatory on all the faithful without exception, there are three other precepts, or rather counsels, that are strongly recommended to the Upasakas, or pious laymen. They are designed as barriers against the great propensity inherent in nature which causes men to exceed in all that is used, through the senses of taste, hearing, seeing, smelling, and feeling. They are so many means that help to obtain a sober moderation in the daily use of the things of the world.

The first counsel regulates all that regards eating. It forbids using any comestible from noon to daybreak of the following morning. The second interdicts the assisting at plays, comedies, and the use of flowers and essences with the intention of fondly handling and smelling them. The third prescribes the form and size of beds, which ought never to be more than one cubit high, plain and without ornaments. The use of mattresses and pillows, filled with cotton or other soft substances, is positively prohibited. The very intention of lying upon these enervating superfluities, and a fortiori reclining on them, constitutes the breaking of such a command.

These three latter precepts are to be observed chiefly in the following days, on the 5th, 8th, 14th, and 15th of the waxing moon, and on the 5th, 8th, and 14th of the waning moon, as well as on the new moon. The pious Upasakas sometimes observe them during the three consecutive months of the season of Lent.

In the opinion of our author those men and women are deserving of the respectable title of Upasakas who have the greatest respect for and entertain a pious affection towards the three precious things, Buddha, the law, and the assembly of the perfect. They must ever view them as the haven of salvation and the securest asylums. They must be ready to sacrifice everything, their very life, for the sake of these three perfect things. During their lifetime, under all circumstances, they must aim at following scrupulously the instructions of Buddha, such as they are embodied in the law and preached by the Rahans.

Five offences disqualify a man for the honourable title of Upasaka, viz., the want of belief and confidence in the three precious things, the non-observance of the eight precepts, the believing in lucky and unlucky days,[47] or in good and bad fortune, the belief in omens and signs, and keeping company with the impious, who have no faith in Buddha.

We now come to the rules which are prescribed to all the Buddhist religious. They are 227 in number, and are found in a book called Patimauk. This book is the vade mecum of all religious. They study it and often learn it by heart. On certain days of each month the religious assemble in the Thein. The Patimauk is then read, explained, and commented upon by one of the elders of the fraternity. It is an abridgment of the Wini, the great book of discipline. It teaches the various rules respecting the four articles offered by the faithful to the religious; that is to say, vestments, food, mats, and the ingredients for mastication. These rules likewise regulate all that relates to the mode of making prayers, devotions, walking, sitting, reclining, travelling, &c. Everything is described with a minute particularity.

Here, if any interest could be awakened, would be the place to enter into the system of casuistry carried by Buddhist religious to a point of nicety and refinement truly astonishing. Suffice it to state that they have gone over the boundless field of speculative conjectures respecting all the possible ways of fulfilling or trespassing the precepts and regulations that concern the body of religious.

Every law and precept must have a sanction. This essential requisite is not wanting in the Buddhist system. Let us examine in what consists the reward attending a regular and correct observance of the precepts, and what is the punishment inflicted on the transgressors of these ordinances. As usual, we will follow our author and allow him to make known his own opinions on this important subject. It is often inquired of us, says he, why some individuals live here during many years, whilst others appear but for a short time on the scene of this world. The reason of the difference in the respective condition of these persons is obvious and evident. The first, during their former existence, have faithfully observed the first command and refrained from killing beings, hence their long life; the second, on the contrary, have been guilty of some trespassings of this precept, and therefore the influence of their former crimes causes the shortness of their life. In a similar manner we account for all the differences that exist in the conditions of all beings. The observance or trespassing of one or several precepts creates the positions of happiness and unhappiness, of riches and poverty, of beauty and ugliness, that chequer the lives and positions of mortals in this world.

In addition to the rewards bestowed immediately in this world, there are the six seats of Nats, where all sorts of recompenses are allotted, during immense periods, to those who have correctly attended to the ordinances of the law. There are likewise places of punishment in the several hells, reserved to the transgressors of the precepts. The conditions of animal, Athoorikes and Preittas, are other states of punishment.

A lengthened account of all that relates to the blissful regions of Nats and the gloomy abodes of hell is found in one of the great Dzats, or accounts of the former existences of Gaudama, given by himself to his disciples, when he was a prince under the name of Nemi. The writer has read and partly translated this work, which delightfully reminded him of the fine episodes on similar subjects he had read in the sixth book of the Æneid. The wildest, most fertile, and inventive imagination seems to have exhausted its descriptive powers, on the one hand, in multiplying the pleasures enjoyed in the seats of Nats, and beautifying and adorning those delightful regions; and, on the other, in representing with a dark and bloody pencil the frightful picture of the numberless and horrid torments of the regions of desolation, despair, and agony.

All that is so abundantly related of the fortunate abodes of Nats in their sacred writings supplies the Buddhist religious with agreeable and inexhaustible topics of sermons which they deliver to their hearers, to excite them more effectually to bestow on them abundant alms. The credulous hearers are always told that the most conspicuous places in those regions are allotted to those who have distinguished themselves by their great liberalities. We think it idle and superfluous, uninteresting and fatiguing to repeat those fabulous accounts of the seats of Nats and abodes of hell, as given at great length by Buddhist authors. The only particulars deserving to be attended to are these: the reward is always proportionate to the sum of merits, and punishment to that of demerit. There is no eternity of reward or of punishment.[48]

This first article shall be concluded by an important remark bearing upon the system under consideration. The seats of happiness, as already mentioned, are divided into two great classes; the one including the superior, and the other the inferior seats. The latter are the six seats of Nats, and are tenanted by beings as yet under the influence of concupiscence and other passions. Those who observe the five general precepts have placed, and, as it were, established themselves on the basis whereupon stands perfection, but not yet in perfection itself; they have just crossed the threshold thereof. They are as yet imperfect; but they have prepared themselves for entering the way that leads towards perfection; that is to say, meditation, or the science of Dzan. The very reward enjoyed in those seats is, therefore, as yet an imperfection. The superior seats can only be reached by those who apply themselves to mental exercises. These exercises are the real foundation of the lofty structure of perfection and the high-road to it.

ARTICLE II. OF MEDITATION AND ITS VARIOUS DEGREES.

This and the following articles contain subjects of so abstruse and refined a nature, that it would require one to possess the science of a Buddha to come to a right understanding of them. The difficulties arising from this study are due to the confused and very unsatisfactory ideas of the Buddhist philosophers respecting the soul and its spirituality, and perhaps to the inability of the writer to understand the vague and undefined terms employed to convey their ideas on these matters. The field of Buddhist metaphysics is, to a European, in a great measure a new one; the meaning of the terms is half-understood by the Burmese translators; definitions of terms do not convey explanations such as we anticipate, and ideas seem to run in a new channel; they assume, if we may say so, strange forms: divisions and subdivisions of the various topics have no resemblance to what a European is used to in the study of philosophy. The student feels himself ushered into a new region; he is doomed to find his way by groping. Finally, the false position assumed by the Indian philosophers, and the false conclusions they arrive at, contribute to render more complicated the task of elucidating this portion of the Buddhist system. That the difficulties may be somewhat lessened, and the pathway rendered less rugged and a little smooth, the writer proposes to avoid as much as it is in his power overcharging with Pali terms the explanations he is about to afford, under the guidance of the Buddhist author.

In the preceding article we have treated of meritorious actions that are purely exterior, and briefly alluded to the nature of the rewards bestowed on earth and in the six seats of Nats upon those who have performed these good actions. Now we leave behind all the exterior good deeds, and turn the attention of our mind to something more excellent, to those acts that are purely interior, and are performed solely by the soul and the right exercise of its faculties; that is to say, by meditation and contemplation.

The root of all human miseries is ignorance. It is the generating principle of concupiscence and other passions. It is the dark but lofty barrier that encircles all beings and retains them within the vortex of endless existences; it is the cause of all existences, and of all those illusions to which beings are miserably subjected; it causes those continual changes which take place in the production of all beings. This great cause once found and proclaimed by Buddha, it was necessary to procure a remedy to counteract the action of ignorance, and successfully oppose its progress. Another antagonistic and opposite principle had to be found, adequate to resist the baneful agency of ignorance and stem its sad and misfortune-creating influence. That principle is science or knowledge. Ignorance is but a negative agent: it is only the absence of science. Let knowledge be, and ignorance shall vanish away in the same manner as darkness is noiselessly but irresistibly dissipated by the presence of light.

All beings in this universe, says our author, are doomed to be born and die. We quit this place to go and live in another; we die here to be born elsewhere. We can never be freed from pain, old age, and death. Whether we like it or not, we must suffer and always suffer. But why is it so? Because we do not possess the perfect science. Were we blessed with it, we would infallibly look towards Neibban, and then, escaping from the pursuit of pain and miseries, we would infallibly obtain the deliverance from those evils which now incessantly press upon us. It rests with us only to perfect our intelligence, so that we might gradually attain to the perfect science, the source of all good. But by what means is so desirable an end to be obtained? By the exercise of meditation, answers, with a decided tone, our philosopher. This word implies, besides, our intellectual operations of a superior order, such as contemplation, visions, ecstasy, union, &c., which are the more or less complete results of that intellectual exercise.

The act of meditating can take place but in the heart, where resides the mano, or the faculty of knowing. Its object can never be but the nam-damma, literally the name of the thing; or, in other terms, the things of a purely intellectual nature. But it can by no means happen in the seats of the other senses or organs, such as the eyes, the ears, &c., which are only channels to communicate impressions to the faculty of mano.

The constitutive parts of meditation are five in number. Witteka, the action of raising the mind to an object; Witzara, the attentive consideration of that object; Piti, the bringing of the soul and body to a state of satisfaction; Suka, the pleasure enjoyed in the thing considered; Ekatta, the perseverance or stability of the mind in that object. There is also Upekka, which implies a greater and more intense degree of fixity of the mind, extending not only to one object in particular, but to all things.

It may be called the absolute quietism of the soul, and the net result of a complete course of general meditation on the universality of things. It is the last and highest point that can ever be reached.

To explain more fully the nature and definitions of the two first parts, our philosopher has recourse to the following comparison. Let us suppose a man that has to cleanse a rusty copper vessel. With one hand he grasps the vessel, and with the other he rubs it up and down, right and left. This is exactly what is done by the means of Witteka and Witzara. The first gets hold of the object of meditation, and the second causes the mind to pass and repass over it, until it has perfectly seen it in all its particulars.

The third stage in the exercise of meditation is that of Piti, which consists in a sort of transitory delectation, experienced by him who has reached that third step of mental labour. It produces on the whole frame the following effects:—It seems to him that is engaged in that exercise that the hairs of his head stand on an end, so strong is the sensation he then feels; at other times it produces in the soul sensations similar to that of the lightning that rends the atmosphere. Sometimes it is in a commotion resembling that of mighty waves breaking on the shore; at other times the subject is, as it were, carried through the air, or only raised above the ground, and occasionally it causes a chill running throughout all the limbs. When these results have been, through persevering efforts, repeatedly experienced with an ever-increasing degree of intensity, the following effects are attained:—The body and the soul are completely restrained, subdued, and composed; they are almost beyond the influence of concupiscence. Both acquire a remarkable lightness, so that the exercise of meditation offers no further trouble or labour; the natural repugnance or opposition to self-recollection is done away with, then the exercise of meditation becomes pleasing from the pleasurable state of the soul and body, and finally both parts are in a true and genuine condition, so that what there was previously in them either vicious or opposed to truth disappears at once and vanishes away. Such are the various effects experienced by the soul that has reached the degree of Piti, or mental satisfaction.

When the soul and body have thus been perfectly subdued, and freed from all that could wrongly affect them, the soul then reaches the state of Suka, that is to say, of perfect and permanent pleasure and inward delight. The effects or results thereof are called Samati, or peace or quiescence of the soul. As a matter of course, that state of inward peace has several degrees both as regards the time it lasts and the intensity of the affection. It lasts sometimes for a moment, or for a period of uncertain duration, as it happens when we reflect on some subject, or we listen to a sermon. At other times its duration is longer; when, for instance, we are about to enter into contemplation or ecstasy, and it lasts as long as we are in one of these states.

From Piti originates the Samati-tseit, the idea or consciousness of inward quiescence. It is the secondary cause of the real joy and delight, and is followed by an unshaken resolution to adhere to all the precepts of the law. It produces in the soul a certain freshness, expansion, and ravishment in the practice of virtue. Such a state is illustrated by the following comparison. A traveller has to go over a very difficult road; he is exposed to an intense heat, and tormented with a burning thirst. Let us imagine the intensity of his delight when he finds himself on the brink of a rivulet of clear and cool water; such is precisely the state of the soul under the influence of Piti. The state of Suka follows it very soon. It is exemplified by the condition of the traveller who has been perfectly refreshed and relieved from thirst and fatigue, and enjoys the delightful and pleasurable effects resulting therefrom.

The last state or the crowning point to be arrived at by the means of meditation is that of Upekka, or perfect fixity, whence originates an entire indifference to love or hatred, pleasure or pain. Passions can no more affect the soul in that happy condition. But in this, as well in the preceding states, there are several degrees, according to the various objects it refers to. In the Upekka, relating to the five senses, man is no more affected by beautiful or unseemly objects, by harsh or melodious sounds, &c. As to what refers to creatures, man has neither love nor dislike for them. Man obtains the state of Upekka, relating to science or knowledge, by examining and considering all things through the medium of the three great principles, aneitsa, duka, anatta, that is to say, change, pain, and illusion. There is also the uirya upekka; as when a man, after great struggles and efforts to obtain a certain object, sees that he cannot reach it, he becomes indifferent to it, and without trouble or the least disquiet gives up the undertaking. There are many other effects of the Upekka mentioned by our author, the enumeration of which would prove tedious. What has been just stated is sufficient to afford a correct idea of the nature of the highest state of meditation that the human mind can ever reach. The last and most transcendent result of the condition of Upekka is this: when an individual, by successful exertions, has ascended to the top of the spiritual ladder, there is a certain virtue that attracts everything to him. He becomes a centre to which all appear to converge. He is like the central point of our planet, that ever remains distinct from the bodies it incessantly draws to itself. Seated in the centre of the most complete quietism, the sage contemplates, without the least effort, the unclouded truth that indefinitely unfolds itself before him. Hence, as our author observes, the sage that has reached the state of Upekka has no more to pass successively through the four preceding stages to be enabled to meditate; that is to say, he no more requires the help of thought, reflection, satisfaction, and pleasure. He is in the middle of the cloudless atmosphere of truth which he enjoys, and therein remains as unmoved as truth itself.

As stated in the previous article, the observance of the precepts, or the performance of exterior good actions, draws abundant rewards upon those who faithfully comply with them. These rewards are bestowed either in the seat of man or in the six abodes of Nats, which we will agree to call the six inferior heavens, where concupiscence as yet holds its empire.

The inward good deeds produced by the operation of the intellectual faculties of the soul being of an incomparably greater value than the external ones, the recompense of the former is of a higher order than that of the latter. Hence there are twenty superior heavens reserved to the sages that have made progress in meditation.[49] The accounts of the Buddhists respecting the extent of these seats, their respective distance in a perpendicular direction, the myriads of centuries to stay in each of them, &c., are puerilities not worth attending to, and in no way belonging to the genuine and original Buddhism. They are the inventions in subsequent ages of individuals who wished to emulate their neighbours and rivals, the Hindus, at a time when the latter substituted the gross and revolting idolatry of the Puranas for the purer doctrines of the Vedas. But what is directly to our purpose is the distinction of these twenty seats into two classes. The first comprises sixteen seats, under the designation of Rupa, or matter; the second includes four seats, called Arupa, or immaterial abodes or conditions. Here are located on a grand and immense scale, according to their respective proficiency in science and meditation, the beings that have striven to advance in knowledge by the exertion of the mental faculties. The general appellation given to each class bears a great meaning, and therefore deserves explanation. In the sixteen seats of Rupa are placed the contemplatives who have as yet a body, and have not been hitherto able to disengage themselves from some affection to matter. The subjects of their meditations are still the beings inhabiting this material world, together with some of the Kathain, or coarser portion of their being. But in the four seats called Arupa, which terminate the series of Buddhist heavens, the contemplatives are destitute of shape and body; they are almost brought to the condition of pure spirits. In their sublime and lofty flight in the regions of spiritualism, they seem to have bid a last farewell to this world, and to be no longer concerned with material things.

Let us glance rapidly over these various seats, and pay a visit to the beings that have been rewarded with a place in them, owing to their great proficiency in the mental exercise of meditation. We will begin with the lowest seat, and from it successively ascend to the loftiest. We must bear in remembrance that there are, as above stated, five degrees of meditation or five parts, viz., perception, reflection, satisfaction, happiness, and fixity. He who has been much exercised in the first degree shall inhabit one of the three first seats of Rupa. Those who, leaving aside the first degree, shall delight in the second and third, shall inhabit, according to their respective progress, one of the three following seats. Those who take delight only in the fourth degree, having no further aid of the three first parts, perception, consideration, and satisfaction, shall be located in the seventh, eighth, and ninth seats. When the fifth degree of Dzan, or meditation, has been attained, that is to say, when a privileged contemplative is able to meditate and contemplate, without having recourse to the representation and consideration of the object, without allowing himself to be influenced by pleasures or joy, then he has attained to the state of fixity and indifference; he occupies the tenth and eleventh seats. The five remaining seats bear the collective name of Thoodawata, or abodes of the pure or perfect, that is to say, the dwelling-place of those who have entered into the current of perfection. They are inhabited by the Kaliana Putadzans, and the four sorts of contemplatives called Thautapan, Thakadagan, Anagan, and Rahandas. The latter have entered into the Thoda, or current of perfection. The Thautapans and Thakadagans are pure and exempt from all influence of demerits; the Anagans are delivered from the five concupiscences. The Rahandas are enjoying a perfect indifference for all. They are strangers to such language as this: I am great, I am greater, I am greatest. Such terms of comparison are but mere illusions; they are deceitful sounds that confuse, distract, and bewilder the ignorant.

Above the Thoodawata seats are the four called Arupa, or immaterial. The denizens of these places first recognise that the miseries attending man in this world have their origin in the body. They then conceive the utmost disgust and horror for it; they long for the dissolution of this agent to all wickedness. So great is their horror for bodies and matter, that they no longer select them for subjects of meditation; they endeavour to cross beyond the limits of materiality, and launch forth into the boundless space, where this material world does not seem to reach. The inhabitants of the first seat have assumed for their subject of meditation the Akasa, the air, the fluid of the atmosphere, or the space. Those of the second meditate on the Winiana, or the spirit, or life of beings, taken in an abstract sense; those of the third contemplate the Akintzi, or immensity; those of the fourth, Newathagnia, lose themselves in the infinity.

By what mental process has the sage to pass in order to reach the first degree of sublime contemplation? He will have to begin with the consideration of the form of some material object, say one of the four elements. Let him afterwards set aside those Kathain, or material portions of the element brought under consideration, and occupy his mind with the ether, or fluid, or space; the former, that is to say, the kathain, shall disappear to give place to something divested of all those coarser forms, and the mind shall be fixed only on the akatha. The sage then shall repeat ten hundred thousand times these words,—The space or air is infinite, until there will appear at last the first tseit, or idea of arupa. In a similar manner, the tseit akan, or the idea of conformity with purpose, disappears; then begins the science of upekka, or indifference, with its four degrees; the idea that then succeeds is precisely that of akasa ananda, or infinite ether, or space. This unintelligible mental process is explained by a comparison. If they shut with a white cloth the opening of a window, the persons inside the room, turning their eyes in the direction of the opening, see nothing but the white cloth. Should the cloth be suddenly removed, they perceive nothing but that portion of the space corresponding with the extent of the window. The piece of cloth represents the material forms, that are the subjects of meditation, or contemplation, of those living in the seats of Rupa; the free opening of the window exemplifies the subjects of contemplation reserved to the first class of arupa. Having reached so far, the contemplative soon feels the utmost disgust for all material forms, and is entirely delivered from the three Thagnia, or false persuasions, supplied by matter, by the action of the senses, and by the result of merits and demerits. He is displeased with all the coarser forms of beings. The action of the contemplative has its sphere in the mano, or seat of knowledge. The ideas originating from the action of the senses have no share in that purely intellectual labour. In that state, the sage has fallen into a condition of so perfect abstraction, that all the accidents on the part of the elements can produce no effect over him. The action of the senses is completely suspended during all the time that the contemplation lasts. In fact this is nothing else but thamabat, or ecstasy.

The same course of meditation must be followed by the sages inhabiting the other three seats; only the object to be contemplated will be different.

Having explained the important subject of meditation, endeavoured to show the different parts or degrees of that intellectual exercise, and given a faint outline of the recompenses bestowed on those that have distinguished themselves by proficiency in that exercise, we have now to follow our author, and, with him, make ourselves acquainted with the principal subjects that attract the attention of the contemplative.

ARTICLE III. OF THE NATURE OF BEINGS.

The Buddhist philosopher, in his earnest prosecution after the antidote of ignorance, that is, science, rightly states that all beings, and man, in particular, must ever be the first and most interesting subject the sage has to study. The knowledge of man in particular constitutes a most important portion of the science he must acquire, ere he can become a perfect being, and be deemed worthy to be admitted to the state of Neibban. In the very limited sketch of this part of the work under consideration, the attention of the reader will be directed on man as the most interesting of all beings. With our Buddhist author, therefore, he will take human beings as the subject of his investigations. Provided with the philosophical dissecting knife, he will anatomise all the component parts of that extraordinary being, whose nature has ever presented an insoluble problem to ancient sages. What is to be said on this subject will be sufficient to convey a correct idea of the mode of reasoning and arguing followed by Buddhist philosophers, when they analyse other beings and select them for the subjects of their meditations.

At the very beginning, our author proclaims this great maxim: All beings living in the three worlds, heaven, earth, and hell, have in themselves but two things or attributes, Rupa and Nam, form and name. Accustomed as we are to a language that expresses clear and distinct notions, we would like to hear him say, in nature there are but two things, matter and spirit. But such is not the language of Buddhists, and I apprehend that were we giving up their somewhat extraordinary, and, to us, unusual way of expressing their ideas, we could not come to a correct knowledge of the notions they entertain respecting the nature of man. Let us allow our author to speak for himself, and, as much as possible, express himself in his own way. By rupa, we understand form and matter; that is to say, all that is liable per se to be destroyed by the agency of secondary causes. Nam, or nama, is the thing, the nature of which is known to the mind by the instrumentality of mano, or the knowing principle. In the five aggregates constituting man, viz., materiality or form, the organs of sensation, of perception, of consciousness, and those of intellect, there is nothing else to be found but form and name. We are at once brought to this materialist conclusion, that in man we can discover no other element but that of form and that of name.

To convey a sort of explanation of this subject, our author gives here a few notions respecting the six senses. I say six senses, because with him, besides the five ordinary senses, he mentions the mano, or the knowing principle that resides in the heart, as one of the senses. The organs or faculties of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling, and knowing, he calls the inward senses. These same organs, as they come in contact with exterior objects, are called exterior senses. The faculty inherent in each of the senses whereby is operated the action between the organ and its object is designated by the appellation of the life of the senses, as, for instance, the eye seeing, the ear hearing, &c. In this treble mode of considering the senses, what do we meet with but form and name, ideas and matter? Supposing the organ of seeing to exist, and an object to be seen, there will necessarily result, as an essential consequence, the perception or idea of such a thing. Even as regards the mano, where there exists the heart on one side, and truth on the other, there will follow immediately the idea or perception of truth.

This materialist doctrine, if the meaning of our author be accurately understood, is further confirmed by the method he proposes for carrying on the investigation respecting the nature of things. He who desires to penetrate deeply into such a sublime science must have recourse to the help of meditation. Having selected an object, he considers it by the means of witekka. He passes successively through the ideas and impressions he derives from the contemplation of such an object. He then says to himself: the ideas obtained by means of witekka, or the first degree of dzan, or meditation, are nothing but nam-damma, since their nature is to offer themselves to the arom, as the thought to its object. But where is the seat of that arom? It resides in the substance of the heart, which, in reality, affords asylum both to it and to the nam-damma. It is nowhere else to be found. But what is the heart? Whence does it come? By what is it formed? To these three questions we answer, that the heart is composed of the four elements. It is but one and the same thing with them. This startling doctrine is explicit, and excludes at once the idea of a spiritual substance.

Our author has now reached the elements of the parts constituting all that exists with a form. He boldly asserts that all that has an existence is but an aggregate of earth, water, fire, and air; all the forms are but modifications and combinations of the four elements. The bare enumeration of this general principle is not sufficient to satisfy our philosopher. He wishes to know and explain the reason of everything. Here begins an analysis entirely unknown to our chemists and philosophers of the west. The body is divided into thirty-two parts, which are often enumerated in formulas of prayer by pious Buddhists. Each of these thirty-two parts is subdivided into forty-four. The hair, how slender soever it appears, is submitted to that minute analysis. The result of this subtle division is to show what is the proportion of each element that enters into the formation of these atomical parts. We have not the patience to write down these uninteresting details, nor do we believe that the reader will be displeased if we spare him the trouble of going over such worthless nomenclature. There is another division of matter, or body, into forty-two parts, called akan. This is based upon the distinction of the four elements that enter unequally into the formation of the body; twenty parts belong to the earth, twelve to water, six to fire, and six to wind. Then again the body is divided into sixty parts; the division is based upon the distinction of the ten constitutive parts belonging to each of the senses, as it will be hereafter explained. The object which Buddhist philosophers have in view in entering into so many divisions and subdivisions of the forms of the body is to prove, in their opinion to demonstration, that, by the nicest analysis of every part of the body, we find in the end nothing but the primary elements that are called the supports of all that exist.

We have now to follow our author through a path more difficult than the preceding one, and hear him explain the theory of ideas and their various modifications. These, says he, are known, not by their forms, since they have none, but only by their name. Through the practice of reflection and meditation we become acquainted with them. We call them arupa damma, things without a form or shape. They are designated under the name of tseit and tsedathit,[50] that is to say, ideas and the result of ideas. Where are these ideas to be met? Where have they their seat? In the six senses and nowhere else, is the answer. Having already become acquainted with the organs of the senses, it will be easy to find out the ideas that are as the tenants of the senses.

All the tseits inhabiting the organs of sense are called loki tseit, that is to say, ideas of the world, because they are to be met with in all the beings as yet subjected to concupiscence. They are distinct from lokoudra tseits, which belong properly to the beings free from passions, and who have entered into the four megga, or ways to perfection. The tseits of this world are eighty-one in number, classified as follows: the perception of each of the five organs, and the perception of the respective faculties of those organs. This gives ten tseits. There are three for the sense of the heart, the perception of the substance of the heart, of its faculty of knowing, and of the object of its knowledge.

Each of the six senses has ten constitutive forms or parts, viz.: earth, water, fire, air, colour, odour, taste, fluid, life, and the body attached primitively thereto. Now there is an action from each of these forms upon the subject. Thence ten tseits to each of the six senses.

There are no words so ill defined and so ill understood by our philosopher as the two words Tseit and Tsedathit. The first in a moral sense means idea, thought, perception, etc.; in a physical sense it means that secondary cause created by kan, producing the living being, the senses wherein reside the moral tseit. Tsedathit, being the result of ideas, must, of course, have likewise two meanings. In the first place it will designate the impressions made upon us by ideas; in the second, it will mean the secondary cause or life in the body, or the modifications of the principles of corporeal life.

This being premised, we may a little understand our author when he says: There are seven tsedathits existing at the same time as the eighty-one above-mentioned tseits, viz.: pasa tsedathit, so called because it is the real effect of the tsedathit to attain its object, and, as it were, to touch it. We may call it the agreement between the idea and its object. Wedana tsedathit, the feeling of the impression of an idea; thagnia tsedathit, the comprehension of the object; dzetana tsedathit, the inclination for the object; eketa tsedathit, the fixity on the object; dziwi-teindre tsedathit, the observance of what relates to form and name; and mana sikaramana tsedathit, consciousness. It is evident, therefore, that the tsedathit is neither the idea nor the object of the idea, but the result from the idea that has come in contact with an object. These seven results are, if we may say so, the third part of the idea. They do not give occasion to modifications of ideas. But those which really give rise to the greatest variety of results are the akuso tsedathit, or the results of evil thoughts and ideas, and their opposite, or kuso tsedathit, or the consequence of good and virtuous thoughts. To mention here all the kuso and akuso tsedathit would be but a dry exposition of the nomenclature of the vices and virtues, such as is met with in the catalogues of Buddhist moralists. They are all enumerated in the preceding note.

ARTICLE IV. OF THE CAUSE OF THE FORM[51] AND OF THE NAME, OR OF MATTER AND SPIRIT.

The duty of our intelligence is to investigate the cause of all the modifications of forms and names. This being effected, we are delivered from all doubts and disquietude. When we perceive such a form, such an idea, &c., we are able forthwith to account for its causes. In this study we must copy the conduct of the physician, who, when attending a patient, sits by his bedside, closely examines the nature of the distemper and the causes that have given rise to it, in order to find out counteracting agents or remedies to check its progress at first, and gradually to uproot it from the constitution. In the moral order, the philosopher too has to examine the nature of all moral distempers, ascertain the principles or causes they spring from, and thereby become qualified to cure those disorders.

The beings that inhabit the three worlds, says our author, must have a cause. To say that they exist of themselves and without a cause is an absurdity. The very dissimilarity we observe among them indicates that their mode of existence results from certain causes. We, however, cannot agree with our antagonists, the Brahmins, who maintain that Maha Brahma is the cause of all that exists. This being is not out of the circle of Rupa and Nam; he is himself a compound of Nam and Rupa, that is to say, effect but not cause. In vain our opponents will add that all that is distinct of Maha Brahma is subjected to a cause, but that the Rupa and Nam, constituting his essence, are without a cause. This is removing the difficulty a little further, without advancing a step towards its solution; our answer must ever be the same.

Before expounding the opinions of our philosopher on this important subject, it is necessary to state the views entertained by that class of philosophers whose doctrines appear to have taken root in these parts. It is easy to perceive that they are modifications of the opinion of the Hindus on the same subject, and akin to that respecting the Adi Buddha, or supreme Buddha.

Some doctors maintain that there is a first cause or being that has made matter and spirit. Others, admitting the eternal co-existence of matter and of the supreme being, say that he is the remote cause of the organisation of matter, as we at present see it. But all agree in this, that no one can ever come to the knowledge of that first cause, and it is impossible ever to have an idea of it. Hence it is the height of folly and rash presumption to attempt to come to the knowledge of what is placed beyond the range of human investigation. It behoves us to apply all the powers of the mind to discover the immediate cause that certainly produces existence.

The sage, to be worthy of his sublime calling, must remain satisfied with striving to find out that immediate cause which brings into action the form and name, and causes the appearance of all those modifications which we call beings or forms of existence. He ought to strive to account for the organisation of matter and all its modifications, by discovering the hidden spring that effectually sets all in motion, in action, in combination of existences.

Now, our author puts this important question: What thing is to be considered as the mover of the forms and ideas? We know, says he, that the human body has its beginning in the womb of the mother; we are acquainted with its position in that fœtid and narrow prison; its being surrounded with nerves, veins, &c., having above it the new elements, and under it the old ones. The manner in which the body originates in the womb much resembles the process by which worms and insects are formed in rotten substances, and in putrid and stagnant water. But this is not accounting for the real cause of living bodies. The real causes, according to some doctors, are five in number, viz., ignorance, concupiscence, desire, kan (the influence of merits and demerits), and ahan (the aliments). They concur together in the formation of the living body in the following manner. Ignorance, concupiscence, and desire give asylum to the body, as the mother supplies the infant with a refuge in her womb. Kan, like the father, is the cause productive of the body. Ahan affords nourishment to the body.

The ideas are but the result of the formation of the organs of senses. Let us suppose, for instance, the organ of seeing. The Tsekkou Wignian, that is to say, the life of the eyes, or the ideas connected with the use of that sense, presupposes two things, the organ and a form or an object on which the organ acts. These existing, there necessarily result the idea of vision, the perception, &c., in a word, all the ideas arising from the action of the eyes upon various objects. The same mode of arguing is employed relatively to the other five senses.

Other philosophers argue in the following way. The primary causes of all ideas and thoughts are disposed under two heads, that of ideas which have a fixed place, and that of those that have no fixed place. Under the first head are comprised the six Ayatana, or seats of senses, and the six Arom, or the objects of senses. Thence flow all the ideas and consequences that relate to merit and demerit. Under the second head are placed the causes or agents that produce ideas and thoughts, the exercise of the intellect holding the first rank. He who applies his mind to the meditation of what is good, such as the commands and other parts of the most excellent law, and labours to find out that all that is in this world is subjected to change, pain, and illusion, opens at once the door to the coming in of the tseit, or ideas connected with merit. On the other hand, the application of the mind to things bad and erroneous, contrary to the prescriptions of the holy law, generates the idea of demerit. Such are the causes of the ideas and thoughts. As to the cause of form, they assert that kan, tseit, fire, and ahan are the sole agents in the formation of the living body. Kan, as the workman, makes the body and sets in it all that relates to its good and bad qualities. The tseit, seventy-five in number, are also principles of the existence of the body, of which forty-four are called Kamawatzara tseit; they relate to the demerit and merit of those who are still under the influence of concupiscence; fifteen rupa watzara tseit, relating to beings in the seats of rupa; eight arupa watzara tseit, relating to those in the seats of arupa; eight lokoudara tseit, relating to the beings that have entered on the four ways of perfection. The Tedzo-dat, or the element of fire, contributes its share by the head and rays of light, and ahan by supplying the required aliments.

Some other philosophers account for the causes of form and ideas following this course of argument. The form and ideas that constitute all beings are liable to miseries, old age, and death, because there is generation and death. Generation exists because there are worlds, worlds exist because there is desire, desire exists because there are organs, organs exist because there are form and name, form and name exist because there are concepts, concepts exist because there is merit and demerit, merit and demerit exist because there is ignorance. The latter is, indeed, the real cause of all forms and ideas. There is no doubt but this latter opinion is the favourite one with our author. It is based upon the theory of the twelve Nidanas, or causes and effects, and appears to be the orthodox opinion, and bears the stamp of great antiquity.

Having thus accounted in the best way he could for the existence of all that relates to the beings in the three worlds, our author fondly dwells on the benefits that accrue from the knowledge of causes. It dissipates all the doubts that had previously darkened the mind; it quiets all the anxieties of the heart, and affords perfect peace. For want of it, the impious fall from one error into another; the disciples of Buddha are chiefly perfected by its help.

We read in the Buddhist scriptures that a Brahmin went to consult Buddha on some points that much perplexed his mind. He said to him, “I am beset with doubts respecting the past, the present, and the future. Respecting the past, I ask myself, Have I passed through former generations or not? What was my condition during those existences? My answer is, I am ignorant on all those points. What was my position previous to those generations? I know it not. As to the present, is it true that I exist? or is my existence but an illusion? Shall I have to be born again or not? What are those living beings that surround me at present? Are they but so many illusions which deceive me by their appearance of reality? On these points I am sunk in complete ignorance. The future is likewise full of doubts and most perplexing uncertainties. Shall I have other generations or not? What shall be my condition during these coming existences? A thick veil hides from my eyes all that concerns my future destiny. What are the means to clear up all those doubts that encompass me on all sides?”

Buddha said to him, “Reflect first on this main point, that what we are wont to call self, or moi, is nothing but name and form—that is to say, a compound of the four elements, which undergoes perpetual changes under the action or influence of Kan. Having acquired the conviction of the truth of this principle, it remains with you to investigate carefully the causes which produce both name and form. This simple examination will lead you at once to the perfect solution of all your doubts. Behold the difference that exists between the holders of false doctrines and the true believers. The former, whom we may almost call animals, never take the trouble to examine the nature of beings or the causes of their existence. They are stubbornly attached to their false theories, and persist in saying that what the ignorant, delivered up to illusion, are used to call an animal, a king, a subject, a foot, and a hand, &c., is really an animal, a king, a subject, a foot, and a hand, &c.; whilst all living beings and their component parts are nothing else but name and form—that is to say, a compound made up of the four elements. Those impious are delivered up to error; hence it happens that they follow all different ways. We reckon among them more than sixty different sects, all at variance among themselves, but all uniting in a common obstinacy to reject the true doctrine of Buddha. They are doomed to move incessantly within the circle of endless and wretched existences.

“How different is the condition of the true believers, our followers! They know that the living beings inhabiting the world have a beginning. But they are sensible of the folly of attempting to reach this beginning or first cause. This is above the capacity of the loftiest intelligence. It is evident, for instance, that the seeds of plants and trees, which are continually in a state of reproduction, have a beginning; but what that beginning is, no one presumes to determine. So it is with man and all living beings. They know well, too, that what is vulgarly called man, woman, eyes, mouth, are all illusory distinctions, vanishing away in the presence of the sage, who sees nothing in all that but name and form, the production of Kan and Wibek, that is to say, of the first and second causes. These two things are not the man and the woman, &c., but they are the efficient causes of both. What we say respecting man and woman may be applied to animals and to all other beings. They are all the productions or results of Kan and Wibek, quite as distinct from these two agents as effect is distinct from its cause. To explain this doctrine, Buddhists have recourse to the comparison of a burning-glass. When there is such an instrument in one hand, and the rays of the sun pass through it to the other, fire is then produced; but fire is quite distinct from the two causes that have concurred jointly in producing it. Our disciples, too, are aware that the five khandas, or aggregates constituting a living being, succeed each other at each generation, but in such a way that the second generation partakes or retains nothing of the khandas of the first. But the causes producing them—such as Kan and Wibek—never change; they ever remain the same. Let us suppose lamps lighted up. If they burn always, it is owing to the action of individuals that supply them with oil, and light them as soon as they are extinguished. Such is the condition of the khandas. Those which belong to one existence have no more in common with those of the following one than the fire of the lamp just lighted anew has with that of the fire of the lamp that has just died away. As to the way beings are reproduced, we say that when a man is dying, the last tseit having appeared and soon disappeared, it is succeeded forthwith by the patti tseit or the tseit of the new existence; the interval between both is so short that it can scarcely be appreciated. This first tseit has nothing in common with the last one. It is, let it be well remembered, the production of kan, or of the influence of merits and demerits, as well as the khandas above alluded to.”

This article is by far the most important of all. The latter part, in particular, elucidates in a distinct manner the genuine opinions of Buddhism on points of the greatest concern. We may sum up the whole as follows:—

1. There is a first cause that has acted in bringing into being all that exists; but that first cause is unknown, nor can we ever come to the knowledge of it.

2. The immediate causes of all the modifications of beings, or states of being, are ignorance and kan.

3. All beings are but compounds of the four elements. The intellectual operations are carried on by the instrumentality of the heart, in the same manner as vision is obtained by the means of the eye and of an object to act upon.

4. Each succeeding existence is brought on and modified by the action of Kan, or the influence of merits and demerits.

5. The component parts of a new being are in no way connected with those of the previous being. This is the key to the difficulty many persons find in accounting, in a Buddhistic sense, for the process of metempsychosis. A new term ought to be coined to express that doctrine.

6. The question respecting Neibban may be theoretically resolved without difficulty, by application of the principles contained in this and the preceding article. There is no doubt that the solution forced upon the mind from what has been above stated is that the end of the perfected being is annihilation. Horrifying as this conclusion is, it is not, after all, worse than that which is the terminus of the theories of some modern schools. What an abyss is the poor human mind liable to fall into when it ceases to be guided by Revelation!

ARTICLE V. OF THE TRUE MEGGAS OR WAYS TO PERFECTION.

The subject under consideration is a very important one. It comprehends and comprises a summary of many particulars already alluded to in the foregoing two articles. The reader will find the path he has to follow less rugged, and the ground he will have to go over not so arid.

Our author seems to lay great stress on this special point. The sage, says he, who is desirous to arrive at the supreme perfection, must apply all the powers of his mind to discern the true ways from the false ones. Many are deceived in the midst of their researches after wisdom. The real criterion between the true and false ways is this: when, in considering an object, and making a philosophical analysis of it, the sage finds it somehow connected with concupiscence and other passions so far that he cannot, as it were, dissolve it by the application of the three principles of aneitsa, duka, and anatta—that is to say, change, pain, and illusion, then he must conclude that he is out of the right ways; the high road to perfection is barred before him. But on the contrary, whenever, by the appliance of the three great principles, he sees that all the objects brought under his consideration are nothing more or less than the mere compound of the four elements, divested of these illusory appearances which deceive so many, then he may be certain that he is in the right position, and is sure of making progress in the way to perfection.

To facilitate the study of the Meggas, Buddhists have classified all real and imaginary beings under a certain number of heads. The sage, to complete his laborious task, has to examine separately each of these subjects and submit them to the following lengthened, difficult, and complicated process. He takes up one subject, attentively considers its exterior and interior compound parts, its connection and relation with other things, its tendency to adhere to or part with surrounding objects. Pursuing his inquiries into the past, he endeavours to make himself acquainted with the state and condition of that object during several periods that have elapsed; when his mind is satisfied on this point he follows up in future the same object, and calculates from the experience of the past what change it may hereafter become subjected to. This study enables him to perceive distinctly that it is subjected to the three great laws of mutability, pain, and illusion. This conviction once deeply seated in his soul, the sage holds that object in supreme contempt; far from having any affection for or attachment to it, he feels an intense disgust at it, and longs for the possession of Neibban, which is the exemption from the influence of mutability, pain, and illusion.

What we have now stated is tolerably clear and intelligible; but what follows is less evident. It partakes of that obscurity and complication so peculiar to Buddhist metaphysics. This state of things is created and maintained chiefly by a mania for divisions and subdivisions that would have puzzled even the schoolmen of the middle ages. We have to listen to what our author says respecting the method to be observed in carrying on the great examination of all subjects of investigation. If that labour be patiently and perseveringly prosecuted until all the objects of inquiry be exhausted, ample and magnificent shall be the reward for such labours. The sage will be in possession of the perfect science; Neibban will appear to him; he will long for it, and unremittingly shape his course in its direction: in a word, he shall have reached the acme of perfection. Seated on that lofty position, enjoying a perfect calm in the bosom of absolute quietism, the sage is beyond the reach of passions; there is no illusion for him; he has cut the last thread of future generations by the destruction of the influence of merits and demerits; he has obtained the deliverance from all miseries; he has reached the peaceful shores of Neibban. But such a prize is not easily obtained; it is to be purchased only at the expense of an immense amount of lasting and strenuous mental exertion.

The sage, agreeably to the old and always true saying, Know thyself, very properly begins his mightily difficult task with the examination of the five aggregates constituting a living being, the organs of the six senses, and all that relates to them. Then he applies himself to the studies of the five Dzan, or the parts of meditation and contemplation, and to all that is connected with the seats of Rupa and Arupa. All the objects of examination ranged on that scale are 600 in number. We shall rapidly glance over this table, indicating but the heads of the principal divisions.

We ought not to forget that the five aggregate, or khandas, constituting a living being, are form, sensation, perception, consciousness, and intellect. Supposing that we take the first of those attributes as subject of examination. We must represent it to the mind, carefully examine it in all its bearings and properties, respecting the past, the present, and the future. We must proceed on and bring it in contact with the three great principles of aneitsa, duka, and anatta, and inquire whether form be changeable or not, passive or impassive, transient or permanent. We thereby acquire the knowledge of the following great truth; viz., form is essentially liable to change, pain, and illusion. The examination of each of the four other attributes is proceeded on in a like manner, and a similar result ensues.

The six organs of the senses come next under consideration. These are the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, or rather the skin that envelops it, and the heart in a physical sense, and mano in a moral one. Each of the six senses partakes of the eleven conditions or attributes we are about to describe; and each of these eleven attributes being brought successively into relation with each of the six senses, must be considered, as above stated, under the treble relation to mutability, pain, and illusion. This will supply the inquirer with a good amount of information. But to shorten this long enumeration, we will mention now successively those eleven attributes the senses may be affected by, and make the application of all to one of the senses, the eye. The same process may be easily repeated for each of the other senses. Nothing is to be changed but the name of the sense that has become the subject of examination.

1. Ayatana, the door, the opening of each of the senses. Applied to the eye, it is the opening through which exterior sensations are communicated to the heart by the organ of seeing.

2. Arom, the object of each of the senses. With regard to the eye, it is the appearance or form perceived by the eye; with respect to the ear, it is the sound.

3. Winian, the action of perceiving and knowing. Applied to the eyes, it is the eye seeing and perceiving, or the sight.

4. Phasa, literally the feeling or coming in contact with objects, applied to each of the senses. With the eye, it is the passive and active impression it derives from the objects it considers, and which it conveys to the heart. With the ear it is the impression it receives, and similarly communicates to the heart.

5. Wedana, the sensation of pain or pleasure obtained through the senses. With the eye it is the sensation created by the sight of objects perceived by the eye, and communicated to the heart.

6. Thangia, the idea or persuasion resulting from the six senses, or, according to some doctors, the identity of the appearance with reality. With the eye, it is the conviction we have that such an object, perceived by the eyes, is round or square, &c., according to the impressions received by that organ.

7. Dzetana, the inclination or rather adhesion to good or bad, consequently to the impressions received from each of the six senses.

8. Tahna, concupiscence originating from the impressions of agreeableness communicated by the six senses.

9. Witeka, the idea or representation of objects to the mind through the agency of the senses.

10. Witzara, the consideration of the objects offered to the mind by the instrumentality of the senses.

11. Dat, the matter or elements of the six senses, or, to speak the language of our author, that on which the organs rest, that which supports them.

After the examination of the senses and of the eleven subjects just related, we find the almost boundless field of inquiry to expand in proportion as we appear to make rapid progress. Then come successively for examination: 1. The ten Kasaings, or the ten parts or elements to be found in each part of a living being, viz., earth, water, fire, colour, odour, flavour, and grease, to which we add the Dziwa or life, and that of the organ to which belongs the part under consideration. 2. The thirty-two Akan, or thirty-two parts of the living body, of which the first are the hairs, the beard, the nails, the teeth, &c. 3. The twelve Ayatana, or seats of the six senses. Each sense is double, as far as it is considered in a double capacity, that of receiving and that of transmitting the impressions. 4. The eighteen Dat, or matter of the six senses. The organs afford six Dat; the objects that act upon the organs supply six other Dat; and the last six are afforded by the objects submitted to the action of the senses. 5. The twenty-two indre, or faculties or capabilities of the organs. Each organ has three. The eye, for instance, is capable of receiving an impression and of transmitting it; the eye really receives and transmits impressions. The mano, or heart, being a double organ, has six faculties; three if it be considered physically, and three if morally or intellectually. 6. The nine Bon, or seats occupied by the Brahmas. 7. The five Rupa Dzan, or degrees of contemplation proper to the Brahmas who have a form. 8. The four Megga, or ways that lead near to Neibban. They are followed by the Brahmas occupying the four superior seats of Rupa. 9. The Arupa Dzan, or contemplation proper to those who inhabit the four immaterial seats. 10. The nineteen Damma. This word means what we know as certain by the use of our mental faculties. When the mano, by a right use of its three faculties, has freed itself from the principle of illusion and error, then there will be the sixteen virtues or good qualities, known by the name of Phola and Megga. 11. Finally, the twelve Patan, or elements that are in the mano, which constitute the memory, and enable man to remember, and silently repeat the impressions transmitted by the senses.

Such is the immense extent of observations the sage has to range for obtaining the perfect science. This task is truly an Herculean one; very few can perform it.

Before coming to the last article, the writer will make a remark tending to show that there is more of the analytic spirit in all what is told us by Buddhist philosophers respecting those abstruse subjects than one may be tempted to give them credit for. We have seen that the number of precepts and counsels is almost countless, yet it is agreed by all doctors that the five general precepts are the basis of all, and that he who observes them in all their bearings is as much advanced in the path of righteousness as can be expected. Again, Buddhists can never exhaust the stores of all that they have to say about the mental operations and meditation. Yet all is summed up in the comparatively short doctrine of tseit and tsedathit. The living beings are by them infinitely modified, yet after all we find everything condensed in two words, Nama and Rupa. The theory respecting the generation of beings and their mutual dependence upon each other is a boundless field. We find, however, that, after all, kan, or the influence of merits and demerits, is the sole cause of and agent in the existence and modification of all beings. Mental operations are numbered by hundreds, but the six senses are, after all, the foundation on which that enumeration is raised. The general principles and primary ideas of all these metaphysical theories doubtless belong to genuine and early Buddhism. But such plain and elementary principles having been got hold of by heads of philosophical schools, and worked upon in their intellectual laboratory, there have come out therefrom at various periods those theories which have given to the doctrines of Buddhism so many different hues, and at the same time contributed so much to puzzle and torment the European student.

ARTICLE VI. OF THE PROGRESS IN PERFECT SCIENCE.

In the preceding article we have reviewed the whole scale of beings, and analysed summarily some of them, merely to show the way to the general analysis of all others. The ultimate result of such an investigation is to acquire the conviction that all beings are subjected to mutability, pain, and illusion. This conviction, once seated in the soul, generates a generous contempt for such miserable objects. In this article we must see by what means this philosophical sentiment may be firmly rooted in the soul, and man may finally entertain a thorough disgust for all creatures, even for his own body. This loathsomeness for all that exists is immediately followed up by an ardent desire of becoming free and disentangled from all the ties and trammels that encompass other beings. When a man has become familiar with such a conviction to the extent that his thoughts, desires, and actions are entirely regulated by its immediate influence, he is free from the errors that deceive almost all other beings; he sees things as they are in their nature, and appreciates them by their real value. He estranges himself from them. He is in mind in the state of Neibban, until death will complete outwardly what was already existing inwardly in his mind.

We are all aware, says our author, that the principle of instability pervades all that exists in hell, on earth, and in the superior seats. But this important science is with many too superficially and but imperfectly understood. Our great object is to root it deeply in our mind, so that we might ever be preserved from those false impressions which too often tempt us to believe that mutability and changes are not affecting all beings. What are the obstacles that oppose in us the progress to true science? There are three. The first is Santi, or duration of existence. We allow ourselves to be lulled into the opinion that our life shall be much longer prolonged; that we have as yet many days, months, and years to spend in this world. This groundless supposition prevents us from attending to the principle of mutability. To counteract this dangerous impression, let us examine how all things are born only soon to die, and therefore let us have always death present to our mind. Let us consider the short duration and vanity of our being, then we will soon be convinced that the form of the body is like the waves of the sea, that swell for a moment and soon disappear; that sensation is produced like froth from the dashing of the waves; that the Thangia, or persuasion we acquire, has no more stability or reality than lightning; that the Sangkara, or concept, or production, is like the plantain-tree without strength, and that the view of objects through our senses deserves no more credit than the words of a quack. Let us reason in a similar manner on the ephemeral existence of all the beings that are in this world; we will easily come to a similar conclusion, that they are the victims of mutability, incessantly tossed about as a piece of wood by the billows of the sea.

A second obstacle to our perceiving the great principle that pain is heavily weighing on all creatures is the iriabot, or the four situations or positions which the body assumes, viz., sitting, standing, lying, and walking. If a man enjoys good health, he owes it chiefly to the change of situation. Were he doomed to occupy always the same place, or remain in the same situation, he would feel quite miserable. He momentarily relieves himself from his temporary afflictions by a change of situation. This relief makes him forgetful of the great principle of duka. But in truth our body is like a patient that requires the constant attendance of the physician. We must feed it, refresh it, wash it, clothe it, &c., to save it from hunger, thirst, dirt, and cold. What is all that but a sad and constant proof that we are slaves to pain? There is nothing but pain and affliction in this wretched world. The same fate awaits all other beings; they are all in a state of endurance and suffering, proclaiming aloud the irresistible action of duka.

A third obstacle to our being convinced that all is illusion in this world is that false persuasion which makes us to say, This is a foot, a hand, a woman, &c.; whilst these things have no reality, no consistence, but are mere shades, ready at any moment to vanish and disappear. These and like expressions being always used, impart at last a sort of conviction that they are true; but, after all, what are all these things but a compound of the four elements, or more simply nama and rupa?

In addition to this examination, the sage considers also our ideas and the operations of our mental faculties. Here he sees these ideas appearing for a moment and then disappearing; he concludes that ideas are likewise subjected to the great law of mutability. He finds as much misery in his own mind as he has met with in the exterior objects; all around his mind is only illusion. When he has reached this point, he is delivered at once of the three Nimeit that make one believe that there is something real in birth, existence, and action. The destruction of all beings, of all things, is ever present to his mind. In such a state, the sage is free from all erroneous doctrines; he is disgusted with life; the exercise of meditation is easy to him, and almost uninterrupted. He is free from all passions.

Our author has another chapter devoted to the consideration of the miseries attending all living beings. To make us better informed on this subject, he desires the sage to meditate upon the miseries attending birth, existence, old age, and death; he wishes him to examine attentively the condition of all creatures, that he might never be seduced by the dazzling appearance that encompasses them. He insists at great length upon the dangers surrounding the wise man, as yet compelled to remain in contact with this material world. To make us better understand this subject, he makes use of the following similitude. A man worn out with fatigue enters a cave wherein he longs to enjoy a refreshing rest. He is just lying down in the hope of abandoning himself to the sweet delight of undisturbed repose, when, on a sudden, he perceives close by him an infuriated tiger. At that moment all idea of rest, of sleep, of happiness, vanishes away; he is taken up solely with the imminent danger of his position. Such is the position of the sage who, living among creatures, may be tempted to allow himself to look on them with an idea of enjoyment. But when he has come to that state, to be disgusted with all the modifications matter is subjected to, he is likened to the pure swan who never sets his feet in low and dirty places, but delights to rest on the bosom of a beautiful lake, of limpid and clear water. Our sage, who has in abhorrence all the filth of this miserable world, is delighted only in the consideration of truth. He is displeased with the world and all things that are therein. His mind is busily engaged in finding out the most effectual means to break with this world, and rend asunder the ties that retain him linked to it. He is like a fish caught in the net, or a frog seized by a snake, or a man shut up in a dungeon. All three strive, to their utmost, to escape the danger that threatens them and regain their liberty. Such is the condition of the perfect who has attentively considered the many snares that are around them. He, too, has but one object in view, that of freeing himself from them and obtaining the deliverance.

The best and surest means to save himself from the dangers attending existence is a profound and unremitting meditation on the three great principles: aneitsa, duka, and anatta. We will select among many reflections supplied by our author, a few on each of these principles, to convey to the reader some ideas respecting the subjects that engross much of the attention of the Buddhist sage. Most of these reflections are strikingly true, and could as well find place in the mind of a Christian as in that of a Buddhist.

Speaking of aneitsa, our author says: Let us reflect on this, that there is nothing permanent or stable in this world. We hold all things as a sort of borrowed property, or on tenure; we are by no means proprietors of what we possess. We acquire goods but to lose them very soon. All in nature is subjected to pain, old age, and death; everything comes to an end, either by virtue of its own condition, or by the agency of some external cause. Shall we ever be able to find in this world anything stable? No; we leave one place, but only to go and occupy another, which, in its turn, is soon vacated. No one is able to enumerate the countless changes that incessantly take place. What exists to-day disappears to-morrow. In fact, all nature is pervaded from beginning to end by the principle of mutability, which incessantly works upon it.

On the miseries of this world our philosopher speaks as follows: Pain is the essential appendage of this world. Survey, if you can, the whole of this universe, and everywhere you will find a heavy load of pain and afflictions, so harassing and oppressing that we can scarcely bear them with a tolerable amount of patience. Look at birth, examine existence during its duration, consider senses, the organs of our life. In every direction our eyes will meet with an accumulation of pain, sufferings, and miseries; on every side we are beset with dangers, difficulties, and calamities; nowhere lasting joy or permanent rest is to be found. In vain we may go in quest of health and happiness; both are chimerical objects nowhere to be met with. Everywhere we meet with afflictions.

In speaking of the anatta, or illusion in which we are miserably rocked as long as we stay in this world, our philosopher is equally eloquent. If we consider with some attention this world, we will never be able to discover in it anything else but name and form; and, as a necessary consequence, all that exists is but illusion. Here is the manner we must carry on our reasoning. The things that I see and know are not myself, nor from myself, nor to myself. What seems to be myself is in reality neither myself nor belongs to myself. What appears to me to be another is neither myself nor from myself. The organs of senses, such as the eyes, the ears, &c., are neither myself nor to myself. They are but illusions, or as nothing relatively to me. The form is not a form; the attributes of a living being are not attributes; beings are not beings. All that is an aggregate of the four elements, and these again are but form and name, and these two are but an illusion, destitute of reality. In a being, then, there are two attributes, form and sensation, that appear to have some more consistency than other things. Yet they have no reality; their nature and condition is to be destitute of all reality and stability.[52] Penetrated with the truth of these and like considerations, the sage declares at once that all things are neither himself nor belong to himself. Nothing, therefore, appears worthy his notice. He at once divorces himself from the world and all the things that are therein. He would fain have nothing to do with it; he holds it in supreme contempt and utter disgust.

He who has reached this lofty point of sublime science is at once secure from the snares of seduction and the path of error. He will escape from the whirlpool of human miseries, and infallibly reach the state of Neibban. The most perfect among the perfect are so much taken upon with and deeply affected by the view of Neibban, that they tend in that direction without effort. Others, somewhat less advanced in the sublime science, discover, it is true, the state of Neibban at a distance, but its sight is as yet dimmed and somewhat obscured. They want as yet to train up their mind to and perfect it in the exercise of that meditation of which we have given an abbreviated analysis.