Note 7 — INTRODUCTION.

Mr. Rhys Davids has remarked that, “As in India, after the expulsion of Buddhism, the degrading worship of Śiva and his dusky bride had been incorporated into Brahmanism from the wild and savage devil-worship of the dark non-Aryan tribes, so as pure Buddhism died away in the North, the Tantra system, a mixture of magic and witchcraft and Śiva-worship, was incorporated into the corrupted Buddhism.”7 Of this change for the worse, evidence about which there can be no mistake is supplied by the Tibetan sacred books. Dr. Malan, who has made himself acquainted with the contents of some of their volumes in the original, says,8 “There are passages of great beauty and great good sense, the most abstruse metaphysics, and the most absurd and incredible stories; yet not worse than those told in the Talmud, which equal or even surpass them in absurdity.”