Changes

In the course of time, by reason of demerit, one of these beings was born lower and lower; she same process going on through the remaining two new-formed Brahma worlds, then through the six Dewa lokas, till at length one of them was born as a man on the new formed earth. There, by penances and deep meditation—which impart this power—he got to be able to remember his former existences. He remembered then the above narrated occurrences in the newly created third Brahma world, and announced to mankind that there ''was ''a Supreme God, a Creator, a Maha Brahma, who had been in existence before all other beings; that the Creator was eternal and immutable, whilst all other beings were mutable and mortal. From the earliest ages, books have existed in the Buddhist canon which have been regarded as heterodox; so that we can no more be sure that we are right in attributing all that we find in the canon to Buddha, than we ire in attributing all we find in the Gospels to Christ; in both cases we probably err. Buddha declared that all the worlds but those above the third Brahma loka perished utterly at the end of every kalpa, bet even the superior Brahma lokas did not last forever—not even the formless worlds; nothing at all was eternal but Nirwana, and those who had attained Nirwana.

In the course of time, by reason of demerit, one of these beings was born lower and lower; she same process going on through the remaining two new-formed Brahma worlds, then through the six Dewa lokas, till at length one of them was born as a man on the new formed earth. There, by penances and deep meditation—which impart this power—he got to be able to remember his former existences. He remembered then the above narrated occurrences in the newly created third Brahma world, and announced to mankind that there ''was ''a Supreme God, a Creator, a Maha Brahma, who had been in existence before all other beings; that the Creator was eternal and immutable, whilst all other beings were mutable and mortal. From the earliest ages, books have existed in the Buddhist canon which have been regarded as heterodox; so that we can no more be sure that we are right in attributing all that we find in the canon to Buddha, than we ire in attributing all we find in the Gospels to Christ; in both cases we probably err. Buddha declared that all the worlds but those above the third Brahma loka perished utterly at the end of every kalpa, bet even the superior Brahma lokas did not last forever—not even the formless worlds; nothing at all was eternal but Nirwana, and those who had attained Nirwana.