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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |A Second Pilgrimage Around the World: the Southern Route|4-171}}
{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |A Second Pilgrimage Around the World: the Southern Route|4-171}}


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{{Style P-No indent|translation of the Buddhists' "Sacred Dhammapada," I find
these passages:}}
 
"The bhikkhu, full of delight, who is calm in the doctrine of Buddha, will reach
the quiet place (Nirvana) (cessation of natural desires) and happiness."
 
"As soon as one has considered the origin and destruction of the elements of the
body, he finds the happiness and joy which belong to those who know the immortal
(Nirvana)."
 
"Cut down the whole forest of lust, not the tree. From lust springs fear. When
you have cut down every tree and every shrub, then, Bhikshus, you will be free in
Nirvana."
 
"There is no fire like passion; there is no pain like this body; there is no
happiness superior to Nirvana."
 
"The sages who injure nobody, and who always control their bodies; they will go
to the ''unchangeable place'', (Nirvana) where, if they have gone, they will
suffer no more."
 
In that great lecture delivered by Max Müller upon Buddhism at Kiel, before the
Society of German Philologists, he says:
 
"Nirvana occurs also in the Brahmanic writings, as synonymous with ''Moksha'',
''Nivritti'', and other words, all designating the highest stage of spiritual
liberty and bliss, but not annihilation. Nirvana may mean the extinction of many
things—of selfishness, desire, and sin, without going so far as the extinction of
subjective consciousness. Further, if we consider that Buddha himself, after he
had already seen Nirvana, still remains on earth until his body falls a prey to
death ; that Buddha appears, in the legends, to his disciples even after his
death, it seems to me that all these circumstances are hardly reconcilable with
the orthodox metaphysical doctrine of Nirvana. . . . ."
 
"According to the doctrine of Buddhism, the soul cannot dissolve itself in a
higher being, or be absorbed in the absolute substance, as was taught by the
Brahmans and other mystics of ancient and modern times. . . . ."
 
"The ablest Buddhist divines, taking their conceptions from Buddha and his
disciples, represented Nirvana as entrance of the soul into rest, a subduing of
all wishes and desires, indifference to joy and pain, to good and evil, an
absorption of the soul in itself, and a freedom from the circle of existences from
birth to death, and from death to a new birth. This is still the meaning which
educated people attach to it, whilst, to the minds of the larger masses, Nirvana
suggests rather the idea of a Mohammedan paradise or of blissful Elysian fields."
 
Peary Chand Mittra, a Hindu linguist, author, and writer for different European
magazines, residing in Calcutta, states that "Buddhism is based upon the
''Sánkhya'' philosophy. Hence those who have attributed Atheism to Buddhism have
made a great mistake." . . . By reformers before the time of Sakya, Gautama
Buddha, the "people had been prepared for the denunciation of castes, the defiance
of the Vedas, of the sacerdotal authorities, the abstinence of animal food, and
the practice of purity and holiness, leading to ''Nirvana'', or
{{Style S-Small capitals|Spirituality}}, not annihilation!"
 
<center>{{Style S-Small capitals|the essence of buddhism.}}</center>
 
Though denying the old gods of India—Indra, Agni, Yama and others—Gautama Buddha
was no atheist. He believed in the Infinite God, the Universal Spirit, the
Unknowable. Denying and utterly repudiating the Hindu system of caste, Buddha
taught the divine brotherhood of humanity, the equality of all men!
 
Ignoring the Brahmanical dogma of the soul's final absorption into Deity, Buddha
taught the extinction of the passions, of the outward sensations, and of all
earthliness connected with the soul, and then its entrance into Nirvana, a state
of untroubled rest and spiritual repose.
 
Rejecting the efficacy of sacrifices and of salvation by any sin-atoning blood as
held by the Jews and some of the Hindu sects, he taught the certainty of
punishment, and salvation through self-denial and through works of merit achieved
by re-incarnation, expiation and the pursuance of the four-fold path.
 
Denying the eternity of hell torments, Buddhism teaches that there are very many
hells, or states of the wicked; but through re-incarnations, penances, repentance
and works of merit, the sinful pass out of the hells into more heavenly
conditions, and ultimately reach the realm of inexpressible perfection and glory.
 
Questioning the wisdom, or rather discouraging a free intercourse with the spirit
world, owing to the wickedness of the Asuras, Sarpas, Nagas, and other evil
spirits, Buddha taught the reality of spirit intercourse and laid down a formula
for casting out demons. Though a prince by birth, he threw aside all worldly
honors and became a self-denying celibate, owning nothing but his robe, his bowl
for eating and his gourd for drinking. He taught men to humble their pride, subdue
their passions, practice peace and exercise charity toward all mankind. Teaching
the sacredness of even insect-life, he enjoined kindness to animals and the
tenderest sympathy and purest love toward universal humanity. Can I do better than
to close in these telling words of Max Müller:
 
"Gentlemen, this is a specimen of the true Buddhism; this is the language,
intelligible to the poor and the suffering, which has endeared Buddhism to the
hearts of millions—not the silly, metaphysical phantasmagorias of worlds of gods
and worlds of Brahma, or final dissolution of the soul in Nirvana—no, the
beautiful, the tender, the humanly true, which, like pure gold, lies buried in all
religions, even in the sand of the Buddhist Canon."
 
''Ceylon, August,'' 1877.




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