In the following Poem I have sought, by the medium of an imaginary Buddhist votary, to depict the life and character and indicate the philosophy of that noble hero and reformer, Prince Gautama of India, the founder of Buddhism.
A generation ago little or nothing was known in Europe of this great faith of Asia, which had nevertheless existed during twenty-four centuries, and at this day surpasses, in the number of its followers and the area of its prevalence, any other form of creed. Four hundred and seventy millions of our race live and die in the tenets of Gautama; and the spiritual dominions of this ancient teacher extend, at the present time, from Nepal and Ceylon, over the whole East-ern Peninsula, to China, Japan, Tibet, Central Asia, Siberia, and even Swedish Lapland. India itself might fairly be included in this magniûcent Empire of Belief, for though the profession of Buddhism has for the most characteristic habits and convictions of the Hindus are clearly due to the benign inuence of Buddha's precepts. More than a third of mankind, therefore, owe their moral and religious ideas to this illustrious prince, whose personality, though imperfectly revealed in the existing sources of information, cannot but appear the highest, gentlest, holiest, and benecent, with one exception, in the history of Thought. Discordant in frequent particulars, and sorely overlaid by corruptions, inventions, and misconceptions, the Buddhistical books yet agree in the one point of recording nothing-no single act or word -which mars the perfect purity and tenderness of this Indian teacher, who united the truest princely qualities with the intellect of a sage and the passionate devotion of martyr. Even M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, totally misjudging, as he does, many points of Buddhism, is well cited by Professor Max Muller as saying of Prince Siddhartha, "Sa vie n'a point de tache. Son constant heroïsme egale sa conviction; et si la theorie qu'il preconise est fausse, les exemples person- nels qu'il donne sont irreprochables. Il est le modèle achve de toutes les vertus qu'il preche; son abnegation, sa charite, son inalterable douceur ne se dementent point un seul instant.... Il prepare silencieusement sa doctrine par six annees de retraite et de meditation; il la propage par la seule puissance de la parole et de la persuasion pendant plus d' un demi-siècle, et quand il meurt entre les bras de ses disciples, c'est avec la serenite d'un sage qui a pratique le bien toute sa vie, et qui est assure d'avoir trouve le vrai." To Gautama has consequently been granted this stupendous conquest of human- ity; and though he discountenanced ritual, and declared himself, even when on the threshold of Nirvana, to be only what all other men might become the love and gratitude of Asia, disobeying his mandate, have given him fervent worship. Forests of owners are daily laid upon his stainless shrines, and countless millions of lips daily repeat the formula "I take refuge in Buddha!" The Buddha of this poem. if, as need not be doubted, he really existed - was born on the borders of Nepal about 620 BC., and died about 543 BC. at Kusinagara in Oudh. In point of age, therefore, most other creeds are youthful com-pared with this venerable religion, which has in it the eternity of a universal hope, the immortality of a boundless love, an indestructible element of faith in nal good, and the proudest assertion ever made of human freedom. The extravagances which disgure the record and practice of Buddhism are to be referred to that inevitable degradation which priesthoods always inict upon great ideas commit-ted to their charge. The power and sublimity of Gautama's original doctrines should be estimated by their inuence; not by their interpreters; nor by that innocent but lazy and ceremonious Church which has arisen on the foundations of the Buddhistic Brotherhood or "Sangha".
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