CHAPTER III. without an element of melancholy or gloom. Their worship is an expression of reverential devotion towards their great apostle, whose career on earth was one of self-sacrifice for the deliverance of the human race from the miseries of existence. Their days of festival are characterized by open-handed hospitality and spontaneous expressions of real rejoicing. There are provisions for all who care to eat, sweet liquors for all who care to drink, and a profuse prodigality of flowers and perfumes. They have communities of holy men, who are distinguished from the laity by their yellow dress, and their closely-shaven and uncovered heads. They are sometimes called priests, but the term is a misnomer, for they have no duties to fulfil in connection with the pagoda, and no rites to perform at births, deaths, or marriages, or at any of the various incidents of family life, which bear the slightest correspondence to those which are performed by the Bráhmans. Indeed the holy men amongst the Buddhists are not priests, but monks, residing in the seclusion of their monasteries, and practically engaged in the education of the young. Many are also supposed to be pursuing sacred studies, or promulgating the religion of goodness and lovingkindness. Their maintenance is in no way felt as a burden upon the people. They are universally treated with a sincere respect and kindly consideration, which the Bráhman cannot always command. They may not beg, they may not even receive money; but they are abundantly supplied with all the necessaries of life by the voluntary contributions of the masses. Wherever there is a good work to be performed, whether in the name of

religion or of benevolence, the Buddhist laity are CHAPTER III: always ready to contribute to the utmost of their means, and even to make over their cherished jewels and ornaments, if needs be. They have no caste distinctions. They can mingle with the utmost freedom amongst Europeans, as well as their own countrymen of every degree, without the slightest fear of impurity or breach of rule. Their wives and daughters are not shut up as prisoners in the inner apartments, but are free as air to take their pleasure on all occasions of merry-making and festival; and often they assume an independent position in the family and household, and gain a livelihood for themselves or superintend the affairs of husbands or fathers. Their affections are not pent up in little hot-beds of despotism as in Hindú households, but are developed by social intercourse into free and healthy play. Courting time is an institution of the country. On any evening that a damsel is desirous of receiving company, she places her lamp in her window, and puts fresh flowers in her hair, and takes her seat upon a mat. Meantime the Meantime the young men of the village array themselves in their best, and pay a round of visits to the houses where they see that a lamp is burning. In this manner attachments are formed; and instead of arbitrary unions between boys and girls, there are marriages of affection between young women and young men, in which neither parents nor priests have voice or concern.

dhism in eastern

The cradle of Buddhism, however, was not in Cradle of BudBurma, but in India. It did not originate in the Hindustan. Punjab, or land of Vedic Rishis; nor in western Hindustan, or land of the Bráhmans; but in the region further to the eastward, corresponding to

CHAPTER III. Oude and Behar, where, however, the Brahmanism of the sages had already penetrated, and was apparently taking deep root. The surrounding population may have included poetical Aryans worshipping the deified elements of the universe; but the masses seem to have adopted a religion which was based on the mysteries of death and reproduction; and they were largely influenced by a lower order of religious teachers known as Yogis, who combined a gloomy fanaticism with mystic rites and painful austerities. The higher phases of religious thought were becoming more and more abstract from humanity; and meantime luxury and sensuality were prevailing in all the cities. Such an anomaly is by no means rare in the progress of civilization. Brahmanism in its more spiritual form was doubtless only a reaction from the general corruption of the materialistic religion. Voluptuaries, surfeited with pleasure, turned to asceticism for relief. But such Brahmanism could only have imparted consolation to the few, and could never have satisfied the aspirations of common humanity; and thus a large portion of the community were prepared to accept the religion of Gótama Buddha, which was based upon the affections, and the affections alone.

Geography of
Buddhist India

of Gótama.

The teaching of Gótama Buddha was confined during the life to eastern Hindustan, and chiefly to that region which lay between Prayaga at the junction of the Ganges and Jumna, and Gour at the divergence of the Hooghly and Ganges. On the north, this area

3

3 Gótama is said to have penetrated to the Nága kingdom of the Dekhan, and even to have visited Ceylon and Burma, but these accounts appear to be all mythical. He, however, seems to have visited the Kosambi country, which General

was bounded by the Himalayas; and on the south CHAPTER III. by an extension of the line of the Nerbudda river in an easterly direction along the edge of the jungle of Gondwana. The scene of Gótama's life and labours was thus an irregular square, which was divided amongst four kingdoms. In the northern half were the kingdoms of Kosala or Oude, and Mithila or Tirhoot; in the southern half were the kingdoms of Varanasi or Benares, and Magadha or Behar.* Lower Bengal, or the country eastward of Magadha, was wholly unknown, or only noticed by the name of Vanga. In the time of Buddha, neither of these four kingdoms exercised the authority of a lordparamount or suzerain; but at a subsequent period it will be seen that the Rajas of Magadha established an imperial sway over the greater part of India.

Gótama from

The origin of Gótama is still somewhat obscure. Descent of According to the legend of his life he was descended Raja of Kapila. from a long line of ancestors of the Súrya-vansa, or children of the sun, who reigned as Chakra-varttas, or lords-paramount of India, from time immemorial. But a tradition has been preserved in the legend, which disposes of these high pretensions. The father of Gótama was Raja of Kapila; his mother was a princess of the house of Koli. Kapila was a mere off-shoot of the royal house of Kosala, or Oude; whilst Koli was a similar offshoot of the royal house

Cunningham refers to the lower Doab, immediately to the west of Prayaga or
Allahabad.

The political geography of Hindustan can only be indicated in the most general terms. Wars and revolutions seem to have been the normal condition of the ancient governments, and to have continually led to large territorial changes, such as the subversion of old kingdoms and foundation of new states, which no geographer can follow with any degree of accuracy. In the time of Gótama, the great kingdom of Oude or Kosala certainly included that of Benares; whilst Mithila was probably included in that of Vaisali, which was situated immediately to the north of Magadha, and was ultimately conquered by Magadha.

CHAPTER III. of Varanasi, or Benares. These two little principalities were situated in the northern part of Oude, on opposite sides of the river Rohini; but every trace of their sites has passed away, and the names of Kapila, Koli, and the river Rohini are unknown to modern geography.5

Tradition of the origin of Kapila and Koli.

The tradition of the origin of the two settlements may be related as follows:

"In days of old there was a famous Raja of Kosala, named Ikswáku; and he had four sons and five daughters. When he was old he married a young damsel, and she bore him a son; and he so loved her that he made her son the heir-apparent to the Raj, to the exclusion of all the elder brethren. Then the four elder brethren departed out of their father's house, and took their five sisters with them; and they journeyed towards the north until they came to the river Rohini. And they founded a settlement there, and named it Kapila; and they set aside their elder sister Priyá to be queen-mother, and took their other sisters to be their wives. And they had many sons and many daughters; and their sons were henceforth known as the Sákya princes."

5 Fa-hian visited Kapila in the fifth century A.D. and found it a vast solitude. Travels, chap. xxii. Hiouen-Thsang's account is much the same.

• Professor Weber of Berlin has already pointed out the connection between this legend and that of the exile of Ráma.-Weber on the Rámáyana, translated by Boyd. Bombay, 1873.

7 A myth has been introduced into the original legend to soften the horror with which such incestuous marriages were subsequently regarded. A sage, named Kapila, is said to have been dwelling in the neighbourhood, and to have directed the brethren to marry their sisters, on the condition that they took half-sisters only, that is, daughters of their father, but not of their respective mothers. The Singhalese version of the legend betrays the fact that they were all children of one mother, named Hattha. (Mahawanso Tíká, quoted by Turnour, Introd. p. xxxv.; Hardy's Manual of Buddhism, p. 130.) Professor Wilson was of opinion that the city of Kapila, which was destined to be the birthplace of Gótama, was only called so in after-years because Buddhism was borrowed from the Sankhya system of philo