To whom, long absent, now 'tis given
Their country once to see again,

Their childhood's home, their natal place,
However poor, or mean, or base.

CCXXXVI. Untravelled men's horizon contracted.

Panchatantra i. 21.

Th' incurious men at home who dwell,
And foreign realms, with all their store.
Of various wonders, ne'er explore,

Are simply frogs within a well.

CCXXXVII. "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb."

(Isaiah xi. 6.)

Mahabharata xiii. 651.

With serpents weasels kindly play,

And harmless tigers sport with deer;
The hermit's holy presence near

Turns hate to love,-drives fear away.

CCXXXVIII. The saint should patiently await the hour of his departure.

Manu vi. 45; Mahābhārata xii. 8929.

Let not the hermit long for death,
Nor cling to this terrestrial state:
Their lords' behests as servants wait,

So let him, called, resign his breath.

CCXXXIX. That is injurious, though dear, is to be abandoned.

(St. Matthew xviii. 8 f.)

Bhagavata Purana vii. 5, 37.

That alien man who blessings brings,
The wise with love parental greet;
But like a dire disease will treat
The son from whom destruction springs.

Thy limb unsound, although with pain,
Lop off, remove the noxious taint
Which renders all thy body faint,

That thus the whole may strength regain.

CCXL. "A prophet has no honour in his own country."
Drishtanta Sataka, 76.

A man in whom his kindred see
One like themselves, of common mould,
May yet by thoughtful strangers be
Among the great and wise enrolled.
In Vishnu clowns a herdsman saw,
Gods viewed the lord of all with awe.

CCXLI. Asita and Buddha; or the Endian Simeon.*

(Lalita Vistara, in Bibliotheca Indica, p. 115 ff.)

In the Lalita Vistara a legendary history in prose and verse of the life of Buddha, the great Indian Saint, and founder of the religion which bears his name- it is related that a Rishi, or inspired sage, named Asita, who dwelt on the skirts of the Himalaya mountains, became informed, by the occurrence of a variety of portents, of the birth of the future lawgiver, as the son of King Suddhôdana, in the city of Kapilavastu, in Northern India, and went to pay his homage to the infant. I have tried to reproduce the legend in the following verses. The similarity of some of the incidents to portions of the narrative in the second chapter of St Luke's Gospel, verses 25, ff, will strike the reader.

I may mention that the Buddhist books speak also of earlier Buddhas, that the word means "the enlightened," or, "the intelligent," and that Buddha also bore the appellations of Gautama, and of Śâkyasinha, and Śâkyamuni―i.e., the lion, and the devotee, of the tribe of the Sâkyas, to which he belonged.

That I have not at all exaggerated the expressions in the text which speak of Buddha as a deliverer or redeemer, or assimilated his character more than was justifiable to the Christian conception of a saviour, will be clear to any one who can examine the original for himself. Kumârila Bhatta, a renowned Brahmanical opponent of the Buddhists, while charging Buddha with presumption and transgression of the rules of his caste in assuming the functions of a religious teacher (with which, as belonging to the Kshatriya, and not to the Brahmanical, class, he had no right to interfere), ascribes to him these words-" Let all the evils (or sins) flowing from the corruption of the Kali age" (the fourth, or most degenerate, age of the world) "fall upon me; but let the world be redeemed!" If we might judge from this passage, it would seem that the character of a vicarious redeemer was claimed

This, and the next piece, are reprinted from my "Original Sanskrit Texts," &c., Vol. ii., pp. 494 ff.

K

by, or at least ascribed to, Buddha. I am informed by Mr R. C. Childers, however, that in his opinion the idea of Buddha's having suffered vicariously for the sins of men is foreign to Buddhism, and indeed, opposed to the whole spirit and tendency of the system.

Another valued correspondent, Professor E. B. Cowell, is unable to think that the sentiment ascribed to Buddha by Kumârila is foreign to his system, as it is thoroughly in accordance with the idea of the six pâramitas. He does not understand it as implying any theological notion of vicarious atonement, but rather the enthusiastic utterance of highly-strung moral sympathy and charity; and would compare it with St Paul's words in Romans ix. 3, and explain each in just the same way as, he thinks, Chrysostom does. He further refers to the existence of numerous Buddhist stories in the Kathâsarit-sâgara, among which is one from lvi. 153, viz., the story of the disobedient son with a red-hot iron wheel on his head, and he says"Pâpino 'nye 'pi (vi?) muchyantâm prithvyām tat-pâtakair api. â pâpa-kshayam etad me chakram bhrâmyatu mûrdhani." "Let other sinners on earth be freed from their sins; and until the removal of [their] sin let this wheel turn round upon my head." In either case it is only a wish, and it is not pretended that it really had, or ever could have, any effect on other men. It only expresses a perfection of charity. The same idea (borrowed, as Dr Cowell supposes, from Buddha), occurs in the Bhagavata Purâna, ix. ch. 21. The "immortal word " (amritam vachaḥ) contained in the 12th verse, and ascribed to the pious and benevolent King Rantideva,-who himself endured hunger and thirst to relieve others,-is as follows: na kamaye 'ham gatim iśvarāt parām ashṭarddhi-yuktām apunarbhavam va. artim prapadye 'khila-dehabhājām antaḥ-sthito yena bharanty aduḥkhāḥ. "I desire not from God that highest state which is attended with the eight perfections; nor do I ask to be exempted from future births. I seek to live within all corporeal beings, and endure their pains, that so they may be freed from suffering." On this the commentator annotates thus: Para-duḥkhāsahishṇutayā sarveshām duḥkham svayam bhoktum ásáste. akhila-dehabhājām ārtim” duḥkham tattad-bhoktṛi - rūpeņa "antaḥsthitaḥ" sann aham "prapadye”

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prapnuyam ity evam kamaye. "Being unable (in thought) to endure the sufferings of others, he desires himself to endure the sufferings of all. . . . I desire, in the form of each sufferer, living within him, to undergo the sufferings of them all."

On Himalaya's lonely steep
There lived of old a holy sage,

Of shrivelled form, and bent with age,
Inured to meditation deep.

He-when great Buddha had been born,
The glory of the Śākya race,

Endowed with every holy grace,
To save the suffering world forlorn-

Beheld strange potents, signs which taught
The wise that that auspicious time
Had witnessed some event sublime,
With universal blessing fraught.

The sky with hosts of gods was thronged:
He heard their voices Buddha's name
Resounding loud with glad acclaim,
And clear exulting shouts prolonged.

The cause, exploring, far and wide
The sage's vision ranged; with awe
Within a cradle laid he saw

Far off the babe, the Sakyas' pride.

With longing seized this child to view

At hand, and clasp, and homage pay,
Athwart the sky he took his way,
By magic art, and swan-like flew ;

And came to King Suddhôdan's gates,

And entrance craved-"Go, royal page,
And tell thy lord an ancient sage
To see the king permission waits."