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more ancient one of Buddha, which had for ages before prevailed. This point will be noticed again presently.

The Brahmans, on their side, aver that this appearance of Vishnu was not an incarnation, but merely a manifestation of his power; the object of which they account for in a manner peculiarly their own.

It may have been noticed in other parts of this work, that the gods of the Hindus were not remarkably scrupulous about the means which they adopted for the accomplishment of any especial purpose that they might have had in view, whether that purpose were the establishment of individual supremacy, the benefit of the celestial hosts, or, more benevolently, the good of mankind. Thus we find Vishnu, in the Vamuna avatar, deceiving Maha Bali to dispossess him of his three kingdoms: and thus we find him, as Parasu Rama, and Varuna, opposing craft against craft to each other, as readily and effectually as two of the most skilful of modern diplomatists; the one to obtain a promise that he might take an undue advantage of it; the other, to evade that which sacred ordinances forbade him to retract. In the argument of the Brahmans here alluded to, we shall find the doctrine of the end sanctifying the means, carried to an extent which must be deemed more demoniacal than divine, and more in accordance with the character of a minister of evil, than of the preserving deity of the uni

verse.

It is accordingly urged, that Vishnu (in some accounts it is said at the solicitation of Siva) manifested himself in the form of Buddha, to overturn the supremacy of the Asuras (or demons), the opponents of the gods; who, under Divodasa, by their extraordinary virtue, piety, and practice of the holy doctrines of the Vedas, had become eminently powerful and happy. It would thus appear that the Hindu immortals were not behind earthly mortals in cherishing those evil and base passions of the heart, envy and uncharitableness, which we are apt so frequently to decry, and, like the gods of Swerga, too frequently to nourish. But be that as it may, Indra and his subordinate deities were alarmed at the increasing virtue, and, in consequence, extending power of the Asuras; and applied to Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva to protect them from the distress which they anticipated from such

exemplary holiness and goodness. Brahma, whose blundering good nature, as may be discerned on many other occasions, so frequently led the gods into almost insurmountable difficulties, appears also on this to have granted a boon (and to have obtained Siva's consent thereto) which he could not recall, to Divodasa, that none of the deities should exercise their power in that monarch's dominions of Kashi. Vishnu and Siva accordingly declared, that it would be impossible to resist or overcome the Asuras, so long as they continued to be virtuous and to adhere to the religion of the Vedas. Continuing, however, to experience the solicitations, and to witness the anxiety of Indra and the other gods, Vishnu at length assumed the form of Buddha, and by preaching doctrines of a more humane character than those of the Vedas, caused Divodasa and the Asuras to become apostates from that faith, and thus enabled the gods to overcome them, and establish their own supremacy on the subversion of their just and pious opponents.

This legend, of which there are several versions, puerile, and we may add highly immoral as it may appear, is a correct specimen, in point of extravagance, of many others contained in the Puranas. It reflects too little credit on their deity, for the Vishnaivas to insist so strenuously on the manifestation of his power in the ninth avatar as in the others; and this incarnation is in consequence held in infinitely less esteem.

The more beneficent explanation of Vishnu's appearance in the ninth avatar, mentioned in the preceding part of this article, must be equally unsatisfactory to the Brahmans; inasmuch as it places the priesthood in a direct and sacrilegious opposition to the god whom they profess to serve.

The Buddhas, however, as I have before stated, wholly deny the identity of their deity with the avatar in question. They admit the divinity both of that god and others of the Vedantic faith; but they insist that they are greatly subordinate to Buddha, the worship of whom they carry back to a period far anterior to that of the gods of the Hindus. They do not acknowledge a creation of the universe; but they admit that it has been destroyed many times, and by some extraordinary operation been as often reproduced. Each of these regenerated worlds was governed by Buddhas, of whom they enumerate twenty-two. The present universe has been ruled, successively,

by four, of whom Gautama or Gaudama, whose doctrines now prevail in Ceylon, Ava, and some other places where the religion of Buddha is acknowledged, is the fourth. A fifth, Maitree Buddha, is yet to come.

From the contradictory jargon of the Buddhas respecting the objects of their worship, it may be collected, that they were men (although their worshippers say they were first gods) of surpassing piety and virtue, who by their holiness raised themselves to a state of beatitude; obtaining, in the first instance, admission into one of the lower heavens, from whence, after a stated period, they again, in accordance with the Buddha doctrines of transmigration, manifested themselves upon earth, and by increasing piety obtained a title to a higher step on the ladder of celestial bliss, and so on through various births and successive elevations, until they arrived at the highest heaven, or absorption into the divine essence, at which all the supremely good will eventually arrive. The personage who last governed the universe (such as he may be, divine or human), and who is now worshipped, they say is dead; and that a sort of interregnum will prevail till the appearance of Maitree Buddha, during which the governing power is in the hands of a servant of Gaudama, Maha Brahma, who is consequently (though not a Buddha, which he may become hereafter) the regent of the universe, and at present superior over all the gods. His reign or regency will last many ages longer, when that and the present universe will terminate together. He will then ascend from the ninth heaven in which he now resides, through the seventeen superior heavens, till he arrives at the highest, when he will become a Buddha, and be worshipped in his turn. How many may be now on the road before him it may be difficult to ascertain; but in respect of the universe, a new one will, some how or other, be formed, or will form itself, over which another vicegerent will preside: and so matters will go on till worlds shall be no more, if such a thing can, according to the belief of the Buddhas, happen.

With these extraordinary and complicated ideas of infinity, the Buddhas may well challenge the Brahmans on the score of antiquity. Fortunately, however, for the latter, the claims of the Buddhas are veiled by as much mystery as their own; so that, as neither of them are sufficiently lucid to

be comprehended by a dispassionate party, they are likely to have full scope, both for themselves and their respective advocates and champions in the west, to argue the point to the end of the present calpi; unless some extraordinary and unexpected manifestation should, in the mean time, take place.

As in most cases where much obscurity prevails, conjecture is correspondingly active, numerous arguments have been adduced by European writers in support of the claims of those two sects. By some it has been urged, in favour of the Buddhas, that, as man in a primitive state of society would be more likely to entertain a belief that the universe was the effect of chance, or of some natural operation, rather than the creation of a divine power, it will follow, that such being the creed of the Buddhas, that portion of the people of India who had adopted the Brahminical faith must have done so, and have departed from an earlier belief, in consequence of an advance of knowledge among them, which other parts of the same country did not experience; and that, therefore, while the Brahmans, who first among them acknowledged and worshipped a supreme Being, were departing afterwards from that unity of worship, and erecting idols as symbols of his power and attributes, the Buddhas remained stedfast in their disbelief of a first divine cause, and in their adoration only of virtue and goodness, as exemplified by their learned and pious sages, whom they in consequence raised to a state of beatitude and worshipped. The religion of Buddha must then, they say, be the most ancient. Others, adopting an opposite reasoning, have argued that the Brahmans, when they arrived in India from some other country, found the worship of Buddha to be then established, and, in compliance with the feelings of the aboriginal inhabitants, engrafted it on their own polytheism.

Others again, the advocates of the priority of the Brahmans, either urge the ninth avatar of Vishnu, or allege that the sect of Buddha has been founded by good and virtuous men, who were disgusted at, and dissatisfied with the idol worship of the Brahmans, and who, running into contrary extremes, introduced, in opposition thereto, and to its attendant sanguinary sacrifices, as a summum bonum of earthly consideration, a love and adoration

of virtue and justice, and a benevolent regard towards the most minute of sentient animals. The major part of these learned theorists have, however, concurred in making Egypt the fountain-head from which one of these sectarial streams first issued, but they have not agreed on the main point— which of them had that honour; as it is by one given to the Buddha atheist, and by the other to the Brahminical polytheist.

It will be obvious that these, and a variety of corresponding arguments, can be only conjectural; but, in the absence of historical or other positive evidence, there are a few points which may be worthy of consideration. In most of the countries wherein the religion of Buddha now prevails, vestiges of the Brahminical worship are also found, as are the images of Buddha among those of the Brahmans in some of the earliest of the excavated temples of Hindustan. A reference to the article Japan, the islands in the eastern Archipelago, and countries bordering on the China Sea, with plates 37, 38, and 39, will shew that, among the Japanese, the first, second, third, and sixth avatars, with Hanuman and Surya, are clearly distinguished; and yet, according to Kempfer and other later writers, the worship of Buddha is now the prevailing one in that empire. In China, Tonquin China, Tartary, Thibet, and Ceylon, the gods of the Hindu Pantheon are also met with; but, in some places scarcely, and in others not at all acknowledged, while the worship of Buddha is paramount. In Java, the concurrent testimonies of the late Sir Stamford Raffles and Colonel Mackenzie lead to the impression, that the once magnificent temples of that island were, like the early sculptured cavern temples of the Hindus, the works of these sects conjointly, either while they acknowledged the same objects of worship, or while, at least, they simultaneously worshipped their several idols in harmony and mutual toleration. Thus the most, to me, satisfactory conclusion which I can draw from these circumstances is, that the Brahminical is either the most ancient, or the original form of worship of the two sects, or it is not probable that, in countries where that of Buddha now prevails, the idols of the other would be so frequently found, and the worship of them extinct; or that, in other places, the temples of both would be discovered

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