right conduct; right livelihood; right effort; right mindfulness; and right contemplation.

"This, O Bhikkhus, is that middle path, avoiding these two extremes, discovered by the Tathâgata--that path which opens the eyes, and bestows understanding, which leads to peace of mind, to the higher wisdom, to full enlightenment, to Nirvâna?

"Now, this, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning suffering.

"Birth is attended with pain, decay is painful, disease is painful, death is painful. Union with the unpleasant is painful, painful is separation from the pleasant; and any craving that is unsatisfied, that too is painful. In brief, the five aggregates which spring from attachment (the conditions of individuality and their cause) * are painful.

66 This, then, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning suffering.

"Now this, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning the origin of suffering.

66

Verily, it is that thirst (or craving), causing the renewal of existence, accompanied by sensual delight, seeking satisfaction now here, now there—that is to say, the craving for the gratification of the passions,

*One might express the central thought of this First Noble Truth in the language of the nineteenth century by saying that pain results from existence as an individual. It is the struggle to maintain one's individuality which produces pain -a most pregnant and far-reaching suggestion. See for a fuller exposition the Fortnightly Review for December, 1879.-Translator.

or the craving for (a future) life, or the craving for success (in this present life).*

"This, then, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning the origin of suffering.

"Now this, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning the destruction of suffering.

"Verily, it is the destruction, in which no passion remains, of this very thirst, the laying aside of, the being free from, the harboring no longer of this thirst.

"This, then, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning the destruction of suffering.

"Now this, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning the way which leads to the destruction of sorrow. Verily ! it is this noble eightfold path; that is to say:

'Right views; right aspirations; right speech; right conduct; right livelihood; right effort; right mindfulness; and right contemplation.

"This, then, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning the destruction of sorrow."

And when the royal chariot wheel of the truth had thus been set rolling onwards by the Blessed One, the gods of the earth gave forth a shout, saying:

"In Benâres, at the hermitage of the Migadâya, the supreme wheel of the empire of Truth has been

*"The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life" correspond very exactly to the first and third of these, and would be not inadequate renderings of all three.-Translator.

set rolling by the Blessed One-that wheel which not by any Samana or Brahman, not by any god, not by any Brahma or Mâra, not by any one in the universe, can ever be turned back!"

* * *

This is the essence of Buddha's doctrine. This is the Dharma in which Buddhists take refuge.

This doctrine of the four noble truths and the eightfold noble path of righteousness was taught by Buddha with the powerful authority of his impressive personality. He exemplified it in his personal conduct, and explained it in parables; and the mustardseed of his noble religion has become a great tree, under the branches of which the nations of Asia have found a dwelling-place.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BUDDHISM.

ORIGINAL DUALISM.

BUDDHISM originated, as all religions do, from the desire to escape the transiency of life with its incidental vicissitudes and to attain the permanent and enduring bliss of an undisturbed existence where there is no pain, no disease, no death, no incertitudes of any kind. As soon as the prevalence of suffering was recognized as an inalienable condition of bodily existence the first attempt at obtaining deliverance from evil was naturally made by a mortification of the body for the sake of benefiting the soul. The body was looked upon as the source of all misery, and a purely spiritual existence was the ideal in which religious men set their hope of salvation. The body is doomed to die, and was therefore considered as an animated corpse. Our material existence is a body of death of which man must rid himself before he can obtain the deathless state. Thus we read in the story of Sumedha, which serves as an introduction to the Jatakas:

"Even as a man might rid him of
A horrid corpse bound to his neck,
And then upon his way proceed,
Joyous, and free, and unconstrained;

The ideal of Buddhahood, accordingly, was in its original shape the attainment of a purely spiritual condition which it was hoped would afford a perfect emancipation from suffering. It was the same yearning as that of the early Christians, expressed in St. Paul's words:

"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

* H. C. Warren, in his Buddhism in Translations, pp. 7-8. See also the passage quoted from Chapter VI. of the VisuddhiMagga, p. 300.

+ Ibid., p. 6.