blows, and bonds, the man who is strong in his endurance, and has for his army this strength, him I call a Brahmana." 1

But confusion has arisen because a Buddha is sometimes taken to mean an incarnation of the Supreme, like Krishna or Râma. Even the Brahmins admit that Buddha was an avatâra of Vishņu.

The Lalita Vistara, or Buddha's legendary life, is, I think, the most mystical allegory in any language. It blurts out what the other Indian legends hinted only darkly, the secrets of the higher Indian initiation. This I shall make plain as I proceed. When the narrative opens, Buddha is described as lecturing the hosts of heaven. Search is made on earth for a family worthy to receive him. Many prominent families are rejected from various causes. In a city called Kapilavastu, in North Oude, the modern Nagar Khâs, was an Aryan king called Śuddhodana. He was married to Queen Mâyâ, a lady as good and beautiful “as a heavenly spirit." Her hair was glossy as the body of a black bee; her voice was as musical as the bird kokila. To the touch she was as soft as the cloth of Kâchalindi. "She was so pure," says the Lalita Vistara, on which I chiefly base my narrative, "that it was impossible for God, man, or Asura, to view her with carnal desire."

1 Sutta Nipâta, p. 113.

Under what form does a Buddha descend to earth for the last time? This question was put in heaven, and answered by a spirit named Ugratejas, an ancient Rishi: "In the ancient holy books, the Brâhmaņas and Mantras, and in the Rig-Veda, it is explained how a coming Buddha is to reach his mother's womb. What is that form? He must select the body of the most beautiful of elephants, armed with six defences [the war elephant was protected by armour, and had swords on his tusks, scythes on his ears, an iron ball on his tail, etc.1], and covered with a spangled netting of gold. His head must be proud and red. He must be open jawed. He must be majestic in appearance."

When I first read this passage I thought it puerile extravagance. I must now confess that the ancient Rishi Ugratejas knew much more about the ṚigVeda than I did. The ancient Brahmins, though they acknowledged nothing but pure spirit, the ineffable Brahma, allowed the vulgar to worship God's attributes personified. They believed, with modern geologists, that each race of men has only a certain. duration on earth, which is put an end to sometimes by a fiery and sometimes a watery catastrophe. Thus a popular aspect of God was as the Vicegerent of the universe during a Day of Brahma,

1 Beal, “The Dhammapada,” p. 143.

or the life of a race. was then supposed to the "Egg of Death."

By a fiction, this Vicegerent die, but to leave behind him By the titles the "Egg of

Death," the "Golden Germ," the new Vicegerent commenced his reign. His symbol was the elephant, according to the "Satapatha Brahmaṇa.” 2 This is why Buddha came down to his mother's womb as an elephant. Before quitting Tuśita, the abode of unemancipated spirits, he handed over his diadem to Maitreya, the future Buddha. The second school of Buddhism, the "Carriage that drives to the Great Nowhere," got by-and-by to commit the inconceivable folly of worshipping this unemancipated being, this denizen of the Domain of Appetite. Of this more anon.

And now, what was the avowed object of Buddha's avatâra? Was it to teach atheism? Let us listen to what Buddha himself said of his mission before he left the Tusita heaven.

"He acquainted the gods with his intention respecting his descent into Jambudwîpa [India]. They, knowing that there were at that time many atheistical teachers, endeavoured to divert him from his purpose, but in vain. He assured them that he would overcome them all, that his doctrine would be established and flourish in Jambudwîpa. And he recom

1 Mârtaṇḍa.

2 Satapatha Brâhmaņa, iii. 1, 33.

mended to the gods, that whoever among them might wish to taste of the food of immortality, he should be incarnated among men, in this same division of the earth." This is given to us by Csoma Korösi, from a life of Buddha in the Dulvâ,1 or collection of the Scriptures of Tibet. It is from Tibet, also, that we have the Lalita Vistara which I am making the basis of this popular life.

So in spring, when the constellation Viśâkhâ appears, the future Buddha-having donned the body of a young white elephant of six defences, with a head shining like a ruby, with tusks of yellow gold, an elephant perfect in his organs and limbs-entered the right side of Queen Mâyâ. In the Rock Edicts of King Aśoka, the earliest authentic record of Buddhism, Buddha is called "the White Elephant, whose name is the Bringer of Happiness to the Whole World."

In a vision of extasia Queen Mâyâ was made conscious of the mighty honour that had come to her. In the morning she repaired to the Aśoka wood near the palace, and told the king what had happened. Cunning Brahmins, well versed in astrology, and also in the Rig-Veda, were summoned to the palace, and asked to interpret the apparition.

"This dream bodes no misfortune," they answered. On the contrary, great joy will be yours, O queen. "Asiatic Researches," vol. xx. p. 286.

You will bring forth a son who will be a universal ruler [Chakravartin]. If he should abandon earthly desires, and quit his kingdom and palace to become a religious teacher out of love for the world, he will become the Buddha, and give joy and immortality1 to all flesh."

Another portent is related in the Lalita Vistara :"The night on which the future Buddha entered his mother's womb, on that same night a huge white lotus, springing from the waters and parting the earth for sixty-eight millions of yoganas [a yogana is the day's march of an army, seven miles], rose up into the middle of the world of Brahma. This lotus only the Guide of men and Brahma are able to perceive. All that there is of life and creative essence in the three thousand great thousand worlds [the Kosmos] is collected in the dewdrops of this mighty lotus. This essence, drained off in a cup of lapis lazuli, was given to the future Buddha to drink."

The lotus is a symbol of Mâyâ, the universal mother, and the creative essence is the Golden Germ of the Rig-Veda.

During the time that the future Buddha was in his mother's womb, her body was transparent, so that she

1 Amrita, Pâli amata, means "non-death." How Dr. Rhys Davids has transformed it into "death" may be seen in the "Hibbert Lectures," pp. 109 and 137.