M. Jacolliot. He was President of the Court of Justice

at Chandernagore, and, being a judge, I need not say how constantly he is quoted by his admirers as a judge, and as the highest authority in judging of evidence. He has written a number of books . I saw the other day an advertisement of his works in twenty-five volumes. The best known is his La Bible dans VInde. In it his object is to show that our civilization, our religion, our legends, our gods,
INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM 95
lia\e come to us from India, after passing in succession through Egypt, Persia, Judaea, Greece, and Italy. This statement, we are told, has been admitted by almost all Oriental scholars. This is a strange as- sertion. I do not know of a single Oriental scholar who has admitted this statement. Even Professor Whitney in America calls M. Jacolliot ‘a bungler and a humbug V The Old and New Testaments, we are told by M. Jacolliot, are found in the Vedas, and the texts quoted by the French judge in support of his assertion are said to leave it without doubt. Brahma created Adima — i.e. Adam — and gave him for com- panion Heva. He appointed the island of Ceylon lor their residence. Then he gives us a most charmino- idyll of the life of Adima and Heva in paradise^ extracts from which may be read in Selected Essays n. p. 479.
No one acquainted with Sanskrit or Pali literature can doubt for a single moment that all the so-called translations from ancient Sanskrit texts are mere invention, whatever M. Jacolliot’s friends may say to the contrary. All that can possibly be said for him is what I said about Herodotus and Ctesias. He may have misunderstood what was told him, he may have received buttered toast instead of potatoes, or he may have been taken in as Ctesias was, nay’ as Lieutenant Wilford was. He confesses as much himself. ‘ One day,’ he writes 2, ‘ when we were read- ing the translation of Manu by Sir W. Jones, a note ed us to consult the Indian commentator, Kulhika Bhatta, when we found an allusion to the sacrifice of a son by his father prevented by God Himself Isis> '• P- 47- 2 Selected Essays, ii. p. 474.
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after He had commanded it. We then had only one idee fixe — namely, to find again in the dark mass of the religious books of the Hindus the original account of°that event. We should never have suc- ceeded but for “ the complaisance ” of a Brahman with whom we were reading Sanskrit, and wTho, yielding to our request, brought us from the library of his pagoda the works of the theologian Ramatsariar, which have yielded us such precious assistance in this
volume.’
Now I say again there is no scholar who knows Sanskrit or Pali, whether he has lived in India or not, who would not simply smile at all this. I said so when Jacolliot’s book first appeared, and I am sorry to say I was in consequence insulted and almost assaulted in my own house by an irate admirer of Jacolliot’s. However, even Jacolliot has been outbid by M. Edouard Schuri, whose eloquent article on the Legend of Krishna was actually accepted and pub- lished by the Revue des Deux Mondes of 1888,
pp. 285-321. .
You can easily understand that it is represented as the height of professional conceit that scholars like myself, who have never been in India, should venture to doubt statements made by persons who have spent many years in that country. This has always been a very favourite argument. If Sanskrit scholars differ from writers who have been twenty years iD India, they are told that they have no right to speak ; that there are MSS. in India which no one has ever seen, and that there are native scholars in possession of mysteries of which we poor professors have no 1 Nineteenth Century, May, 1893.
INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM'. 97
conception. When asked for the production of those ifeb., 01 for an introduction to these learned Mahatmas tor India is not so difficult to reach in these days as it was. in the days of Marco Polo-they are never forthcoming Nay, the curious thing is that real bansknt scholars who have spent their lives in India and who know Sanskrit and Pali well, know abso- lutely nothing of such MSS., nothing of such teachers
0 mysteiies. They are never known except to people who are ignorant of Sanskrit or Pali. That seems to be the first condition for being admitted to the esoteric wisdom of India. The fact is, that there is no longer any secret about Sanskrit literature, and
believe that we in England know as much about it as most native scholars. Anyhow, such extracts as M. Jacolliot produces from MSS. brought to him are what every Sanskrit scholar would call at once the horns of a hare, or the children of a barren woman.
1 hey have no existence ; they are pure inventions.
late years the treasures of Sanskrit MSS. still
thit Ti8hm \ndm haVe beCn S0 thorougMy ransacked hat It has become quite useless to appeal to hidden
,SS: suPP°s«l to contain the ancient mysteries of the religion of India. If a new text is discovered, there is joy among all true Sanskrit scholars in India and Europe. But the very idea that there are secret and sacred MSS., or that there ever was any myZy about the rekgwn of the Brahmans, is by this time thoroughly exploded. Whatever there was of secret religious doctrines in India consisted simply of doctrines or the reception of which a certain previous trainino- was required. Every member of the three upper caste! had free access to the Vedas, and if the fourth clals
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were not allowed to learn the Veda by heart, this arose from a social far more than from a religious prejudice. Again, it is quite true that the doctrines of the Vedanta or the Upamshads were sometimes called Raha&ya, that is, secret ; but this, too mean no more than that teachers should not teach these portions of the Veda except to persons of a certain age and properly qualified for these higher studies. When we hear Aristotle called the Smaller Mysteries and Plato the Greater Mysteries, this does not mean a their writings were kept secret. It only meant t students must first have learnt a certain amount of Greek and have qualified themselves for these more advanced studies, Vet as students at Oxford advance step by step from the smaller to the greater mysteues, S is. from Smalls to Mods., and from Moc s fo Greats. Greats may be great mysteries to a tie man, but no one is excluded from participation in them, if only he feels inclined to be initiated.
But if there was nothing mysterious about Biali- manism, it is sometimes thought there mig e so“® mysteries hidden in Buddhism. A schoiarhke study of Buddhism came later in Europe than ^ scholailike study of Brahmanism, and the amount of iu i \
was written on Buddhism before the knowle ge o Pili and Sanskrit enabled scholars to read the sacie texts of the Buddhists for themselves is simply ap- palling Buddhism was declared to be the original Sion of mankind, more ancient than Brahmanism, more ancient than the religion of the Teutonic races, for who could doubt that Buddha was the same name as that of Wodan ? Christianity itself was represented as a mere plagiarism, its doctrines and legends weie
INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTEEIC BUDDHISM. 99
supposed to have been borrowed from Buddhism and we were told that the best we could do in order to ecome real Christians was to become Buddhists, eie exists at present a new sect of people who call themselves Christum Buddhists, and they are said to
/LTT?UV!'; En«land and ™ France. The Journal
Z ,ft i °f~ V.oth °f MaF' i89°' sPea^ of 3°>°oo BouAdHstes Chretiens at Paris. In India, more par- ticularly ,n Ceylon, their number is supposed to be much larger.
These are serious matters, and cannot be treated merely as bad jokes or crazes. It is, indeed, very important to observe that there is some foundation for all these crazes, nay, that there is method in that adness. There is, for instance, a tradition of a
Rtlglm it v V” T11 “ “ the 01d Testament ; there is in tie Veda the story of a father willing, at
command of the god Varuna, to sacrifice his son.
or can it be denied that there is a very great likeness
between some moral doctrines and certain legends of
this ’ t tr trd Gh,rlstlanity- W« ought to rejoice at this with aU our heart, but there is no necessity for
admitting anything like borrowing or stealing on one si e or the other. A comparative study of the re- ligions of antiquity has widened our horizon so much and has so thoroughly established the universality of
the Tenacr°Unt f reIigi°US “'nth> that if we found the ten Commandments in the sacred books of the
uddhists we should never think of theft and robbery
the D?1 iuherit““- We actually find
the Dasasila, the Ten Commandments, in Buddhism
Moses Vis d°ff ^ fal' ?* Ten Commaudments of OSes. It is different when we come to facts and
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Wends. When it is pointed out that with regard to these also there are great similarities between the 1 e of Christ and the life of Buddha, I feel bound to acknowledge that such similarities exist and tha , though many may be accounted for by the common springs of human nature, there are a few left which are startling, and which as yet remain a riddle.
It is owing, no doubt, to these coincidences that a very remarkable person, whose name has lately become familiar in England also, felt strongly attracted to the study of Buddhism. I mean of course, the late Madame Blavatsky, the founder of Esoteric Buddhism. I have never met her, though she often promised, or rather threatened, she would meet me face to face at Oxford. She came to Oxford and preached, I am told, for six hours before a number of young men, but she did not inform me of her presence. At first she treated me almost like a Mahatma, but when there was no response I became, like all Sanskrit scholars, a very untrustwoit y authority. I have watched her career for many years from her earliest appearance in America to her death in London last year. She founded her Theosophic Society at New York in 1875. The object of that society was to experiment practically in the occu powers of Nature, and to collect and disseminate amono- Christians information about Oriental religious philosophies. Nothing could be said against sue objects, if only they were taken up honestly, an with the necessary scholarly preparation Latei , however, new objects were added, namely to spread among the benighted heathen such evidences as to the practical results of Christianity as will at least give
INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 101
both sides of the story to the communities among which missionaries are at work. With this view the society undertook to establish relations with associa- tions and individuals throughout the East, to whom it furnished authenticated reports of the ecclesiastical crimes and misdemeanours, schisms, heresies, con- troversies and litigations, doctrinal differences and Biblical criticisms and revisions with which the press of Chiistian Europe and America constantly teems. ^ ou may easily imagine what the outcome of such a society would be, and how popular its Black Book would become in India and elsewhere. However, I am quite willing to give Madame Blavatsky credit for good motrv es, at least at the beginning of her career. Like many people in our time, she was, I believe, in search of a religion which she could honestly embrace. She was a clever, wild, and excitable girl, and anybody who wishes to take a charitable view of her later hysterical writings and performances should read the biographical notices, lately published by her own sister, in the Nouvelle Revue. It is the fault of those who guide the religious education of young men and women, and who simply require from them belief in certain facts and dogmas, without ever explaining what belief means, that so many, when they beo-in to think about the different kinds of human know- ledge, discover that they possess no religion at all.
Religion, in order to be real religion, a man’s own leligion, must be searched for, must be discovered, must be conquered. If it is simply inherited or accepted as a matter of course, it often happens that in latei years it falls away, and has either to be reconquered or to be replaced by another religion.
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Madame Blavatsky was one of those who want more than a merely traditional and formal faith, and, in looking round, she thought she could find what she wanted in India. We are ready to give Madame Blavatsky full credit for deep religious sentiments, more particularly for the same strong craving for a spiritual union with the Divine which has inspired so many of the most devout thinkers among Christians, as well as among so-called heathen. Nowhere has that craving found fuller expression than among the philosophers of India, particularly among the Vedanta philosophers. Like Schopenhauer, she seems to have discovered through the dark mists of imperfect transla- tions some of the brilliant rays of truth which issue from the Upanishads and the ancient Vedanta philo- sophy of India. .
To India, therefore, she went with some friends, but, unfortunately, with no knowledge of the lan- guage, and with very little knowledge of what she might expect to find there, and where she ought to look for native teachers who should initiate her in the mysteries of the sacred lore of the countiy. That such lore and such mysteries existed she never doubted ; and she thought that she had found at last what she wanted in Dayananda Sarasvati, the founder of the Arya-Samaj. His was, no doubt, a remarkable and powerful mind, but he did not understand English ; nor did Madame Blavatsky understand either the modern or the ancient languages of the country. Still there sprang up between the two a mutual though mute admiration, and a number of followers soon gathered round this interesting couple. However, this mute admiration did not last long, and when the two
INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 103
began to understand each other better they soon dis- covered that they could not act together. I am afraid it can no longer be doubted that Dayananda Sarasvati was as deficient in moral straightforwardness as his American pupil. Hence they were both disappointed in each other, and Madame Blavatsky now determined to found her own religious sect — in fact, to found a new religion, based chiefly on the old religions of India.
Unfortunately, she took it into her head that it was incumbent on every founder of a religion to perform miracles, and here it can no longer be denied that she often resorted to the most barefaced tricks and im- positions in order to gain adherents in India. In this she succeeded more than she herself could have hoped for. The natives felt flattered by being told that they were the depositaries of ancient wisdom, far more valuable than anything that European philosophy or the Christian religion had ever supplied. The natives are not often flattered in that way, and they naturally swallowed the bait. Others were taken aback by the assurance with which this new prophetess spoke of her intercourse with unseen spirits, of letters flying- through the air from Tibet to Bombay, of showers of flowers falling from the ceiling of a dining-room, of saucers disappearing from a tea-tray and being found in a garden, and of voices and noises proceeding from spirits through a mysterious cabinet. You may ask how educated people could have been deceived by such ordinary jugglery ; but with some people the power of believing seems to grow with the absurdity of what is to be believed. When I expressed my regret to one of her greatest admirers that Madame
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Blavatsky should have lowered herself by these vulgar exhibitions, I was told, with an almost startling frankness, that no religion could be founded without miracles, and that a religion, if it was to grow, must he manured. These are the ipsissima verba of one who knew Madame Blavatsky better than anybody else ; and after that it was useless for us to discuss this subject any further.
But, as I said before, I am quite willing to allow that Madame Blavatsky started with good intentions, that she saw and was dazzled by a glimmering of truth in various religions of the world, that she believed in the possibility of a mystic union of the soul with God, and that she was most anxious to discover in a large number of books traces of that theosophic intuition which re- unites human nature with the Divine. Unfortunately, she was without the tools to dig for those treasures in the ancient literature of the world, and her mistakes in quoting from Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin would be amusing if they did not appeal to our sympathy rather for a woman who thought that she could fly though she had no wings, not even those of Icarus.
Her book, called Isis Unveiled , in two volumes of more than 600 pages each, bristling with notes and references to every kind of authority, both wise and foolish, shows an immense amount of drudgery and misdirected ingenuity. To quote her blunders would be endless. Of what character they are will be seen when I quote what she says about the serpent being the good or the evil spirit b ‘In this case,’ she writes, ‘the serpent is the Ayathodaimon, the good spirit; in its opposite aspect it is the Kahothodai-
INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 105
mon, the bad one.’ I believe that this mistake, when I pointed it out to an undergraduate friend of mine at Oxford, saved him from enrolling himself as an Esoteric Buddhist. Again, speaking as if she knew the whole of Vedic literature, she says1: ‘Certainly, nowhere in the Veda can be found the coarseness and downright immorality of language that Hebraists now discover throughout the Mosaic Bible.’
It is very difficult, when you deal with ancient races who go about almost naked, to decide what is immodest and what is not. But, speaking not alto- gether without book, I may say that the Veda does contain certain passages which would not bear transla- tion into English.
Again, what shall we say to the argument that the Vedas must have been composed before the Deluge, because the Deluge is not mentioned in them2? Now, first of all, the Deluge is mentioned in the Brahmawa ot the Yai/ur-veda, and Madame Blavatsky knows it ; and secondly, are we really to suppose that every book which does not mention the Deluge was written before the Deluge ? What an enormous library of antediluvian books we should possess ! M. Jacolliot, as usual, outbids Madame Blavatsky. He writes :
‘ The Vedas and Manu, those monuments of old Asiatic thought existed far earlier than the diluvian period ; this is an incontro- vertible fact, having all the value of an historical truth, for, besides the tradition which shows Vishnu himself as saving the Vedas from the Deluge a tradition which, notwithstanding its legendary form must certainly rest upon a real fact -it has been remarked that neither of these sacred books mentions the cataclysm, while the PurAnas and the Mahabharata describe it with the minutest detail which is a proof of the priority of the former. The Vedas certainly
1 ii. p. So.
2 ii. p. 727.
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would never have failed to contain a few hymns on the terrible disaster which, of all other natural manifestations, must have struck the imagination of the people who witnessed it.’
Such hymns could only have been written by Noah or by Manu, and we possess, unfortunately, no poetic relics of either of these poets, not even in the Yeda.
I must quote no more, nor is more evidence wanted, to show that Madame Blavatsky and her immediate followers were simply without bricks and mortar when they endeavoured to erect the lofty structure which they had conceived in their minds. I give full credit to her good intentions, at least at first. I readily acknowledge her indefatigable industry. She began life as an enthusiast ; but enthusiasts, as Goethe says, after they have come to know the world, and have been deceived by the world, are apt to become deceivers themselves.
The number of her followers, however, has become so large in India, and particularly in Ceylon, that the movement started by her can no longer be ignored. There are Esoteric Buddhists in England also, in America, and in France ; but I doubt whether in these countries they can do much harm. To her followers Madame Blavatsky is a kind of inspired prophetess. To me it seems that she began life as an enthusiast, though not without a premature acquaintance with the darker sides of life, nor without a feminine weak- ness for notoriety. After a time, however, she ceased to be truthful both to herself and to others. But although her work took a wrong direction, I do not wish to deny that here and there she caught a glimpse of those wonderful philosophical intuitions which are treasured up in the sacred books of the East. Un-
INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 107
fortunately she had fallen an easy prey to some persons whom she consulted, whoever they were, whether Mahatmas from Tibet, or Panditammanyas in Calcutta, Bombay, or Madras. Disappointed in Dayananda Sarasvati and his often absurd interpreta- tions of the Veda, she turned to Buddhism, though again without an idea how or where to study that religion.
No one can study Buddhism unless he learns Sanskrit and Pali, so as to be able to read the canonical books, and at all events to spell the names correctly. Madame Blavatsky couid do neither, though she was quite clever enough, if she had chosen, to have learnt Sanskrit or Pali. But even her informants must have been almost entirely ignorant of these languages, or they must have practised on her credulity in a most shameless manner. W hether she herself suspected this or not, she certainly showed great shrewdness in withdraw- ing herself and her description of Esoteric Buddhism from all possible control and contradiction. Her Buddhism, she declared, was not the Buddhism which ordinary scholars might study in the canonical books ; hers was Esoteric Buddhism. ‘ It is not in the dead letter of Buddhistical sacred literature/ she says, ‘ that scholars may hope to find the true solution of the meta- physical subtleties of Buddhism. The latter weary the power of thought by the inconceivable profundity of its ratiocination : and the student is never farther from truth than when he believes himself nearest its discovery1. We are told, also2, that there was a pre- historic Buddhism which merged later into Brahman- ism, and that this was the religion preached by Jesus
1 i. p. 289. 2 ii. p. 123.
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and the early Apostles. After we have been told that there was a Buddhism older than the Vedas — and we might say with the same right that there was a Christianity older than Moses — we are told next ofapre-Vedic Brahmanism, and, to make all contro- versy impossible, Madame Blavatsky tells us that ‘ when she uses the term Buddhism she does not mean to imply by it either the exoteric Buddhism instituted by the followers of Gautama Buddha, nor the modern Buddhistic religion, but the secret philosophy of $akyamuni, which, in its essence, is identical with the ancient wisdom religion of the sanctuary, the pre- Vedic Brahmanism.’ ! Gautama,’ we are assured, ‘ had a doctrine for his “ elect,” and another for the outside masses.’ Then she adds apologetically, ‘ If both Buddha and Christ, aware of the great danger of furnishing an uncultivated populace with the double- edged weapon of knowledge which gives power, left the innermost corner of the sanctuary in the pro- foundest shade, who that is acquainted with human nature can blame them for it ? ’ Then why did she, being evidently so well acquainted with human nature, venture to divulge these dangerous esoteric doctrines ? Though I must say what she does divulge seems very harmless.
With such precautions Madame Blavatsky’s Esoteric Buddhism was safe against all cavil and all criticism. As no one could control the statements of Ctesias as to a race of people who used their ears as sheets to sleep in, no one could control the statements of the Mahatmas from Tibet as to a Buddhism for Madame Blavatsky to dream in. I do not say that no Mahatmas exist in India or in Tibet. I simply say that modern
INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 109
India is the worst country for studying Buddhism. India is, no doubt, the birthplace of Buddha and of Buddhism. But Buddhism, as a popular religion, has vanished from India, so that the religious census of the country knows hardly of any Buddhists, except in Ceylon and in some districts bordering on Tibet or Burmah. As no Buddhist teachers could be found in Bombay or Calcutta, some imaginary beings had to be created by Madame Blavatsky and located safely in Tibet, as yet the most inaccessible country in the world. Madame Blavatsky’s powers of creation were very great, whether she wished to have intercourse with Mahatmas, astral bodies, or ghosts of any kind. Heie is a list of the ghosts for whose real existence she vouches : ‘ peris, devs, djins, sylvans, satyrs, fauns, elves, dwarfs, trolls, norns, nisses, kobolds, brownies, necks, stromkarls, undines, nixies, salamanders, goblins, banshees, kelpies, pixies, moss people, good people, good neighbours, wild women, men of peace, white ladies, and many more.’ Shall we, then, concede, she asks, that all who have seen these creatures were hallucinated ? It is difficult to answer such a question without seeming rude. I should certainly say they weie hallucinated, and that they were using words of which they knew neither the meaning nor, what is even better, the etymology. So long as Madame Blavatsky placed her Mahatmas beyond the Himalayas both she and her witnesses were quite safe from any detectives or cross-examining lawyers. I saw, how- evei, in the papers not long ago that even the believers in Madame Blavatsky begin to be sceptical about these trans-Himalayan Mahatmas. At the annual Theo- sophical Convention, held at Chicago in 1892, a lady
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asked why outsiders were always told that the Mahatma sages dwelt beyond the Himalayan moun- tains. Mr. Judge, who is now the head of the American Theosophists, replied that it was for seclu- sion. ‘ If they were anywhere in the United States,’ he said, ‘ they would be pestered and interviewed by reporters.’ This admitted of no reply, particularly in America.
We, the pretended authorities of the West, are told to go to the Brahmans and Lamaists of the Far Orient, and respectfully ask them to impart to us the alphabet of true science. But she gives us no addresses, no letters of introduction to her Tibetan friends, though in another place she tells us
Ganges, brushed against them in the silent ruins of Thebes, and in the mysterious deserted chambers of Luxor. Within the halls upon whose blue and golden vaults the weird signs attract attention, but whose secret meaning is never penetrated by the idle gazers, they have been seen, but seldom recognized. Historical memoirs have recorded their presence in the brilliantly illuminated salons of European aristocracy. They have been encountered again on the arid and desolate plains of the Great Sahara, as in the caves of Elephanta. They may be found everywhere, but make them- selves known only to those who have devoted their lives to unselfish study, and are not likely to turn back ’ (p. 17).
We see that Madame Blavatsky might have achieved some success if she had been satisfied to follow in the footsteps of Eider Haggard, Sinnet, or Marion Crawford ; but her ambition was to found a religion, not to make money by writing new Arabian Nights.
But when we come to examine what these deposi- taries of primaeval wisdom, the Mahatmas of Tibet and of the sacred Ganges, are supposed to have taught her we find no mysteries, nothing very new, nothing very
INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. Ill
old, but simply a medley of well-known though generally misunderstood Brahmanic or Buddhistic doctrines. There is nothing that cannot be traced back to generally accessible Brahmanic or Buddhistic sources, only everything is muddled or misunderstood. It I were asked what Madame Blavatsky’s Esoteric Buddhism really is. I should say it was Buddhism mis- understood, distorted, caricatured. There is nothing- in it beyond what was known already, chiefly from books that are now antiquated. The most ordinary terms are misspelt and misinterpreted. Mahdtma, for instance, is a well-known Sanskrit name applied to men who have retired from the world, who, by means of a long ascetic discipline, have subdued the passions of the flesh and gained a reputation for sanctity and knowledge. That these men are able to perform most startling feats and to suffer the most terrible tortures is perfectly true. Some of them, though not many, are distinguished as scholars also ;
so much so that Mahatma — literally ‘great-souled ’
has become an honorary title. I have myself had the honour of being addressed by that name in many letters written in Sanskrit, and sent to me — not, indeed, through the air, but through the regular post- office— from Benares to Oxford. That some of these so-called Mahatmas are impostors is but too well known to all who have lived in India. I am quite ready, therefore, to believe that Madame Blavatsky and her friends were taken in by persons who pre- tended to be Mahatmas, though it has never been explained in what language even they could have communicated their Esoteric Buddhism to their Euro- pean pupil. Madame Blavatsky herself was, according
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to her own showing, quite unable to gauge then- knowledge or to test their honesty, and she naturally shared the fate of Ctesias, of Lieutenant Wdford, and
of M. Jacolliot. . .
That there are men in India, knowing a certain amount of Sanskrit and a little English, who will say yes to everything you ask them, I know from sad experience ; and it would be very unfair to say that such weaklings exist in India only. If people wish to he deceived, there are always those who are rear y to deceive them. This, I think, is the most charitable interpretation which we can put on the beginnings so that extraordinary movement which is known y >e name of Esoteric Buddhism, nay, which, on account of the similarities which exist between Buddhism and Christianity, claims in some places the name ot Christian Buddhism. On this so-called Christian Buddhism, and on the real similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, I may have something to say at another time. At present I only wish to show that if there is any religion entirely free from esoteric doctrines it is Buddhism. There never was any such thing as mystery in Buddhism. Altogether, it seems to me that mystery is much more of a modern than of an ancient invention. There are no rea mysteries even in Brahmanism, for we can hardly apply that name to doctrines which were not com- municated to everybody, hut only to people who had passed through a certain preparatory discipline. 1 he whole life of a Brahman in ancient India was under a certain control. It was divided into four stages : the school, the household, the forest, and the solitude. Up to the age of twenty-seven a young man was
INDIAN FABLES AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 113
supposed to be a student in the house of a Guru. After that he had to marry and found a household, and perform all the religious acts which were pre- scribed by the "V edas ; then, when he had seen his childiens children, he was expected to retire from his house, and live, either alone or with his wife, in the forest, released from social and religious duties — nay, allowed to enjoy the greatest freedom of philosophic speculation.
Now it is quite true that the Aranyakas, the Foiest- books, and the Upanishads in which these philosophical speculations are contained were some- times called Rahasya — that is, secret. They were not to be communicated to young people, nor to the married householder— very naturally, for they taught that the gods whom the young men and the married householders had believed in were not gods at all, but simply different names of the Unknown behind Is ature, and that of the Great Spirit or Brahma nothing could be predicated except sat, that he was ; jfeit, that he perceived and thought ; and ananda, that he was blessed— hence he was often called Sa&fcid&nanda. Sacrifices, and all outward worship, which had before been represented as necessary for man’s salvation, were now represented as not only useless, but as actually hurtful, if performed with any selfish view to rewards in another life. Whereas the whole of the Veda had formerly been represented as super- human, inspired, and infallible, one part of it, the Karmakanda, the practical part, consisting of the hymns and the Br&hmanas, the liturgical books, was now put aside, and there remained only the #/7ana- kaiicZa, the philosophical part, that is, whatever