study of these books is, that a more awful tyranny never existed than this which proceeded from the union of physical, intellectual, and spiritual ascendency. At the same time it would be altogether a mistake to regard the class whose ideas are reflected in the literature as a self-indulgent ecclesiastical aristocracy. It is not easy, I must admit, to describe adequately the intensity of the professional pride which shows itself in all parts of their writings. Everybody is to minister to them; everybody is to give way to them; the respectful salutations with which they are to be addressed are set forth with the utmost minuteness. They are to be free of the criminal law which they themselves prescribe. 'A Brahman,' writes Gautama, must not be subjected to corporal punishment, he must not be imprisoned, he must not be fined, he must not be exiled, he must not be reviled or excluded (from society).' Their arrogance perhaps reaches the highest point in a passage of the law-book of Vishnu, where it is written that the Gods are invisible deities; the Brahmans are visible deities. The Brahmans sustain the world. It is by favour of the Brahmans that the Gods reside in Heaven.' Yet the life which they chalk out for themselves is certainly not a luxurious and scarcely a happy life. It is a life passed from first to last. under the shadow of terrible possibilities. The Brahman in youth is to beg for his teacher; in maturity, as a married householder, he is hedged round with countless duties, of which the involuntary breach may consign him in another world to millions of years of degradation or pain; in old age, he is to become an ascetic or a hermit. It is possibly to this combination of self-assertion with self-denial and self-abasement that the wonderfully stubborn vitality of the main Brahmanical ideas may be attributed. As I have shown, the sacerdotal legal system, as a system, owes probably much of its present authority to its adoption by the Anglo-Indian Courts of Justice as the common law of India; but some of the points of belief which underlie it, as they do the whole Brahmanical literature, make the most durable part of the mental stock of every Hindu. Some of these ideas are not wanting either in religious or in moral elevation; but on the whole the evil has prevailed over the good. We can find in this most ancient literature the germs of many superstitions still exercising pernicious effect-of the caste prejudice which forces the wounded Sepoy to die of fever rather than take water from his low-caste fellow-soldier or his English officer; of that terror of pollution which, twentyfive years since, led to the frightful mutiny of the mercenary troops; of that rejection of meat and drink which still limits the food supply of an over-populated country, and contributes to its periodical famines. But in close contact with this frame of mind there is nowadays an ever-growing body of thought stirring with the leaven of Western knowledge and Western scientific method; and the juxtaposition of the two makes the government of India by the English an undertaking without a parallel in its novelty and difficulty, and in the amount of caution, insight, and self-command demanded from its administrators. E NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. NOTE A. WHEEL-PICTURES. BUDDHIST wheel-pictures are, as I have said, commoner than those of the Hindus, and have been frequently figured. Mr. Grant Duff's kindness has, however, supplied me from Madras with two Hindu pictures of the class, less perfect in outline than the Buddhist wheel-pictures, but manifestly following the same model. I am indebted to Professor Cowell for the following curious legendary account of the origin of the Buddhist pictures :— In the twenty-first story of the Northern Buddhist collection of legends called the "Divyávadána," there is an account how Buddha's disciple, Maudgalyáyana, used occasionally to visit heaven and hell, and when he returned to earth he would describe the different sights which he had seen. 'Buddha said to Ananda, "Maudgalyayana will not always be present, nor one like Maudgalyáyana; therefore a wheel must be made with five divisions and placed in the chamber of the gate." The mendicants heard that Buddha had given this order, but they did not know what sort of a wheel was to be made. Buddha said, "Five paths are to be made-those in the hells, animals, pretas,1 gods and men. Of these the hells are to be made lowest; then the animals and pretas; and above, the gods and men-i.e. the four continents, viz., Púrvavideha, Aparagodáníya, Uttarakuru, and Jambudvipa. In the centre are to be made desire, hatred and stupid indifference: desire in the form of a dove, hatred in that of a snake, stupid indifference in that of a hog. And images of Buddha are to be made pointing out the circle of Nirvána. Beings are to be represented as being born in a supernatural way, as by the machinery of a water-wheel, falling from one state and being produced in another. All round is to be represented the twelve-fold circle of causation in the regular and in the reverse order. Everything is to be represented as devoured by Transitoriness, and the two gáthás are to be written there, 3 'Begin, come out, be zealous in the doctrine of Buddha, Shake off the army of death as an elephant a hut of reeds. 'The mendicants carried out Buddha's words, and made the wheel with five divisions. The Brahmans and householders came and asked, "Sir, what is this engraved here?" They reply, "Sirs, even we do not know." Buddha said, "Let a certain mendicant be appointed to stand in the chamber of the gate, who shall show it to all the Brahmans and householders who come from time to time." 6 1 Ghosts or goblins who suffer from perpetual hunger. |