BRASS IMAGE OF GAUTAMA BUDDHA FROM CEYLON.
He is seated on the Mućalinda Serpent (see p. 480), in an attitude of profound meditation, with eyes half closed, and five rays of light emerging from the crown of his head.[Frontispiece.
BUDDHISM,
IN ITS CONNEXION WITH BRĀHMANISM AND HINDŪISM,
AND
IN ITS CONTRAST WITH
CHRISTIANITY,
BY
SIR MONIER MONIER-WILLIAMS, K.C.I.E.,
M.A., HON. D.C.L. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
HON. LL.D. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA,
HON. PH.D. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN,
HON. MEMBER OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETIES OF BENGAL AND BOMBAY,
AND OF THE ORIENTAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETIES OF AMERICA,
BODEN PROFESSOR OF SANSKṚIT,
AND LATE FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD, ETC.
NEW YORK:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1889.
[All rights reserved.]
PREFACE.
The ‘Duff Lectures’ for 1888 were delivered by meat Edinburgh in the month of March. In introducingmy subject, I spoke to the following effect:—
‘I wish to express my deep sense of the responsibilitywhich the writing of these Lectures has laid upon me,and my earnest desire that they may, by their usefulness,prove in some degree worthy of the great missionarywhose name they bear.
‘Dr. Duff was a man of power, who left his ownfoot-print so deeply impressed on the soil of Bengal,that its traces are never likely to be effaced, and stillserve to encourage less ardent spirits, who are strivingto imitate his example in the same field of labour.
‘But not only is the impress of his vigorous personalitystill fresh in Bengal. He has earned an enduringreputation throughout India and the UnitedKingdom, as the prince of educational missionaries.He was in all that he undertook an enthusiastic andindefatigable workman, of whom, if of any humanbeing, it might be truly said, that, when called uponto quit the sphere of his labours, “he needed not to beashamed.” No one can have travelled much in Indiaviwithout having observed how wonderfully the resultsof his indomitable energy and fervid eloquence in thecause of Truth wait on the memory of his work everywhere.Monuments may be erected and lectureshipsfounded to perpetuate his name and testify to hisvictories over difficulties which few other men couldhave overcome, but better than these will be the livingtestimony of successive generations of Hindū men andwomen, whose growth and progress in true enlightenmentwill be due to the seed which he planted, andto which God has given the increase.’
I said a few more words expressive of my hope thatthe ‘Life of Dr. Duff’[1] would be read and ponderedby every student destined for work of a