[8]Max Mueller calls attention to the remarkable fact that Dyaus
Pittar, the highest name of deity among the ancient Hindoos, is the
exact equivalent of Zeus Pater among the Greeks, Jupiter among the
Romans, and of "Our Father who art in the heavens" in the divinely
taught and holiest prayer of our own religion.
[9]How any one can think that Buddha did not believe in a Supreme Being
in the face and light of the wonderful Sutra, or sermon of which, the
text is but a condensation or abstract, is to me unaccountable. It is
equally strange that any one should suppose he regarded Nirvana, which
is but another name for Brahma Loca, as meaning annihilation.
To be sure he used the method afterwards adopted by Socrates, and now
known as the Socratic method, of appealing to the unquestioned belief
of the Brahmans themselves as the foundation of his argument in support
of that fundamental truth of all religions, that the pure in heart
alone can see God. But to suppose that he was using arguments to
convince them that he did not believe himself, is a libel on one whose
absolute truthfulness and sincerity admit of no question.
[10]"He prayeth best who loveth best
Both man and bird and beast."
--Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
[11]Whether the Tartars were "the savage tribes" to whom Purna, one of
the sixty, was sent, may admit of question, but it is certain that long
before the Christian era the whole country north of the Himalayas was
thoroughly Buddhist, and the unwearied missionaries of that great faith
had penetrated so far west that they met Alexander's army and boldly
told him that war was wrong; and they had penetrated east to the
confines of China.
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