48. When Buddha was about to become an ascetic, and when riding on the horse "Kantako," his path was strewn with flowers, thrown there by Devas.[297:9] 48. When Jesus was entering Jerusalem, riding on an ass, his path was strewn with palm branches, thrown there by the multitude.[297:10] Never were devotees of any creed or faith as fast bound in its thraldom as are the disciples of Gautama Buddha. For nearly two thousand four hundred years it has been the established religion of Burmah, Siam, Laos, Pega, Cambodia, Thibet, Japan, Tartary, Ceylon and Loo-Choo, and many neighboring islands, beside about two-thirds of China and a large portion of Siberia; and at the present day no inconsiderable number of the simple peasantry of Swedish Lapland are found among its firm adherents.[297:11] Well authenticated records establish indisputably the facts, that together with a noble physique, superior mental endowments, and high moral excellence, there were found in Buddha a purity of life, sanctity of character, and simple integrity of purpose, that commended themselves to all brought under his influence. Even at this distant day, one cannot listen with tearless eyes to the touching details of his pure, earnest life, and patient endurance under contradiction, often fierce persecution for those he sought to benefit. Altogether he seems to have been one of those remarkable examples, of genius and virtue occasionally met with, unaccountably superior to the age and nation that produced them. There is no reason to believe that he ever arrogated to himself any higher authority than that of a teacher of religion, but, _as in modern factions_, there were readily found among his followers those who carried his peculiar tenets much further than their founder. These, not content with lauding during his life-time the noble deeds of their teacher, exalted him, within a quarter of a century after his death, to a place among their deities--worshiping as a God one they had known only as a simple-hearted, earnest, truth-seeking philanthropist.[298:1] This worship was at first but the natural upgushing of the veneration and love Gautama had inspired during his noble life, and his sorrowing disciples, mourning over the desolation his death had occasioned, turned for consolation to the theory that he still lived. Those who had known him in life cherished his name as the very synonym of all that was generous and good, and it required but a step to exalt him to divine honors; and so it was that Gautama Buddha became a God, and continues to be worshiped as such. For more than forty years Gautama thus dwelt among his followers, instructing them daily in the sacred law, and laying down many rules for their guidance when he should be no longer with them.[299:1]