‘I call to mind, Ānanda, how when I used to enter into an assembly of many hundred nobles, before I had seated myself there, or talked to them, or started a conversation with them, I used to become in colour like unto their colour, and in voice like unto their voice. Then, with religious discourse, I used to instruct, incite, and quicken them, and fill them with gladness. But they knew me not when I spoke, and would say, “Who may this be who thus speaks? a man or a god?” Then, having instructed, incited, quickened, and gladdened them with religious discourse, I would vanish away. But they knew me not even when I vanished away; and would say, “Who may this be who has thus vanished away? a man, or a god?”’—(Mahā-parinibbāna-sutta III. 22, Rhys Davids.) Such passages in the early literature afford an interesting exemplification of the growth of supernatural and mystical ideas, which led to the ultimate association of the Buddhistic system with Ṡaivism, demonology, magic, and various so-called spiritual phenomena. I now proceed to show that the development of these ideas in Buddhism resulted from its connexion with the later Yoga, which developed similar ideas. In the aphorisms of this later Yoga, composed by Patañjali, eight chief requisites are enumerated (II. 29); namely, 1. abstaining from five evil acts (yama); 2. performing five positive duties (niyama); 3. settling the limbs in certain postures (āsana); 4. regulating and suppressing the breath (prāṇāyāma); 5. withdrawing the senses from their objects (pratyāhāra); 6. fixing the thinking faculty (dhāraṇā); 7. internal self-contemplation (dhyāna); 8. trance-like self-concentration (samādhi). These eight are indispensable requisites for the gaining of Patañjali’s _summum bonum_—the complete abstraction or isolation (kaivalya) of the soul or spirit in its own essence—and for the acquirement of supernatural faculties. Taking now these eight requisites of Yoga in order, we may observe, with regard to the first, that the five evil acts to be avoided correspond to the five commandments in Buddhism, viz. ‘kill not,’ ‘steal not,’ ‘commit no impurity,’ ‘lie not.’ The fifth alone—‘abstain from all worldly enjoyments’—is different, the Buddhist fifth prohibition being ‘drink no strong drink’ (p. 126). With regard to the second requisite, the five positive duties are—self-purification, both external and internal (both called ṡauća); the practice of contentment (saṃtosha); bodily mortification (tapas); muttering of prayers, or repetition of mystical syllables (svādhyāya, or japa), and contemplation of the Supreme Being. The various processes of bodily mortification already described (see p. 228) were repudiated by Buddhism.