A similar law appears to hold good in the case of religious ideas. Their whole character seems to change by a change of latitude and longitude. This is even true of Christianity. Can it be maintained, for instance, that the Christianity of modern Greece and Rome has much in common with early Christianity, and would any casual observer believe that the inhabitants of St. Petersburg, Berlin, Edinburgh, London, and Paris were followers of the same religion? It cannot therefore surprise us if Buddhism developed into apparently contradictory systems in different countries and under varying climatic conditions. In no two countries did it preserve the same features. Even in India, the land of its birth, it had greatly changed during the first ten centuries of its prevalence. So much so that had it been possible for its founder to reappear upon earth in the fifth century after Christ, he would have failed to recognize his own child, and would have found that his own teaching had not escaped the operation of a law which experience proves to be universal and inevitable. It is easy, therefore, to understand how difficult it will be to give any semblance of unity to my present subject. It will be impossible for me to treat as a consistent whole a system having a perpetually varying front and no settled form. I can only give a series of somewhat rough, though, I hope, trustworthy outlines, as far as possible in methodical succession. And in the carrying out of such a design, the three objects that will at first naturally present themselves for delineation will be three which constitute the well-known triad of early Buddhism—that is to say, the Buddha himself, His Law and His Order of Monks. Hence my aim will be, in the first place, to give such a historical account of the Buddha and of his earliest teaching as may be gathered from his legendary biography, and from the most trustworthy parts of the Buddhist canonical scriptures. Secondly, I shall give a brief description of the origin and composition of those scriptures as containing the Buddha’s ‘Law’ (Dharma); and thirdly, I shall endeavour to explain the early constitution of the Buddha’s Order of Monks (Saṅgha). After treating of these three preliminary topics, I shall next describe the Law itself; that is, the philosophical doctrines of Buddhism, its code of morality and theory of perfection, terminating in Nirvāṇa. Lastly, I shall attempt to trace out the confused outlines of theistic, mystical, and hierarchical Buddhism, as developed in Northern countries, adding an account of sacred objects and places, and contrasting the chief doctrines of Christianity. In regard to the Buddhism of Tibet, I shall chiefly base my explanations on Koeppen’s great work—a work never translated into English and now out of print—as well as on my own researches during my travels through the parts of India bordering on that country.