the sense of absolute annihilation. [Footnote 83: See Burnouf, 'Introduction,' p. 441; Hodgson, 'Asiatic Researches,' vol. xvi.] [Footnote 84: 'Calm,' 'without wind,' as Nirvâ_n_a is sometimes explained, is expressed in Sanskrit by Nirvâta. See Amara-Kosha, sub voce.] [Footnote 85: Different views of the Nirvâ_n_a, as conceived by the Tîrthakas or the Brahmans, may be seen in an extract from the Lankâvatâra, translated by Burnouf, p. 514.] The earliest authority to which we can go back, if we want to know the original character of Buddhism, is the Buddhist Canon, as settled after the death of Buddha at the first Council. It is called Tripi_t_aka, or the Three Baskets, the first containing the Sûtras, or the discourses of Buddha; the second, the Vinaya, or his code of morality; the third, the Abhidharma, or the system of metaphysics. The first was compiled by Ânanda, the second by Upâli, the third by Kâ_s_yapa--all of them the pupils and friends of Buddha. It may be that these collections, as we now possess them, were finally arranged, not at the first, but at the third Council. Yet, even then, we have no earlier, no more authentic, documents from which we could form an opinion as to the original teaching of Buddha; and the Nirvâ_n_a, as taught in the metaphysics of Kâ_s_yapa, and particularly in the Pra_gn_â-pâramitâ, is annihilation, not absorption. Buddhism, therefore, if tested by its own canonical books, cannot be freed from the charge of Nihilism, whatever may have been its character in the mind of its founder, and whatever changes it may have undergone in later times, and among races less inured to metaphysical discussions than the Hindus. The ineradicable feeling of dependence on something else, which is the life-spring of all religion, was completely numbed in the early Buddhist metaphysicians, and it was only after several generations had passed away, and after Buddhism had become the creed of millions, that this feeling returned with increased warmth, changing, as I said in my article, the very Nothing into a paradise, and deifying the very Buddha who had denied the existence of a Deity. That this has been the case in China we know from the interesting works of the Abbé Huc, and from other sources, such as the 'Catechism of the Shamans, or the Laws and Regulations of the Priesthood of Buddha in China,' translated by Ch. F. Neumann, London, 1831. In India, also, Buddhism, as soon as it became a popular religion, had to speak a more human language than that of metaphysical Pyrrhonism. But, if it did so, it was because it was shamed into it. This we may see from the very nicknames which the Brahmans apply to their opponents, the Bauddhas. They call them Nâstikas--those who maintain that there is nothing; _S_ûnyavadins-those who maintain that there is a universal void.