The people who have had their thoughts and sentiments habitually trained by one particular set of religious dogmas, frequently misjudge the value of those thoughts that are strange and unfamiliar to them. We may call this class of people bigots or religious enthusiasts. They may have fine religious and moral sentiments as far as their own religious training goes; but, when examined from a broader point of view, they are to a great extent vitiated {17} with prejudices, superstitions, and fanatical beliefs, which, since childhood, have been pumped into their receptive minds, before they were sufficiently developed and could form independent judgments. This fact so miserably spoils their purity of sentiment and obscures their transparency of intellect, that they are disqualified to perceive and appreciate whatever is good and true and beautiful in the so-called heathen religions. This is the main reason why those Christian missionaries are incapable of rightly understanding the spirit of religion generally--I mean, those missionaries who come to the East to substitute one set of superstitions for another. This strong general indictment against the Christian missionaries, however, is by no means prompted by any partisan spirit. My desire, on the contrary, is to do justice to those thoughts and sentiments that have been working consciously or unconsciously in the human mind from time immemorial and shall work on till the day of the last judgment, if there ever be such a day. To see what these thoughts and sentiments are, which, by the way, constitute the kernel of every religion, we must without any reluctance throw off all the prejudices we are liable to cherish, though quite unknowingly; and keeping always in view what is most essential in the religious consciousness, we must not confound it with its accessories, which are doomed to die in the course of time. {18} _Examples of Injustice._ As specimen of injustice done to the Mahâyâna Buddhism by Christian critics, we quote the following passages from Monier-William’s _Buddhism_, Waddell’s _Buddhism in Tibet_, and Samuel Beal’s _Buddhism in China_, all of which are representative works each in its own field. _Monier Monier-Williams._ Monier Monier-Williams is a well-known authority on Sanskrit literature, and his works in this department will long remain as a valuable contribution to human knowledge. But, unfortunately, as soon as he attempts to enter the domain of religious controversy, his intellect becomes piteously obscured by his preconceived ideas. He thinks, for instance, that the principal feature of Mahâyânism consists merely in amplifying the number of Bodhisattvas, who are contented, according to his view, with their “perpetual residence in the heavens, and quite willing to put off all desires for Buddhahood and Parinirvana.” (P. 190.)