[4]For the best description of the banyan-tree, see Lady Dufferin's account of the old tree at their out-of-town place in "Our Viceroyal Life in India," and "Two Years in Ceylon," by C.F. Gordon Cumming. [5]Those who saw the illuminations at Chicago during the World's fair, with lines of incandescent electric lights, can get a good idea of the great illuminations in India with innumerable oil lamps, and those who did not should read Lady Dufferin's charming description of them in "Our Viceroyal Life in India." [6]Lady Dufferin says that the viceroy never wearied, in his admiration of the graceful flowing robes of the East as contrasted with our stiff, fashion-plate male attire. [7]"The good Lord could not be everywhere and therefore made mothers."--Jewish saying from the Talmud. [8]Max Mueller calls attention to the remarkable fact that Dyaus Pittar, the highest name of deity among the ancient Hindoos, is the exact equivalent of Zeus Pater among the Greeks, Jupiter among the Romans, and of "Our Father who art in the heavens" in the divinely taught and holiest prayer of our own religion. [9]How any one can think that Buddha did not believe in a Supreme Being in the face and light of the wonderful Sutra, or sermon of which, the text is but a condensation or abstract, is to me unaccountable. It is equally strange that any one should suppose he regarded Nirvana, which is but another name for Brahma Loca, as meaning annihilation. To be sure he used the method afterwards adopted by Socrates, and now known as the Socratic method, of appealing to the unquestioned belief of the Brahmans themselves as the foundation of his argument in support of that fundamental truth of all religions, that the pure in heart alone can see God. But to suppose that he was using arguments to convince them that he did not believe himself, is a libel on one whose absolute truthfulness and sincerity admit of no question. [10]"He prayeth best who loveth best Both man and bird and beast." --Rime of the Ancient Mariner. [11]Whether the Tartars were "the savage tribes" to whom Purna, one of the sixty, was sent, may admit of question, but it is certain that long before the Christian era the whole country north of the Himalayas was thoroughly Buddhist, and the unwearied missionaries of that great faith had penetrated so far west that they met Alexander's army and boldly told him that war was wrong; and they had penetrated east to the confines of China. [12]The large gatherings of the Buddhist brotherhoods everywhere spoken of in the writings can only be accounted for on the supposition, which is more than a supposition, that they came to him in the rainy season, when they could do but little in their missions; and the substantial unity of the Buddhist faith can only be accounted for on the supposition that his instructions were constantly renewed at these gatherings and their errors corrected. BOOK VIII.