From that moment, no matter in what form he is successively born, whether as a disgusting bug, a white elephant, a monarch, or a god, he is a Bodhisat, that is, a candidate pressing towards the Buddhaship. He at once begins practising the ten primary virtues, called paramitas, necessary for the securing of his aim. The period required for the full exercise of one of these virtues is a bhumi. Its duration is thus illustrated. Were a Bodhisat once in a thousand births to shed a single drop of blood, he would in the space of a bhumi shed more blood than there is water in a thousand oceans. On account of his merit he might always be born amidst the pleasures of the heavens; but since he could there make no progress towards his goal, he prefers being born in the world of men. During his gradual advance, there is no good he does not perform, no hardship he does not undertake, no evil he does not willingly suffer; and all for the benefit of others, to obtain the means of emancipating those whom he sees fastened by ignorance in the afflictive circle of acts. Wherever born, acting, or suffering, his eye is still turned towards that EMPTY THRONE, at the apex of the universe, from which the last Buddha has vaulted into Nirwana. The Buddhists have many scriptures, especially one, called the "Book of the Five Hundred and Fifty Births," detailing the marvellous adventures of the Bodhisat during his numerous transmigrations, wherein he exhibits for each species of being to which he belongs a model character and life. At length the momentous day dawns when the unweariable Bodhisat enters on his well earned Buddhaship. From that time, during the rest of his life, he goes about preaching discourses, teaching every prepared creature he meets the method of securing eternal deliverance. Leaving behind in these discourses a body of wisdom sufficient to guide to salvation all who will give attentive ear and heart, the Buddha then his sublime work of disinterested love being completed receives the fruition of his toil, the super essential prize of the universe, the Infinite Good. In a word, he dies, and enters Nirwana. There is no more evil of any sort for him at all forever. The final fading echo of sorrow has ceased in the silence of perfect blessedness; the last undulation of the wave of change has rolled upon the shore of immutability.