The unknown Hindoo author of The _Bhagavad-Gita_ revealed in simple phraseology the native idea of reincarnation; and suggested, happily, an instructive theory concerning the advent of great Teachers and Saviours in every age. To Krishna are ascribed the following sayings;— “_Manifold the renewals of my birth Have been.... When Righteousness Declines, O Bharata, when Wickedness Is strong, I rise, from age to age, and take Visible shape, and move a man with men, Succouring the good, thrusting the evil back, And setting Virtue on her seat again._” Rhys Davids justly observed that “to the pious Buddhist it is a constant source of joy and gratitude that ‘the Buddha,’ not only then, but in many former births, when emancipation from all the cares and troubles of life was already within his reach, should again and again, in mere love for man, have condescended to enter the world, and live amidst the sorrows inseparable from finite existence.”[47] Perhaps in a more general sense the idea of reincarnation appealed strongly to the imagination of Wordsworth, when he was inspired to write these familiar, yet exquisite, lines:— “_Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life’s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting And cometh from afar._” Regarding the doctrines of Individuality and non-Individuality, which characterise the text of _The Diamond Sutra_, wherein are found to occur frequently Chinese equivalents for the ordinary concepts of an entity, a being, a living being and a personality, the following passage from _The Bhagavad-Gita_, suggestive almost of complete harmony with the Buddhist doctrine, may serve to make even a cursory consideration of the subject perhaps more illuminating. The passage, rendered by Sir Edwin Arnold, is as follows:— “_There is ‘true’ Knowledge, Learn it thou in this: To see one changeless Life in all the Lives, And in the Separate, One Inseparable. There is imperfect Knowledge: that which sees The separate existences apart, And, being separated, holds them real._” As Nirvana is only referred to casually in _The Diamond Sutra_, that familiar Buddhist term hardly calls for any present detailed explanation. Within a brief compass probably no better explanation may be forthcoming than what is already given in this concise exposition gathered from _The Light of Asia_:— “_If any teach Nirvana is to cease, Say unto such they lie. If any teach Nirvana is to live, Say unto such they err; not knowing this, Nor what light shines beyond their broken lamps, Nor lifeless, timeless bliss._”