[4] Most writers on the Buddhist faith and religion have occasion to refer to the series of events which culminated in the Lord Buddha obtaining “supreme enlightenment.” The founder of the Buddhist faith, dissatisfied with the practice of asceticism, and disappointed by his unfaithful disciples, walked meditatively towards the river Nairanjara, where Sujata, “the daughter of a neighbouring villager,” provided him with his morning meal. Seating himself under a sacred Bo-Tree, immediately he became engaged in the severest of mental conflicts. The Buddhist authors describe their Master as sitting “sublime,” “calm,” and “serene” throughout the sustained assault of a “visible” and wicked tempter, assisted by legions of evil spirits. So unrelenting was the fierce encounter, that the forces of nature shook and were convulsed under the dreadful onslaught. As the day advanced, the spiritual elements in Buddha’s nature gradually gained the ascendency; and when he became “fully enlightened,” there was revealed to him an antidote for human woe. The mind of the Lord Buddha thereafter assumed an aspect of perfect peace; “and in _the power over the human heart of inward culture, and of love to others_,” the great Teacher discovered a foundation of Truth, where, with assurance of faith, he could securely rest. As Milton regarded “Paradise” to be “regained” in the wilderness, and not on Calvary; in like manner the Buddhist poets indicate a belief that the experience of their Master under the Bo-Tree was the most eventful in his history. That is the reason they regard the Bo-Tree with a reverence resembling the Christian veneration of the Cross. (Compare Davids’ _Buddhism_.) [5] Buddha said: “Right! Right! Subhuti, there is in truth no fixed Law (by which) Tathagata attained this condition. Subhuti, if there had been such a Law, then Dipankara Buddha would not have said in delivering the prediction concerning me: ‘you in after ages must attain to the state of Buddha, and your name shall be Sakyamuni,’ so that because there is indeed no fixed Law for attaining the condition of ‘the perfect heart,’ on that account it was Dipankara Buddha delivered his prediction in such words.”—_Kin-Kong-King_. Beal. [6] “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.”—_Buddhism_. T. W. Rhys Davids.