Next to the conversion of Thoubat, follows an interesting instruction delivered to Ananda and the assembled Rahans. Here Buddha displays the superiority of his lofty mind. Clinging to the principles of abstract truth, he has no regard for persons or things. This material world, man included, is, in his opinion, a mere illusion, exhibiting nothing real, but only an uninterrupted succession of changes, which exclude the idea of immutable fixity. He apparently has no wish to infuse consolation into the afflicted souls of his disciples. He supposes that, being all initiated in the knowledge of truth, and having entered in the ways of perfection, they must know that the person of a Buddha is subjected to the law of mutability, and, therefore, to destruction or to death. He says plainly to them that his absence from among them is a circumstance scarcely worth noticing: by his doctrines contained in the Abidama, the Thoots and the Wini, he will ever be present among them. In these sacred writings they will possess something more valuable than his material being: they will have and enjoy the truth that was in him, and that he has communicated to them by his oral instructions. He earnestly invites them to lay stress only on that doctrine which they have received from him. It is hardly necessary to notice a serious anachronism made by the unskilful compiler of this legend on this occasion. We know that Buddha wrote nothing, and that the compilation of his doctrines with its division in three distinct portions was the work of the three great councils held after Gaudama’s death or Neibban. How could the dying originator of Buddhism speak of compilations of his doctrines, which were not as yet existing?