on the lives and miracles of saints, which circulate among Roman
Catholic peasants,--but would that give us a true picture of Roman
Catholicism? Thus it is with Buddhism."(9) In other words, Dr. Eitel would
urge that in order to deal fairly with such a subject, we must try to
distinguish the essence of the thing itself from the abuses and follies
that may, from time to time, have gathered round it; and this, it is to be
feared, has not always been done by English writers, in treating of
Buddhism.

For the sake of clearness, we may next proceed to trace a brief outline of
the life of Buddha, according to the belief of Buddhists generally, and
stripped of such legends and superstitions as find no credence with the
more educated and intellectual. It is true that a doubt has sometimes been
expressed as to the existence of Gautama Buddha at all; while even so
eminent an authority as Mr. Spence Hardy declares his conviction that,
owing to the lack of really authentic information, "it is impossible to
rely implicitly on any single statement made in relation to him."(10) But
even supposing the Buddha of the commonly-received traditions to be,
whether in part or in entirety, a mere creation of Indian thought, the
case undergoes no vital alteration; seeing that it is with the religion of
Buddhism that we are mainly concerned, and only in quite a subordinate
degree with the person of its supposed founder. The point is one that
deserves careful attention, suggesting as it does at once the essential
difference between Buddhism and Christianity, and the immeasurable
distance which divides the two. For of Christianity it is no exaggeration
to say that upon the truth of the received accounts of its Founder's Life
and Person its whole position absolutely depends; whereas, could it be
proved that Gautama never even lived, the system associated with his name
would suffer no material loss,--and this, because in Buddha we are invited
to contemplate only a teacher and a guide, one who would have men seek
purification and deliverance by the same means as he himself needed to
employ, and one who never claimed to be more than human. Most persons,
however, will prefer to accept as, in the main, historically correct the
commonly accepted outline of the life of Buddha which may thus be given--

The reputed founder of Buddhism was one Siddhartha, known in later life as
Gautama, and later still, by the title of Buddha, or the "Enlightened
One." Sid