and in the fourth the order
of mendicants which he founded. The nature and value of the Pali Canon
form the subject of the fifth chapter and the sixth is occupied with the
great Emperor Asoka whose name is the clearest landmark in the early
history of Buddhism, and indeed of India.

The seventh and eighth chapters discuss topics which belong to Hinduism
as well as to Buddhism, namely, meditation and mythology. The latter is
anterior to Buddhism and it is only in a special sense that it can be
called an addition or accretion. Indian thought makes clearings in the
jungle of mythology, which become obliterated or diminished as the
jungle grows over them again. Buddhism was the most thorough of such
clearings, yet it was invaded more rapidly and completely than any
other. The Vedanta and Sankhya are really, if less obviously, similar
clearings. They raise no objection to popular divinities but such
divinities do not come within the scope of religious philosophy as they
understand it.

CHAPTER VIII

LIFE OF THE BUDDHA

1

We have hitherto been occupied with obscure and shadowy personalities.
The authors of the Upanishads are nameless and even MahavIra is unknown
outside India. But we now come to the career of one who must be ranked
among the greatest leaders of thought that the world has seen, the
Indian prince generally known as Gotama or the Buddha. His historical
character has been called in question, but at the present day probably
few, if any, competent judges doubt that he was a real person whose date
can be fixed and whose life can be sketched at least in outline.

We have seen that apart from the personality of Gotama, ancient India
was familiar with the idea of a Buddha and had even classified the
attributes he should possess. Two styles of biography are therefore
possible: an account of what Gotama actually was and did and an account
of what a Buddha is expected to be and do. This second style prevails in
later Buddhist works: they contain descriptions of the deeds and
teaching of a Buddha, adapted to such facts in Gotama's life as seemed
suitable for such treatment or could not be ignored. Rhys Davids has
well compared them to _Paradise Regained_, but the supernatural element
is, after the Indian fashion, more ornate.

The reader will perhaps ask what are the documents describing Gotama's
sayings and doings and what warrant we have for trusting them. I will
treat of this question in more detail in