eir little means they
did it well, no one can doubt. They taxed themselves without friction,
they built their own monastery schools by voluntary effort, they
maintained a very high, a very simple, code of morals, entirely of their
own initiative.

All this has passed, or is passing away. The king has gone to a
banishment far across the sea, the ministers are either banished or
powerless for good or evil. It will never rise again, this government of
the king, which was so bad in all it did, and only good in what it left
alone. It will never rise again. The people are now part of the British
Empire, subjects of the Queen. What may be in store for them in the far
future no one can tell, only we may be sure that the past can return no
more. And the local government is passing away, too. It cannot exist
with a strong government such as ours. For good or for evil, in a few
years it, too, will be gone.

But, after all, these are but forms; the soul is far within. In the soul
there will be no change. No one can imagine even in the far future any
monk of the Buddha desiring temporal power or interfering in any way
with the government of the people. That is why I have written this
chapter, to show how Buddhism holds itself towards the government. With
us, we are accustomed to ecclesiastics trying to manage affairs of
state, or attempting to grasp the secular power. It is in accordance
with our ideals that they should do so. Our religious phraseology is
full of such terms as lord and king and ruler and servant. Buddhism
knows nothing of any of them. In our religion we are subject to the
authority of deacons and priests and bishops and archbishops, and so on
up to the Almighty Himself. But in Buddhism every man is free--free,
subject to the inevitable laws of righteousness. There is no hierarchy
in Buddhism: it is a religion of absolute freedom. No one can damn you
except yourself; no one can save you except yourself. Governments cannot
do it, and therefore it would be useless to try and capture the reins of
government, even if you did not destroy your own soul in so doing.
Buddhism does not believe that you can save a man by force.

As Buddhism was, so it is, so it will remain. By its very nature it
abhors all semblance of authority. It has proved that, under temptation
such as no other religion has felt, and resisted; it is a religion of
each man's own soul, not of governments and powers.

CHAPTER VIII

CRIME AND PUNI