to convince the Brahmins that Brahma could not be a god, since
he had created a wretched world. The Brahmins, however, received him
with suspicion, so he retired to a lonely country where, with five
disciples, he devoted himself to deep meditation and self-mortification.

In time he came to see that it was no use to torture and enfeeble the
body, which is after all the abode of the soul, and accordingly began to
take food again. Then his disciples abandoned him, for at that time
self-mortification was regarded as the only path to salvation. Siddharta
was then alone, and under the sacred fig-tree still shown in India he
gained wisdom and enlightenment, and became Buddha.

Then he came to Benares, and won back his first disciples; and his
society, the brotherhood of the yellow mendicant monks, spread ever more
and more. In the rainy season, from June to October, he taught in
Benares, and in the fine weather he wandered from village to village.
"To abstain from all evil, to acquire virtue, to purify the heart--that
is the religion of Buddha"; so he preached. At the age of eighty years
he died in 480 B.C.

Buddha was a reformer who wished to instil new life into the religious
faith of the Hindus. Many of the leading brothers of his order were
Brahmins. He rejected the Vedic books, self-mortification, and
differences of caste, preached philanthropy, and taught that the way to
Nirvana, the paradise of peace and perfection, is open to all. He left
no writings behind, but his doctrines were preserved in the memory of
his disciples, who long after wrote them down. The five chief precepts
are, "Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not lie, and thou shalt not drink strong drinks."

To-day, 2500 years after his death, the doctrine of Buddha has spread
over immense regions of eastern Asia--over Japan, China, Korea,
Mongolia, Tibet, Further India, and Ceylon--and the country north of the
Caspian Sea. Innumerable are the images of Buddha to be found in the
temples of eastern Asia, and he himself has been called the "Light of
Asia."

BOMBAY

After we leave Benares the railway turns south-eastwards to the wide
delta country where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra meet, and where
Calcutta, the capital of India,[12] stands on one of the arms of the
river. The town itself is flat and monotonous, but it is large and
wealthy and contains more than a million inhabitants. The climate is
ve