Buddha's life. He
had attained the good age of three score and ten, and had been on a
visit to Ra_g_ag_r_iha, where the king, A_g_ata_s_atru, the former
enemy of Buddha, and the assassin of his own father, had joined the
congregation, after making a public confession of his crimes. On his
return he was followed by a large number of disciples, and when on the
point of crossing the Ganges, he stood on a square stone, and turning
his eyes back towards Ra_g_ag_r_iha, he said, full of emotion, 'This
is the last time that I see that city.' He likewise visited Vai_s_ali,
and after taking leave of it, he had nearly reached the city of
Ku_s_inagara, when his vital strength began to fail. He halted in a
forest, and while sitting under a sal tree, he gave up the ghost, or,
as a Buddhist would say, entered into Nirva_n_a.

This is the simple story of Buddha's life. It reads much better in
the eloquent pages of M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, than in the turgid
language of the Buddhists. If a critical historian, with the materials
we possess, entered at all on the process of separating truth from
falsehood, he would probably cut off much of what our biographer has
left. Professor Wilson, in his Essay on Buddha and Buddhism, considers
it doubtful whether any such person as Buddha ever actually existed.
He dwells on the fact that there are at least twenty different dates
assigned to his birth, varying from 2420 to 453 B.C. He points out
that the clan of the _S_akyas is never mentioned by early Hindu
writers, and he lays much stress on the fact that most of the proper
names of the persons connected with Buddha suggest an allegorical
signification. The name of his father means, he whose food is pure;
that of his mother signifies illusion; his own secular appellation,
Siddhartha, he by whom the end is accomplished. Buddha itself means,
the Enlightened, or, as Professor Wilson translates it less
accurately, he by whom all is known. The same distinguished scholar
goes even further, and maintaining that Kapilavastu, the birthplace of
Buddha, has no place in the geography of the Hindus, suggests that it
may be rendered, the substance of Kapila; intimating, in fact, the
Sankhya philosophy, the doctrine of Kapila Muni, upon which the
fundamental elements of Buddhism, the eternity of matter, the
principles of things, and the final extinction, are supposed to be
planned. 'It seems not impossible,' he continues, 'that _S_akya Muni
is an unreal bein