a has vaulted
into Nirwana. The Buddhists have many scriptures, especially one,
called the "Book of the Five Hundred and Fifty Births," detailing
the marvellous adventures of the Bodhisat during his numerous
transmigrations, wherein he exhibits for each species of being to
which he belongs a model character and life.

At length the momentous day dawns when the unweariable Bodhisat
enters on his well earned Buddhaship. From that time, during the
rest of his life, he goes about preaching discourses, teaching
every prepared creature he meets the method of securing eternal
deliverance. Leaving behind in these discourses a body of wisdom
sufficient to guide to salvation all who will give attentive ear
and heart, the Buddha then his sublime work of disinterested love
being completed receives the fruition of his toil, the super
essential prize of the universe, the Infinite Good. In a word, he
dies, and enters Nirwana. There is no more evil of any sort for
him at all forever. The final fading echo of sorrow has ceased in
the silence of perfect blessedness; the last undulation of the
wave of change has rolled upon the shore of immutability.

The only historic Buddha is Sakya Muni, or Gotama, who was born at
Kapila about six centuries before Christ. His teachings contain
many principles in common with those of the Brahmans. But he
revolted against their insufferable conceit and cruelty. He
protested against their claim that no one could obtain
emancipation until after being born as a Brahman and passing
through the various rites and degrees of their order. In the
face of the most powerful and arrogant priesthood in the world,
he preached the perfect equality of all mankind, and the consequent
abolition of castes. Whoever acquires a total detachment of
affection from all existence is thereby released from birth and
misery; and the means of acquiring that detachment are freely
offered to all in his doctrine.

Thus did Gotama preach. He took the monopoly of religion out of the
hands of a caste, and proclaimed emancipation to every creature
that breathes. He established his system in the valley of the
Ganges near the middle of the sixth century before Christ. It soon
overran the whole country, and held sway until about eight hundred
years after Christ, when an awful persecution and slaughter on the
part of the uprising Brahmans drove it out of the land with sword
and fire. "The colossal figure which for fourteen centuries had
b