BUDDHIST BIBLE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 56, 15 September 1928, Page 10

BUDDHIST BIBLE

TREASURE FROM TIBET CENTURIES OLD LIBRARY (From "The host's" Representative.) NEW YORK, 22nd August. 'Moi-e than 300 musty volumes, packed like small bales of cloth, now adorn the Library of Congress, having been received from Dr. Joseph Bock, who found them in a lamesery in Tibet and forwarded them after a delay of three years. It is estimated the books were printed 500 years ago. They contain approximately 180,000 pages, each printed from a hand-carved block. The volumes are divided into two sets: the Kahgyur and the Tangyur. Tho former, of 1083 instinct works, contains the "Faithful Translation of the Buddhist Commandments, divided into three sections: — Dulva, or the discipline; Do, or the sermons of Buddhas; and the Transcendental Wisdom of Buddhist Scholars." The Tangyur is a great cyclopaedic work, written mostly by native scholars and containing rhetoric, grammar and dictionary. ■ IjpiM Only two men are known to be able to read them in the United States. They are Dr. Laufer, of the Field Museum, and Dr. Ware, of the University of Washington. British and German scholars have, however, contributed a partial translation of the Tibetian classics. No one has been known to translate the entire set. The Kahgyur volumes are two feet long. The "Noble Eight-Fold Path", along which men must walk, is given by the Kahgyur as "Right Believing, Aims, Speech, Actions, Means of Livelihood, Endeavour, Mindfulness and Meditation." It lays down but five commandments: —"Kill not, steal not, commit not adultery, lie not and drink not strong drink." The good shall enjoy Nirvana in this life and pari-Nirvana, "tho peace that passeth understanding", in the iiext.