LUCUBRATIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1933, 25 February 1892, Page 40

LUCUBRATIONS.

By J. G. S. Grant.

THE LIGHT OF ASIA.

This work by Edwin Arnold has been extravagantly praised by certain sections of the press. I cannot join in their strain of eulogy. The poetical version of the life of Prince Siddartha or Guatama Buddha is told us, so far as it can be rendered intelligible from a ma«s of myths and legends. An imaginary Buddhist depicts the story and character and philsopby of the founder of Buddhism— which is the creed of 470,000,000 of human beings. He appears to have been a religious monomaniac, of a character exceptionally high, gentle, holy, and benevolent. He was "born on the borders of Nepaul about 620 8.C,, and died about 543 8.0. at Kusinagara, in Oudh." This old religion, according to Edwin Arnold, " has in it the eternity of a universal hope, the immortality of aboundless love, an indestructit le element of faith in final good, and the proudest assertion ever made of human freedom." Arnold cannot believe that "a third of mankind would even have been brought to believe in blank abstractions, or in nothingness a3 the issue and crown of Being." Buddhism, like other religions, has been degraded by its priesthood. Its power and sublimity, according to Arnold, should be estimated by its influence, not by its interpreter?. The sa:ne may be said of Chrisi ianity— which in some respects is an imitation and development of Buddhism. He was in infancy, boyhood, and early manhood reared up in a palace, delicately, luxuriously, and lovingly. He was supplied with "soft wives and pretty fellows." He was kept in dreary ignorance of the world and tho world's ways. "The King commanded that within those w xtta no mention should be made of death or age, sorrow or pain, or sickness." Love was his gaoler, and delights were his prison bars." But-, alas ! such is life, we Moan for reot, and rest can never find ; Lo ! as the wind is, so is mortal life, A moan, a sigh, n bob, a fctorm, a strife. It is indeed empty vanity— This life they cling to is but empty show ; 'Twere all as well to bid a cloud to stand, Or hold a running river with the hand.

The Prince forsakes the splendours of his palace, his pleasing wife, and all his glories,

and goes lorth a vagrant beggar to survey tbe miseries of life and its manifold woes.

Oh ! suffering' ■W-'o'rM; The rashness of the agony of death 1 ,- The vainness o,f its joys, the mockery Of all its best, the anguish of its worst ; Since pleasures end in pain, and youth in age, And love in loss, and life in hateful death, And death in unknown lives, which will but yoke Them to their wheel again to whirl the round Of false delights and woes that arc not false.

The Prince goes forth seeking wisdom, and preaching salvation to the erring children of men. In the sylvan solitudes of Nature— Lord Buddha lived, musing the woes of infen/ The ways of fate, the doctrines of tho books, The lessons of the creatures of the brake, The secrets of the silence whence all come, The sdcrets of the gloom whereto nil go, The life Which lies between, like that arch Hung From cloud to cloud actoss the sky, which hath Mists for its masonry and vapoury piers, Melting to' void again which was so fail' With sapphiro hues, parnet, and chrysoprasc.

He passed years seeking knowledge which should lighten all men's darkness. He bad his terriblo night of temptation, but he arose from the awful ordeal, Uplifted aa a god from earthly woes, Shining with risen truth, golden and clear. Subsequently he journeyed towards Benares —

Where he taught the Five, Showing how birth and death should be destroyed, And how man hath no fate except past deeds ; No hell but what he mnkes ; no neaven too high For those to. reach whose passions sleep subdued.

After this moral victory, the Prince returned to his palace, and obt lined — Glory greater than of earthly state Bowing his head, that majesty which brought All men so awed and silent, in his steps.

He taught the sublime doctrine that— "Within ourselves deliverance must be sought ; Kach man his prison makea.

He taught the doctrine of a superintending Deity-

A power divine which moves to good, Only its laws enduro. This Providence — Itseebh everywhere, and markcth all ; Do right, it recompensed ; do one wrong, The equal retribution must be made.

Each man's life The outcome of his former living is ; The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes The bygone right breeds bliss.

By fcuocc&tivc transmigrations the 6oul becomes purified from "all the dross of sin," and fcball 'finally be absorbed " unto Nirvana." Man becomes, in the course of ages—

One with life, Yet lives not. Ho is blest, ceasing to be. Tho dewdrop slips

Into tho shining sea. This is, Christianity and philosophy. Eventually God shall be all in all. Guatama taught good moral precepts.

Have good will To all that lives, letting unkindness die, And greed and wrath ; so that your lives be made Like soft airs passing by. We ate enjoined to carefully

Govern the lips As they were palace doors, tho king within ; Tranquil and fair and courteous be all words Which from that presence win. Again, Give freely and receive, but take from none By greed, or force, or fraud, what is his own. Lear' not false witness, slander not, nor lie ; Truth i« gpsech of inward purity. l Slum drugs and drinks which work the wit gbuse; , Clear minds, clean bodies, need no Sonia juice. . Touch not tfty neighbour's wife, neither commit Sins of the. flesh unlawful and unfit, But offer loying thoughts and acts to all. This is the quintessence of Christianity as promulgated, bis centuries before Christ. Guatama : fought that the law of love is the king of all. This law moves to righteousness. Th.c end of it is peace and contummalion sw?et. Tiie-ears of the Buddhists—" thirst like parched throats to drink the blessed news. As Plato taught afterwards, the Gospel tella us that as we came from God — bo to God we shall return. The aching care to live ends, and life glides — Lifeless— to nameless quiet, nameless joy ; Blessed Nirvana— sinless, "stirless rest — That change which never changes !

This is the true absorption into the Divine Essence — the all in all, through all, and to all. The soul at rest in the bosom of Divine Love. But this Metaphysical Philosophy is too high for the. vulgar minds of Materialists of this nineteenth century.