The name and form give birth to the Chayatana, six senses, or seats of the sensible qualities. To our division of the five ordinary senses Buddhists add the sixth sense of Mano, or the heart, the internal sense. Through the senses we are put in communication or contact with all objects; hence the six senses give rise to the sixth cause Pasa, which means, properly speaking, contact. From this cause flows the seventh one, called Wedana, or sensation, or, more generally still, sensibility. In fact, there can be no contact from which there will not result some sensation, either pleasant or unpleasant, Wedana gives infallibly rise to Tahna, or passion, or desire, or inclination. From this point the series of causes and effects is comparatively easy, because it presents conditions essentially connected with a material object. By Tahna we ought not to understand only the mere inclination that the sexes have one for the other, but the general propensity created in a being by any contact whatever, or perhaps, as usual with Buddhists, the desire taken in an abstract sense.
The immediate result from Tahna is Upadan, the attachment, or the conception. It is that state in which the desire adheres to something, assumes a shape. It is, in fact, the being conceived. From the state of conception the being passes into that of Bawa, or existence, or that condition which is created and made by the influence of former good or bad deeds preceding birth, which is but the apparition of the being into this world. Dzati, or birth, is the eleventh cause. It is the ushering of a being into the world. There are six ways by which a being comes into this world, viz., those of Nat, Man, Assura, Preitta, animal, and the inhabitant of hell. Birth is accomplished in four different manners, by humidity, an egg, a matrice, and metamorphosis.
The twelfth and last step in the ladder of the causes and effects is decrepitude and death. In fact, every being that is born must grow old, decay, and finally die.
Such is the process followed by Buddhists in attempting to account for all that exists. What effect could such a reasoning have over the mind of the generality of hearers it is difficult to say. But we may rest assured that, though these principles existed, as an embryo, in the discourses of the author of Buddhism, they were never laid before the generality of hearers in that crude scholastic form. Such abstruse ideas, when analysed and commented upon by Buddhist doctors, gave rise to the most opposite conclusions. The materialist school based its revolting doctrines upon that theory; we may add that the opinions of that school are generally held in Burmah, and by the great mass of Buddhists. Some other doctors reasoned in the following manner: Ignorance supposes two things, a being ignoring and a thing ignored, that is to say, man and the world. They admitted the eternity of a soul which had to pass through the series above enumerated. With them metempsychosis was a process exactly similar to that imagined by the Brahmins. As to the world, it was, to them, an unreality. Knowledge enabled them to come to the position of understanding and believing that there is no such thing as what we by mistake call world. The latter opinion, which seems to admit of a principle existing distinct from matter, is opposed to the former and general one, which supposes that spirit is but a modification of matter. We deliberately make use of the doubt, implying expression, at the head of the preceding sentence, respecting the real opinions of the latter school, because, in their way of arguing, it is impossible not to come to the painful conclusion that they ignore, or do not admit, a distinction between spirit and matter.
[9] In a work different from that which has been translated is found a more developed exposition of the four great and sublime truths. We think that the reader will like to see in what manner Buddhists themselves understand this important subject, which is, with them, the foundation of their doctrine on morals.
There are four great truths: pain, the production of pain, the destruction of pain, and the way leading to that destruction. What is pain, which is the first of the great truths? It is birth, old age, sickness, death, the coming in contact with what we dislike, the separation from what we feel an attachment for, the illusion which begets false knowledge. All that is pain. What is the production of pain, the second sublime truth? It is the desire which incessantly longs for an illusory satisfaction, which can never be obtained. That desire is a perpetually renewed craving, coveting objects here and there, and never satiated. Such is the cause productive of pain; such is the prolific source of all miseries. What is the destruction of pain, which is the third great truth? It is the doing away with that desire which always shows itself, searches after this or that object, is always attended with feelings of pleasure, or some other sensations. It is the perfect and entire stifling of that craving which always covets, and is never satiated. The estranging oneself from that desire and that craving, the complete destruction of both, constitutes the third great truth. What is the way leading to the destruction of that desire, which is the fourth great truth? The way which one has to follow, in order to obtain that most desirable result, is that which the wise man invariably follows, when he is with an intention, will, diligence, action, life, language, thought, and meditation, always pure and correct.
The four truths are exceedingly praised by Buddhists. They constitute what is emphatically called the law of the wheel, incessantly revolving upon itself, and always presenting successively those four points to the attentive consideration and affectionate piety of the faithful. They are the offensive weapons wherewith passions are attacked and destroyed: they are the sword that cuts asunder the link that retains a being in the circle of existences. The revelation, or manifestation of those truths, is the great work that a Buddha has to perform. When it is made, all beings in their respective seats rejoice in an extraordinary manner. Inanimate nature even partakes in the universal joy. The earth shakes with a great violence, and the greatest prodigies proclaim aloud the fortunate manifestation of a law which opens to all beings the way leading to deliverance. The preaching of that doctrine took place for the first time in the forest of Migadawon, not far from Baranathee, in the presence and for the benefit of the five Rahans, who had attended on Buddha, during the six years of mortification which he spent to prepare and qualify himself for the Buddhaship.
[10] Buddhists allow to their Buddha the power of working wonders and miracles. How is this power conferred upon him? This is a difficulty they cannot explain satisfactorily. The science of Buddha makes him acquainted with all the laws regulating nature, that is to say, the ensemble of the animate and inanimate beings constituting a world; but one is at a loss to find the origin of that power which enables him, as often as he likes, to suspend the course of those laws. Be that as it may, certain it is that Buddha resorted always, during the course of his preachings, to miracles, in order to convince those who seemed to listen with rather an incredulous ear to his doctrines. Miracles were used successfully, as powerful and irresistible weapons, against certain heretics, the Brahmins, in particular, who taught doctrines opposed to his own. They often accompanied his preachings, for increasing faith in the heart of his hearers.
[11] The great tempter had been foiled in all his attempts to conquer Buddha. In the sadness of his heart he was compelled to acknowledge the superiority of his opponent and confess his defeat. His three daughters came to console him, promising that they would, by their united efforts, overcome the firmness of the great Rahan, by awakening in his heart the fire of concupiscence. The names of those three daughters of Manh denote concupiscence. These new enemies of Buddha, therefore, are mere personifications of the passion of lust. Pride, personified in Manh, had proved powerless against the virtue of Buddha; he is now assailed from a different quarter; the attack is to be directed against the weakest side of human nature. But it is as successless as the former one: it affords to Buddha another occasion for a fresh triumph.
[12] In Burmah the originator of the great Buddhistic system is called Gaudama, and this appellation, according to many, appears to be his family name. When he