existed before the instances. He may possibly be right-though he is far from having proved it-in the further sense, that the Pátimokkha existed as a book before the larger book was compiled. This is not the opinion of Ceylon Buddhists, who believe the Pátimokkha to be an excerpt from the Vinaya; but let it be so; let the Pátimokkha, in which are the general rules, be the older nucleus, and the Matikápadáni, or specific cases, be the later portion of the Vinaya. That admitted, how does the case stand? It is still admitted-it is admitted by Professor Oldenberg himself-that all have stood together as the Vinaya book, have been held to be the words of Buddha, have been in the hands of every Buddhist monk who could read Pali (happily not many)--since when? for the last few centuries?-since 350 B.C. For all that time, it is admitted, they have formed part of the Sacred Books of Buddhism: Buddhism has been responsible for them for twenty-two centuries. Ought this not to be known when Buddhist morality is being judged? To omit them from a translation of the Vinaya Pitaka (without notice) is as if a person who thought certain chapters of Genesis were the older portions-old records which the author had embedded in newer matter—were to publish a translation of those older chapters only as the Sacred Book of Judaism and Christianity.

Professor Oldenberg says they are a commentary on the Pátimokkha. To say so is to use the word 'commentary' in a misleading sense. It is used by most writers on Buddhism as the equivalent to Atthakatha-the uncanonical commentary on a canonical book. But this is a part of the canonical book itself, never called a commentary till it was called so by Professor Oldenberg. He is wrong also-in the opinion of Ceylon Buddhists-in calling the Pátimokkha a canonical book. It is not (in technical language) mul pota, but an at pota-not an original book, but a handbook, an extract for liturgical purposes. This idea of the at pota is familiar to Buddhists; and an at pota is distinguished by well-known marks from a mul pota. That, however, is chiefly a matter of words; the essence of the matter is this, that the horrible portion I have referred to is, and has been from the earliest date to which external history can carry us back, a portion of the Sacred Book of Buddha.

I have now finished a very painful duty, and nothing will please me better than to find that my Buddhist friends, on second thoughts, relegate this passage to the position of an unauthorised commentary, and that Professor Oldenberg, in the next edition, specifies more clearly the omissions that are made.

I must now turn to the comparisons between Buddhism and Christianity.

The historical treatment of the life of Gautama, as I have indicated it, which is now I believe generally received, shows nearly all the points of his biography which are relied on as parallel to belong

to the unhistorical Lalita Vistára and the rest. Whether these Northern biographies borrowed from Christianity is an interesting question, which depends on the date of Asvaghosha-which some put as early as 70 B.C., some as late as 70 A.D. (of this historical question I know nothing); on the veracity of the early Christian traditions as to the travels of Apostles; and on the degree of intercourse between Kanishka's Indian court and the Western countries.

But even were all admitted, the resemblances to Christianity are small and few. When a critic like Seydel is obliged to lay stress upon the coincidence that Gautama is said to have attained knowledge under a ficus religiosa, and that Christ saw Nathanael when he was sitting under the domestic fig-tree, it may be inferred that the supply of coincidences is scanty.

In the historical narrative there are, I think, only two points which bear any resemblance to anything in the life of Christ. The first is the visit of the old sage, who after the birth of Gautama predicted that he would be a Buddha, and rejoiced to have seen him. But when it is considered that there is nothing here of carrying the child to the temple to be presented, no reference to the mother (such as is falsely introduced into the Light of Asia), and that it is a common custom after a child is born in India to get a sage to see him and pronounce his horoscope-it is difficult to see more than a slightly interesting coincidence.

The other is the so-called temptation of Buddha by Mara. Now Mara is rather the opponent than the tempter. He did not try, according to the early records, to lead Gautama into sin, so much as to stop his career. And that while the celestial beings were entreating Gautama to become the Buddha or to preach his discovery, Mara should try to prevent him, was an inevitable element in the story. In its later developments Mara appears more truly as a tempter, and as temptation is one of the world-wide facts of human nature, any expression of that great truth has its value.

Other apparent instances are fictitious. This is the case with many things in the Light of Asia, and if that is confessedly a work of fiction, fiction must be excused. I have read somewhere that Gautama summoned his disciples with the formula Follow me.' As a fact, he is not represented to have said either 'follow' or 'me,' but "Come, mendicant, the doctrine has been well preached,' &c. I take up Professor Rhys David's Manual of Buddhism and turn over the pages. On p. 133 I see the heading "Parable of the Mustard Seed.' This is no parable, in the sense in which our Lord's was a parable, and it is about mustard as a drug, not as a seed, and its aim is to show the certainty of death. On the next page is the 'Parable of the Sower,' which has nothing to do with preaching or hearing, and would much more properly be called the 'Ploughman.' On p. 141 I find the 'Sabbath;' and since there is approximately a

weekly festival, this is perhaps one of the least misleading of these parallels, though it is not on any particular day of the week, nor are its rules at all like those of the Jewish Sabbath. On p. 142 I come to Lent,' though Was' is not a fast, does not precede a feast, and does not last forty days, or occur in the spring. Then comes Ordination,' though no priestly or ministerial office is conferred,—it is really admission to the brotherhood. Other books give us deacons, priests, and the rest-all as well founded. Much more serious turns of this kind are often given in translation to moral and religious words, much more serious, though not to be so briefly exposed. Thus by a multitude of little parodies, nearly all of them misleading, a total impression is conveyed which is very far removed from truth. Likenesses to Christianity, and most touching ones, there are; but they are generally in the expression of man's weakness and need, not in the method of meeting it.

Although this is not its place, I must not end without a word about Nirvána. It is certain that the Nirvána of the books and of present Ceylon conviction is the state in which there is not left any capacity for re-birth-anything which could give a handle to renewed existence. He who is in Nirvána neither sees, knows, wills, nor exists. To inquire whether the soul survives in Nirvána is a question that cannot be asked, since there never was a soul. It is equally impossible to say that the soul is destroyed, for the same reason. Nothing that man can conceive of remains to him who is in that state. Whether anything is to be had there which is compatible with the absence of consciousness, personality, life, and of existence, is a question which Buddha is said to have declined to settle. The whole of Buddhism, from beginning to end, denies that anything can be affirmed of Nirvána which would not be false.

And yet it is equally certain that Nirvána is habitually spoken of as happiness, and praised in positive terms.

I believe the explanation lies in this: that the crisis of Nirvána is not death, the dissolution of the last life, but the attainment of the condition in which re-birth is impossible, and a final death within reach. This might be called the potentiality of final Nirvána, and it is inaccurately imagined—for of course the whole thing is imagination at the best-to be happiness to have attained that potential stage, and to know that one has no more births before one. The attainment of Nirvána, thus inaccurately thought of, is possible in life; its final achievement, in the last death, is Parinirvána. My opinion is that the notion came in this way. Roughly looking at the matter, existence is misery-therefore happiness is non-existence. In experience, to be independent of outward comforts, human praise, and the like, is happiness. In further experience, to Indian sages at least, to abstract oneself from all objects of sense and memory-the state of trance-is greater happiness still. A fortiori

and here language leaves the guidance of experience—more complete abstraction, from consciousness even, would be better still. And so the two lines of thought seem to meet, and complete cessation of being is called the highest good. The Buddhist starts from experience and launches into the region of imagination, where he pursues the matter without seeing that he has reached absurdity.

In practice the Ceylon Buddhist, among the masses, is both better and worse than his creed. Better, because, instead of a distant Nirvána or a series of births, he has before him the next birth only, which he thinks will be in heaven if he is good, and in hell if he is bad; because he calls on God in times of distress, and has a sort of faith in the One Creator, whom his priests would teach him to deny. Worse, because his real refuge is neither Buddha nor his Books, nor his Order, but devils and devil-priests and charms, and astrology and every form of grovelling superstition. And it is that grovelling superstition that, in Ceylon at least, every word spoken in England in praise of Buddhism tends to maintain.

REGINALD STEPHEN COLOMBO.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND COUNTY

COUNCILS IN FRANCE.

II.

THE maintenance of the roads is certainly the most important function of the conseil général,' and is by far the heaviest charge on its budget. But it has many other services to provide for and to manage, and these I will now proceed to enumerate and to explain when necessary.

1. Obligatory expenses.-These form a special section of the departmental budget, because they are the only ones which can be provided for by a special rate, levied in virtue of a decree of the President of the Republic, in case a 'conseil général' should have omitted or refused to vote the necessary appropriations. They comprise the repairs and furniture of the residences occupied by the 'préfet' and the 'sous-préfets' of the various courts of law, of the barracks for the 'gendarmerie,' of the training school for educating schoolmasters, the office expenses of the inspectors of schools, and of the 'juges de paix,' and the printing of the forms for drawing up the electoral lists in all the communes' of the department.

2. Other expenses connected with the buildings belonging to the department. These comprise the repairs of the prisons, the salaries of the departmental architects, insurance, illuminations, waterrates, and other similar items, which are practically unavoidable, but cannot be enforced by decree against the conseil général.'

3. Maintenance of pauper children- enfants assistés.'-Under this head are comprised foundlings, children abandoned by their parents, children of convicts, and destitute orphans. They are provided for up to a certain age by the department, and either put out to nurse in the rural parishes or placed in an infirmary, 'hospice.' The service is under the direction of a special inspector. The parishes to which the children belong contribute a portion of the expense, in no case more than a fifth.

4. Maintenance of a lunatic asylum.-All departments do not