FOOTNOTES
[1] This short summary of Buddha's life, indicating but little more than the names of the places where he had spent twenty seasons, and leaving us in the dark as to all the particulars regarding the twenty-three other seasons, is another illustration of the assertion, made in some foregoing passages, that the present compilation is very concise and imperfect, supplying us with but an outline of Buddha's proceedings during the course of his preachings. He reached the age of eighty. According to the authority of this legend, Buddha lived forty-five years after he had obtained the Buddhaship. He was therefore thirty-five when he began his public life and entered the career of preaching the law. It is not in my power to say anything positive respecting the antiquity of this work, but the statement of the main facts is borne out by the united testimony of the Buddhistic works existing in various parts and in different languages of Eastern Asia. If it be true that our Buddha lived so long, we must believe that his time during the last twenty-five years was employed in the same benevolent undertaking, viz., to preach the sacred law and point out to beings the way that shall lead them to the deliverance. Many volumes are full of the disputes on religious subjects between Buddha and the heretics, that is to say, his opponents. We may conclude that those controversies took place during the latter part of Buddha's life, as it cannot be doubted that they increased in proportion to the progress the new doctrines made among the people. If, however, we are in great part kept in the dark respecting the doings of the great reformer during a long period of his public life, we are amply compensated by the account of many interesting circumstances that occurred chiefly during the last year of his earthly career.
[2] Dewadat, in insisting upon the adoption of regulations of a more rigid character, intended to imitate, to a certain extent, the conduct of the mendicants of the opposite party. He aimed at rivalling them in the practice of austere observances. It does not appear that he innovated in the dogmas that he had learned at the school of his great teacher. As his royal pupil, Adzatathat, had hitherto supported the party of the pounhas, it is not improbable that Dewadat wished to lessen the differences between the practices and observances of the two parties, to render them less perceptible, and by doing so, to prepare the way, by gradual approximation, for a complete fusion. He exhibited himself in the character of a rigid reformer, who was displeased with the too lenient tenor of the disciplinary regulations instituted by Buddha. Be that as it may, it is certain that jealousy in the beginning inspired him with the idea of separating from the assembly. This first step led him farther than he at first contemplated. He wished to set up an assembly, or thinga of his own, and thereby to place himself on a footing of equality and rivalry with his cousin. Meeting with greater resistance than he expected, and being convinced that he could not succeed so long as Buddha should be alive, he did not shrink from making several attempts on his life. It is a fact worthy of notice that the disturbances which took place subsequently in the Buddhist society had their origin, in most instances, in points of discipline of a trivial importance, which were altered or rejected by a fraction of the assembly, whilst they were upheld with the utmost tenacity by the greater portion of the Rahans, as having been established by Gaudama. This observation will be fully corroborated by the particulars that we shall relate on the subject of the councils or meetings held after Gaudama's death.