"THEY PARTED MY GARMENTS."
The Abbé Huc tells us ("Voyages," ii. p. 278) that on the death of the Bokté Lama his garments are cut into little strips and prized immensely.
"HE APPEARED UNTO MANY."
Buddha prophesied that he would appear after his death. ("Lotus," p. 144.) In a Chinese version quoted by Eitel ("Three Lectures," p. 57), Buddha to soothe his mother, who had come down weeping from the skies, opens his coffin lid and appears to her. In the temple sculptures he is constantly depicted coming down to the altar during worship. (See illustrations to my "Buddhism in Christendom.")
THE "GREAT WHITE THRONE."
Mr. Upham, in his "History of Buddhism" (pp. 56, 57), gives a description of the Buddhist heaven. There is a "high mountain," and a city "four square" with gates of gold and silver, adorned with precious stones. Seven moats surround the city. Beyond the last one is a row of marble pillars studded with jewels. The great throne of the god stands in the centre of a great hall, and is surmounted by a white canopy. Round the great throne are seated heavenly ministers, who record men's actions in a "golden book." A mighty tree is conspicuous in the garden. In the Chinese heaven is the "Gem Lake," by which stands the peach tree whose fruit gives immortality.
THE ATONEMENT.
The idea of transferred good Karma, the merits of the former lives of an individual being passed on to another individual, is of course quite foreign to the lower Judaism, which believed in no after life at all. In the view of the higher Buddhism, Sakya Muni saved the world by his teaching, but to the lower, the Buddhism of offerings and temples and monks, this doctrine of Karma was the life-blood. It was proclaimed that Buddha had a vast stock of superfluous Karma, and that offerings at a temple might cause the worshipper in his next life to be a prince instead of a pig or a coolie. In the "Lalita Vistara" (Chinese version, p. 225) it is announced that when Buddha overcame Mâra all flesh rejoiced, the blind saw, the deaf heard, the dumb spake, the hells were cleared, and all by reason of Buddha's Karma in previous lives.
In Romans (v. 18), St. Paul writes thus:—