The following extracts given by Max Müller from a catechism of the modern Parsis or disciples of Zoroaster give us a very good idea of their present creed:—
‘Q. Whom do we of the Zarthosti community believe in?
‘A. We believe in only one God, and we do not believe in any besides Him.
‘Q. Do we not believe in any other God?
‘A. Whoever believes in any other God but this is an infidel, and shall suffer the punishment of hell.’
In another extract the disciples are told that in the world to come they shall receive the return according to their actions.
23. The next reform of the Brahminical system had reference to its social characteristics, and was occasioned by the insupportable tyranny of the priesthood. The reformer, a young prince, was born about 500 years B.C., and from his life and doctrines received the name of Buddha, or the Enlightened. After having learned from various famous Brahmans, he came to the conclusion that their austerities and doctrines could neither free men from the miseries of this life nor from the fear of death. From this stage Buddha passed into the belief that all we see is vanity—a delusion, a dream—and that the highest wisdom consists in perceiving this, and in desiring to enter into Nirvâna, or, in other words, to be blown out like a flame.
It would seem from these words that Buddha himself regarded annihilation rather than immortality as the summum bonum; but no account of Buddhism would be satisfactory which did not pay special regard to the notion so widely diffused in heathenism, that matter is the source of all evil. To be liberated from matter is to be liberated from evil; and this would seem to be the fundamental thought in the Nirvâna in all its different senses. But however this may be, we know that, allied to these extreme metaphysical opinions, Buddha inculcated a moral code which is one of the purest the world has ever known. M. Laboulaye says, ‘It is difficult to comprehend how men not assisted by revelation could have soared so high;’ and M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire does not hesitate to assert that ‘with the sole exception of Christ, there is not amongst the founders of religion a more pure or touching figure than that of Buddha.’
24. In process of time, among the followers of the Buddhist religion, the word Nirvâna came to have a very different meaning from that which it had at first. Buddha was himself worshipped as a divinity, and his Nirvâna came to denote a state in which there was a total absence of pain, or in other words an Elysium.
In illustration of this we may quote the account given by Max Müller of the dying words of Hiouen-Thsang, a famous pilgrim from China to the shrine of Buddha, who died in the year of our era 664:—