The desire to be a savior takes possession of his breast. Four ominous sights contribute to fix his purpose. He sees in his pleasure-grounds an old man, broken and decrepit; again, he meets a man smitten with a malignant disease; again, his eye rests upon a corpse. He learns that such are the destinies of himself and of all his fellow-beings. At last he sees a mendicant monk passing by with his alms-bowl. The young prince resolves to leave his father, his wealth, his power, his wife, and child, and become a homeless wanderer, that he may search out the way of salvation for himself and his fellow-men. He first became a Brahminical ascetic, and gave himself over to the severest penance and self-torture. Afterward he abandoned this altogether, and at last, while in profoundest meditation under the bo-tree, he discovers the way of life. He spends his remaining days in travelling through India, preaching his gospel, and gaining many disciples. He revisits his home at Kapilivastu. He lives to be an old man, and at last dies with the words on his lips: “Nothing, nothing is durable!” The eminent French savant, M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire, says:

“Je n’hésite pas à ajouter, que, sauf le Christ tout seul, il n’est point, parmi les fondateurs de religion, de figure plus pure ni plus touchante que celle du Bouddha. Sa vie n’a point de tache. Son constant héroîsm égale sa conviction; et si la théorie qu’il préconise est fausse, les exemples personnels qu’il donne sont irréprochables. Il est le modèle achevé de toutes les vertus qu’il prêcha; son abnégation, sa charité, son inaltérable douceur, ne se démentent point un seul instant; il abandonne à vingt-neuf ans la cour du roi, son père, pour se faire religieux et mendiant; il prépare silencieusement sa doctrine par six années de retraite, et de méditation; il la propage par la seule puissance de la parole et de la persuasion, pendant plus d’un demi siècle; et quand il meurt entre les bras de ses disciples, c’est avec la sérénité d’un sage qui a pratiqué le bien toute sa vie, et qui est assuré d’avoir trouvé le vrai.”[[18]]

But one eagerly inquires, What was the way of salvation that Buddha discovered under the bo-tree, and spent half a century of his life in preaching? Observe successively the point of departure, the goal, and the way.

Buddha starts out with the idea that misery is the indispensable accompaniment of existence—sorrow is shadow to life. The foundation of his philosophy rests in the densest pessimism. While we are bound up in this material world, we are a prey to disappointment, disease, old age, death. We find ourselves “caught in this common net of death and woe, and life which binds to both.” There is no way out of the vast and monotonous cycle of transmigration except into Nirvana—the blowing out—that is, total extinction.

The highest goal, therefore, to which we can attain is utter annihilation. That this is the meaning of Nirvana, or Nigban, seems established beyond a doubt. The most eminent authorities on Buddhism, Barthélemy St. Hilaire, Bigandet, Eugène Burnouf, Spence Hardy, and Max Müller, all agree with the view presented by Mr. Judson many years ago, that Nirvana or Nigban is nothing less than a total extinction of soul and body. It is the final blowing out of the soul, as of a lamp; not its absorption, as when a “dew-drop slips into the shining sea.”

It is

“To perish rather, swallowed up and lost,

In the wide womb of uncreated night.

Devoid of sense and motion.”

But in what way is this bliss of annihilation to be reached? Only by a long and arduous struggle. There are four truths to be believed. 1. There is nothing in life but sorrow. 2. The root of sorrow is desire. 3. Desire must be destroyed. 4. The way to destroy desire is to follow the eightfold path, viz., 1. Right doctrine. 2. Right purpose. 3. Right discourse. 4. Right behavior. 5. Right purity. 6. Right thought. 7. Right solitude. 8. Right rapture.