At any rate I request permission to draw attention to the following points, which, I think, may invest my researches with a distinctive character of their own.
In the first place I have been able to avail myself of the latest publications of the Pāli Text Society, and to consult many recent works which previous writers on Buddhism have not had at their command.
Secondly, I have striven to combine scientific accuracy with a popular exposition sufficiently readable to satisfy the wants of the cultured English-speaking world—a world crowded with intelligent readers who take an increasing interest in Buddhism, and yet know nothing of Sanskṛit, Pāli, and Tibetan.
Thirdly, I have aimed at effecting what no other English Orientalist has, to my knowledge, ever accomplished. I have endeavoured to deal with a complex subject as a whole, and to present in one volume a comprehensive survey of the entire range of Buddhism, from its earliest origin in India to its latest modern developments in other Asiatic countries.
Fourthly, I have brought to the study of Buddhism and its sacred language Pāli, a life-long preparatory study of Brāhmanism and its sacred language Sanskṛit.
Fifthly, I have on three occasions travelled through the sacred land of Buddhism ([p. 21]), and have carried on my investigations personally in the place of its origin, as well as in Ceylon and on the borders of Tibet.
Lastly, I have depicted Buddhism from the standpoint of a believer in Christianity, who has shown, by his other works on Eastern religions, an earnest desire to give them credit for all the good they contain.
In regard to this last point, I shall probably be told by some enthusiastic admirers of Buddhism, that my prepossessions and predilections—inherited with my Christianity—have, in spite of my desire to be just, distorted my view of a system with which I have no sympathy. To this I can only reply, that my consciousness of my own prepossessions has made me the more sensitively anxious to exhibit Buddhism under its best aspects, as well as under its worst. An attentive perusal of my last Lecture (see [p. 537]) will, I hope, make it evident that I have at least done everything in my power to dismiss all prejudice from my mind, and to assume and maintain the attitude of an impartial judge. And to this end I have taken nothing on trust, or at second hand. I have studied Pāli, as I have the other Indian Prākṛits, on my own account, and independently. I have not accepted unreservedly any man’s interpretation of the original Buddhist texts, and have endeavoured to verify for myself all doubtful statements and translations which occur in existing treatises. Of course I owe much to modern Pāli scholars, and writers on Buddhism, and to the translators of the ‘Sacred Books of the East;’ but I have frequently felt compelled to form an independent opinion of my own.
The translations given in the ‘Sacred Books of the East’—good as they generally are—have seemed to me occasionally misleading. I may mention as an instance the constant employment by the translators of the word ‘Ordination’ for the ceremonies of admission to the Buddhist monkhood (see pp. [76]-80 of the present volume). I have ventured in such instances to give what has appeared to me a more suitable equivalent for the Pāli. On the same principle I have avoided all needless employment of Christian terminology and Bible-language to express Buddhist ideas.
For example, I have in most cases excluded such words as ‘sin,’ ‘holiness,’ ‘faith’, ‘trinity,’ ‘priest’ from my explanations of the Buddhist creed, as wholly unsuitable.