NOTE 4 ([p. 71])
NIRVANA
The view of Nirvana set forth in the text is that taught by Professor Rhys Davids, the veteran scholar to whom all European students of Buddhism owe so deep a debt of gratitude. (See his Buddhism, Hibbert Lectures, American Lectures, and his valuable contributions to the Sacred Books of the East. With regard to Nirvana, see especially his Questions of King Milinda, vol. i. pp. 106-108 and vol. ii. pp. 181 seq.) As regards the tanha or "thirst" for existence, which according to the Buddhist theory keeps us in the net of illusion and prevents the attainment of Nirvana, Huxley (Evolution and Ethics) mentions as a curious fact that a parallel may be found in the aviditas vitae of Stoicism.
The Japanese views of Nirvana are set forth clearly and authoritatively in Fujishima's Le Bouddhisme Japonais. "Selon les écoles du Mahâyâna, ce qui est vide au dedans et au dehors c'est l'existence composée et visible (samkrita): l'anéantissement de ce vide n'est donc pas lui-même le vide, mais plutôt la plénitude." The author goes on to quote from a sutra which declares that "illusion passes away; reality remains; that is Nirvana." To an English reader this naturally recalls some of Shelley's lines in Adonais, too well known to quote. Japanese Buddhism has, of course, developed somewhat on lines of its own. The popular Buddhism of Japan is portrayed with rare insight by Lafcadio Hearn, as in his Gleanings from Buddha-Fields, pp. 211 seq.
Among recent attempts to escape from the pessimistic conclusion that, according to strict Buddhism, Arahatship must lead after all to complete extinction, Schrader's interesting essay in the Journal of the Pali Text Society, 1904-1905, is worth consulting. The question is one of deep philosophic interest, but a discussion of it cannot be attempted in the narrow space at our disposal here.
NOTE 5 ([p. 76])
THE MAHAYANA
For explanations of the rise of the Mahayana, see (among many other authorities) Max Mūller's India, p. 87 (1905 edn.) and his Last Essays (First Series) pp. 260 seq. (Longmans: 1901); see also p. 376 in R. Sewell's essay on Early Buddhist Symbolism (J.R.A.S., July, 1886). For the growth of the Mahayana and kindred schools in China, the works of Beal, Edkins, Eitel and Watters are among the first that should be consulted. There is still a great deal that is mysterious in the early history of Mahayana and allied systems, and it is reasonable to hope that the discoveries recently made, and still being made almost daily by Stein and others in Chinese Turkestan and neighbouring regions, will throw a flood of light on the whole subject, and perhaps destroy many existing theories regarding the history of Buddhism during the ten or twelve first centuries of the Christian era.
NOTE 6 ([p. 86])
ANTIQUITIES OF MOUNT OMEI