[300:6] "It may be said to be the prevailing religion of the world. Its adherents are estimated at four hundred millions, more than a third of the human race." (Chambers's Encyclo., art. "Buddhism." See also, Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 251.)
[301:1] It should be understood that the Buddha of this chapter, and in fact, the Buddha of this work, is Gautama Buddha, the Sakya Prince. According to Buddhist belief there have been many different Buddhas on earth. The names of twenty-four of the Buddhas who appeared previous to Gautama have been handed down to us. The Buddhavansa or "History of the Buddhas," gives the lives of all the previous Buddhas before commencing the account of Gautama himself. (See Rhys Davids' Buddhism, pp. 179, 180.)
[301:2] "The date usually fixed for Buddha's death is 543 B. C. Whether this precise year for one of the greatest epochs in the religious history of the human race can be accepted is doubtful, but it is tolerably certain that Buddhism arose in Behar and Eastern Hindustan about five centuries B. C.; and that it spread with great rapidity, not by force of arms, or coercion of any kind, like Muhammedanism, but by the sheer persuasiveness of its doctrine." (Monier Williams' Hinduism, p. 72.)
[301:3] "Of the high antiquity of Buddhism there is much collateral as well as direct evidence—evidence that neither internecine nor foreign strife, not even religious persecution, has been able to destroy. . . . Witness the gigantic images in the caves of Elephanta, near Bombay and those of Lingi Sara, in the interior of Java, all of which are known to have been in existence at least four centuries prior to our Lord's advent." (The Mammoth Religion.)
[301:4] Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 250.
[302:1] Beal: Hist. Buddha, p. vi.
[302:2] Ibid. pp. x. and xi.
[302:3] Ibid. pp. vii., ix. and note.
[303:1] Bunsen's Angel-Messiah, p. 50.
[303:2] Quoted by Prof. Beal: Hist. Buddha, p. viii.