“This appeared to me a very bad action on his part. I said to him, ‘O avaricious man! what sort of mendicant art thou, who knowest not the three letters of “Fukur” (poverty), according to which a Fukeer should act?’ The Fukeer said, ‘Well, O liberal person, do you explain them to me.’ I replied, ‘The three letters are f, k, and r. From f comes “faka” (fasting); from k, “kinaüt” (contentment); and from r comes “reeazut” (abstinence). He is not a Fukeer in whom these qualities are not. Oh, avaricious creature! you have taken from forty doors, from one gold mohur to forty. Calculate, [[326]]therefore, how many you have received. And, in addition to this, your avarice has brought you again to the first door. Expend what you have received, and return and take whatever you ask for. A Fukeer should take thought for one day; on the second day there will be some fresh bestower of alms.’ Having heard this speech of mine, he became angry and dissatisfied, and threw all he had received from me on the ground, and said, ‘Enough, father; be not so warm; take all your presents back again. Do not again assume the name of “Liberal.” You cannot lift the weights of liberality. When will you arrive at that day’s journey?’
“When I heard this I was alarmed, and with many solicitations asked him to forgive my fault, and to take whatsoever he wished. He would not accept my gifts at all, and went away saying, ‘If you were now to offer me your whole kingdom I would not receive it from you.’ ”
This studied indifference about a matter of more than a thousand pounds, though perhaps not often exercised upon so large a scale, is just that which these wandering fanatics display towards every offering they receive, and in every action of their useless lives. Whatever may be said against them, however, their profession of poverty and suffering is no mockery, as was that [[327]]of the well-fed “monks of old,” whose reasonings were something similar on religious points.
The Fukeer soliloquizes: “The condition of our being born is, that our griefs are many and our pleasures few, because this world is the root of misery. What happiness, therefore, has man? If any man should climb to the top of a tree, or sit down on the summit of a hill, or remain concealed in water, yet death does not allow him to escape. At the most, man’s age is a hundred years, half of which passes away in night, half of the other half is expended in childhood and old age; the remainder is spent in altercation, separation from those we love, and affliction, and the soul is restless as a wave of the sea. No one who has come into the world has escaped from affliction. It is vain to fix one’s affections on it, and therefore it is best to cultivate and practise religion.” And so, as a remedy for the evil which he has discovered to exist upon the earth, and to work out a successful escape from it, he sits himself down in dust and ashes, and, mistaking the sign-post, adopts the path which leads him furthest from the point he wishes to arrive at.
As the Hindoo is the most ancient of religions, so the Buddhist is the one which is professed by the largest portion of the human race. It is the [[328]]religion of Burmah, Ceylon, China, Siam, Thibet, and Russian Tartary, and is computed to claim as many as three hundred and sixty-nine millions among its Votaries.[2] “Gautama,” or “Sakya mounee,” its founder, was born in Bengal about the seventh century before Christ. Yet India at present contains no modern temples of its worship, and no native of India, that I have ever met, knew anything of its founder, or was even acquainted with the term “Buddha,” or “Buddhist.” Its doctrines are the most curious of those that have ever been promulgated, and appear even now to be scarcely understood in all their ramifications. According to original Buddhism, there is no Creator, nor being that is self-existent and eternal. The great object is the attainment, in this life, of complete abstraction from all worldly affairs and passions, and the ultimate result, of entire annihilation. Like the Hindoo, the Buddhist believes in transmigration of souls, and until utter annihilation is reached, he is doomed to shift his earthly tenement, from form to form, according to the deeds done in the flesh. It is, therefore, the great object of all beings, who would be released from the sorrows of successive birth, to seek the destruction of the moral cause of continued existence, that is, the cleaving to [[329]]existing objects or evil desire. It is only possible to accomplish this end by attending to a prescribed course of discipline, and by fixing the mind upon the perfections of Buddha. Those who after successive births have entirely destroyed all evil desires are called “Rahuts,” and after death the Rahut attains “Nirwana,” or ceases to exist. The actual meaning of the word “Rahut,” is “Tranquillity,” and it appears to be the same word which is used on a small scale, to express the soothing qualities of that far-famed Eastern sweetmeat, the Rahut-lûkma, or “Morsels of tranquillity.”
The Buddhas themselves are beings who appear after intervals of time inconceivably vast. Previous to their reception of the state, they pass through countless phases of being, at, one time appearing in human form, at another as a frog, or fish, &c., in each of which states they acquire a greater degree of merit.
In the birth in which they become Buddha, they are always of woman born, and pass through infancy and youth like ordinary mortals, until at the prescribed age they abandon the world and retire to the wilderness, where they receive the supernatural powers with which the office is endowed. Their highest glory is that they receive the wisdom by which they can direct [[330]]sentient beings to the path that leads to the desired cessation of existence.
The Buddhism of Thibet appears to be an innovation on the original system of religion. It was introduced into the country about the seventh century of our era; and although Sakya mounee, who is supposed by the Thibetians to have lived one thousand years before Christ, is still believed to be the founder of the present system, the Delai Lama, at Lassa, is regarded as an incarnation of Buddha, and is the supreme infallible head of the whole Thibetian religious community.
The original tenets, too, have been modified, and the modern Scriptures have been adapted to three different capacities of mankind—viz. the lowest, mean (or middle), and the highest. The principles thus declared are as follows:—
“1. Men of vulgar capacity must believe that there is a God, a future life, and that they shall therein reap the fruits of their works in this life.