[Footnote 1:  Colebrooke’s Essays on the Philosophy of the Hindoos, sect. v. part 5, p. 401.]

[Footnote 2:  An account of the religion of the Jains or Jainas, will be found in MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE’S History of India, vol. i. b. ii. ch. 4.  They arose in the sixth or seventh century, were at their height in the eleventh, and declined in the twelfth.  See also MAX MUELLER, Hist.  Sanskrit Literature, p. 261, &c.]

[Footnote 3:  Details of Buddhism in China and Chin-India will be found in the erudite commentaries of KLAPROTH, REMUSAT, and LANDRESSE.]

Whilst Brahmanism, without denying the existence, practically ignores the influence and power of a creating and controlling intelligence, Buddhism, exulting in the idea of the infinite perfectibility of man, and the achievement of the highest attainable happiness by the unfaltering practice of every conceivable virtue, exalts the individuals thus pre-eminently wise into absolute supremacy over all existing beings, and attempts the daring experiment of an atheistic morality.[1] Even Buddha himself is not worshipped as a deity, or as a still existent and active agent of benevolence and power.  He is merely reverenced as a glorified remembrance, the effulgence of whose purity serves as a guide and incentive to the future struggles and aspirations of mankind.  The sole superiority which his doctrines admit is that of goodness and wisdom; and Buddha having attained to this perfection by the immaculate purity of his actions, the absolute subjugation of passion, and the unerring accuracy of his unlimited knowledge, became entitled to the homage of all, and was required to render it to none.

[Footnote 1:  M. REMUSAT announces, as the result of his researches, that neither the Chinese; the Tartars, nor Monguls have any word in their dialects expressive of our idea of a God.—­Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki, p. 138; and M. BARTHELEMY SAINT-HILLAIRE adds, that “il n’y a pas trace de l’idee de Dieu dans le Bouddhisme entier, ni au debut ni au terme.”—­Le Bouddha, &c., Introd. p. iv.  Colonel SYKES, in the xiith vol. of the Asiatic Journal, pp. 263 and 376, denies that Buddhism is atheistic; and adduces, in support of his views, allusions made by FA HIAN.  But the passages to which he refers present no direct contradiction to those metaphysical subtleties by which the Buddhistical writers have carefully avoided whilst they closely approach the admission of belief in a deity.  I am not prepared to deny that the faith in a supreme being may not have characterised Buddhism in its origin, as the belief in a Great First Cause in the person of Brahma is still acknowledged by the Hindus, although honoured by no share of their adoration.  But it admits of little doubt that neither in the discourses of its priesthood at the present day nor in the practice of its followers in Ceylon is the name or the existence of an omnipotent First Cause recognised in any portion