Buddha to other nations.  Their utter failure to establish on any other but traditional evidence the, to them, historically unproved, if probable, fact of his existence at all—­ought to engender a fairer spirit.  When Christian historians can, upon undeniable historical authority, justify biblical and ecclesiastical chronology, then, perchance, they may be better equipped than at present for the congenial work of rending heathen chronologies into shreds.

The “channel” the Ceylonese received their information through, was two Bikshus who had left Magadha to follow their disgraced brethren into exile.  The capacity of Siddhartha Buddha’s Arhats for transmitting intelligence by psychic currents may, perhaps, be conceded without any great stretch of imagination to have been equal to, if not greater than, that of the prophet Elijah, who is credited with the power of having known from any distance all that happened in the king’s bed chamber.  No Orientalist has the right to reject the testimony of other people’s Scriptures, while professing belief in the far more contradictory and entangled evidence of his own upon the self-same theory of proof.  If Professor Muller is a sceptic at heart, then let him fearlessly declare himself; only a sceptic who impartially acts the iconoclast has the right to assume such a tone of contempt towards any non-Christian religion.  And for the instruction of the impartial inquirer only, shall it be thought worth while to collate the evidence afforded by historical—­not psychological—­data.  Meanwhile, by analyzing some objections and exposing the dangerous logic of our critic, we may give the theosophists a few more facts connected with the subject under discussion.

Now that we have seen Professor Max Muller’s opinions in general about this, so to say, the Prologue to the Buddhist Drama with Vijaya as the hero—­what has he to say as to the details of its plot?  What weapon does he use to weaken this foundation-stone of a chronology upon which are built and on which depend all other Buddhist dates?  What is the fulcrum for the critical lever he uses against the Asiatic records?  Three of his main points may be stated seriatim with answers appended.  He begins by premising that—­

1st.—­“If the starting-point of the Northern Buddhist chronology turns out to be merely hypothetical, based as it is on a prophecy of Buddha, it will be difficult to avoid the same conclusion with regard to the date assigned to Buddha’s death by the Buddhists of Ceylon and of Burmah” (p. 266).  “The Mahavansa begins with relating three miraculous visits which Buddha paid to Ceylon.”  Vijaya, the name of the founder of the first dynasty (in Ceylon), means conquest, “and, therefore, such a person most likely never existed” (p. 268).  This he believes invalidates the whole Buddhist chronology.

To which the following pendant may be offered:—­