religious motive of Brahmanic pantheism, but it is the same pessimism that pervades Christianity and even Hebraism.  This world is a sorry place, living is suffering; do thou escape from it.  The pleasures of life are vanity; do thou renounce them.  “To die is gain,” says the apostle; and the Preacher:  “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit.  He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.  For what hath man of all his labor and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?  For all his days are sorrows and his travail grief.  That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them:  as the one dieth so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast:  for all is vanity.  All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.  Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it goeth upward?  I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive.  The dead know not anything, their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.  The wandering of the desire, this also is vanity.”

The Preacher is a fairly good Buddhist.

If pessimism be the conviction that life on earth is not worth living, this view is shared alike by the greatest of earth’s religions.  If pessimism be the view that all beauty ends with life and that beyond it there is nothing for which it is worth while to live, then India has no parallel to this Homeric belief.  If, however, pessimism mean that to have done with existence on earth is the best that can happen to a man, but that there is bliss beyond, then this is the opinion of Brahmanism, Jainism, and Christianity.  Buddhism alone teaches that to live on earth is weariness, that there is no bliss beyond, and that one should yet be calm, pure, loving, and wise.

How could such a religion inspire enthusiasm?  How could it send forth jubilant disciples to preach the gospel of joy?  Yet did Buddhism do even this.  Not less happy and blissful than were they that received the first comfort of pantheism were the apostles of Buddha.  His progress was a triumph of gladness.  They that believed in him rejoiced and hastened to their fellows with the good tidings.  Was it then a new morality, a new ethical code, that thus inspired them?  Let one but look at the vows and commandments respectively taken by and given to the Buddhist monk, and he will see that in Buddhism there is no new morality.

The Ten Vows are as follows: 

I take the vow not to kill; not to steal; to abstain from impurity; not to lie; to abstain from intoxicating drinks which hinder progress and virtue; not to eat at forbidden times; to abstain from dancing, singing, music and stage plays; not to use garlands, scents, unguents, or ornaments; not to use a high or broad bed; not to receive gold or silver.

The Eight Commandments are as follows: