The whole question is allowed to rest happily in some realm of acquiescence untroubled by discussions.  And it is in this spirit that Indian books relate how when the Buddha went abroad showers of flowers fell from the sky and the air resounded with heavenly music, or diversify their theological discussions with interludes of demons, nymphs and magic serpents.  And although this riot of the imagination offends our ideas of good sense and proportion, the Buddhists do not often lose the distinction between what Matthew Arnold called Literature and Dogma.  The Buddha’s visits to various heavens are not presented as articles of faith:  they are simply a pleasant setting for his discourses.

Some miracles of course have a more serious character and can be less easily separated from the essentials of the faith.  Thus the Pitakas represent the Buddha as able to see all that happens in the world and to transport himself anywhere at will.  But even in such cases we may remember that when we say of a well-informed and active person that he is omniscient and ubiquitous, we are not misunderstood.  The hyperbole of Indian legends finds its compensation in the small importance attached to them.  No miraculous circumstance recorded of the Buddha has anything like the significance attributed by Christians to the virgin birth or the resurrection of Christ.  His superhuman powers are in keeping with the picture drawn of his character.  They are mostly the result of an attempt to describe a mind and will of more than human strength, but the superman thus idealized rarely works miracles of healing.  He saves mankind by teaching the way of salvation, not by alleviating a few chance cases of physical distress.  In later works he is represented as performing plentiful and extraordinary miracles, but these are just the instances in which we can most clearly trace the addition of embellishments.

2

The elaboration of marvellous episodes is regarded in India as a legitimate form of literary art, no more blameable than dramatization, and in sacred writings it flourishes unchecked.  In Hinduism, as in Buddhism, there is not wanting a feeling that the soul is weary of the crowd of deities who demand sacrifices and promise happiness, and on the serener heights of philosophy gods have little place.  Still most forms of Hinduism cannot like Buddhism be detached from the gods, and no extravagance is too improbable to be included in the legends about them.  The extravagance is the more startling because their exploits form part of quasi-historical narratives.  Rama and Krishna seem to be idealized and deified portraits of ancient heroes, who came to be regarded as incarnations of the Almighty.  This is understood by Indians to mean not that the Almighty submitted consistently to human limitations, but that he, though incarnate, exercised whenever it pleased him and often most capriciously his full divine force.  With this idea before them and no historical scruples to restrain them, Indian writers tell how Krishna held up a mountain on his finger, Indian readers accept the statement, and crowds of pilgrims visit the scene of the exploit.