It is only natural that the line of Buddhas should extend after as well as before Gotama.  In the Pitakas there are allusions to such a posterior series, as when for instance we hear[754] that all Buddhas past and to come have had and will have attendants like Ananda, but Metteya the Buddha of the future has not yet become an important figure.  He is just mentioned in the Digha Nikaya and Buddha-Vamsa and the Milinda Panha quotes an utterance of Gotama to the effect that “He will be the leader of thousands as I am of hundreds,” but the quotation has not been identified.

The Buddhas enumerated are supreme Buddhas (Samma-sam-buddha) but there is another order called Pacceka (Sanskrit Pratyeka) or private Buddhas.  Both classes attain by their own exertions to a knowledge of the four truths but the Pacceka Buddhas are not, like the supreme Buddhas, teachers of mankind and omniscient[755].  Their knowledge is confined to what is necessary for their own salvation and perfection.  They are mentioned in the Nikayas as worthy of all respect[756] but are not prominent in either the earlier or later works, which is only natural, seeing that by their very definition they are self-centred and of little importance for mankind.  The idea of the private Buddha however is interesting, inasmuch as it implies that even when the four truths are not preached they still exist and can be discovered by anyone who makes the necessary mental and moral effort.  It is also noticeable that the superiority of a supreme Buddha lies in his power to teach and help others.  A passionless and self-centred sage falls short of the ideal.

[Footnote 1:  The frontier seems to be about Long. 65 deg.  E.]

[Footnote 2:  See Coedes’s views about Srivijaya in B.E.F.E.O. 1918, 6.  The inscriptions of Rajendracola I (1012-1042 A.D.) show that Hindus in India were not wholly ignorant of Indian conquests abroad.]

[Footnote 3:  But the Japanese syllabaries were probably formed under Indian influence.]

[Footnote 4:  Probably the Christian doctrine of the atonement or salvation by the death of a deity is an exception.  I do not know of any Indian sect which holds a similar view.  The obscure verse Rig Veda x. 13. 4 seems to hint at the self-sacrifice of a deity but the hymn about the sacrifice of Purusha (x. 90) has nothing to do with redemption or atonement.]

[Footnote 5:  It is possible (though not, I think, certain) that the Buddha called his principal doctrines ariya in the sense of Aryan not of noble.  But even the Blessed One may not have been infallible in ethnography.  When we call a thing British we do not mean to refer it to the ancient Britons more than to the Saxons or Normans.  And was the Buddha an Aryan?  See V. Smith, Oxford History of India, p. 47 for doubts.]

[Footnote 6:  This is not altogether true of the modern temple ritual.]

[Footnote 7:  It is very unfortunate that English usage should make this word appear the same as Brahman, the name of a caste, and there is much to be said for using the old-fashioned word Brahmin to denote the caste, for it is clear, though not correct.  In Sanskrit there are several similar words which are liable to be confused in English.  In the nominative case they are: