[Footnote 25:  See the writings of Brian Hodgson, J. Edkins, E.J.  Eitel, S. Beal, T. Rhys Davids, Bunyiu Nanjio, etc.]

[Footnote 26:  See Chapter VIII. in T. Rhys Davids’s Buddhism, a book of great scholarship and marvellous condensation.]

[Footnote 27:  Davids’s Buddhism, p. 206.  Other illustrations of the growth of the dogmas of this school of Buddhism we select from Brian Hodgson’s writings.

1.  The line of division between God and man, and between gods and man, was removed by Buddhism.

“Genuine Buddhism never seems to contemplate any measures of acceptance with the deity; but, overleaping the barrier between finite and infinite mind, urges its followers to aspire by their own efforts to that divine perfectibility of which it teaches that man is capable, and by attaining which man becomes God—­and thus is explained both the quiescence of the imaginary celestial, and the plenary omnipotence of the real Manushi Buddhas—­thus, too, we must account for the fact that genuine Buddhism has no priesthood; the saint despises the priest; the saint scorns the aid of mediators, whether on earth or in heaven; ’conquer (exclaims the adept or Buddha to the novice or BodhiSattwa)—­conquer the importunities of the body, urge your mind to the meditation of abstraction, and you shall, in time, discover the great secret (Sunyata) of nature:  know this, and you become, on the instant, whatever priests have feigned of Godhead—­you become identified with Prajna, the sum of all the power and all the wisdom which sustain and govern the world, and which, as they are manifested out of matter, must belong solely to matter; not indeed in the gross and palpable state of pravritti, but in the archetypal and pure state of nirvritti.  Put off, therefore, the vile, pravrittika necessities of the body, and the no less vile affections of the mind (Tapas); urge your thought into pure abstraction (Dhyana), and then, as assuredly you can, so assuredly you shall, attain to the wisdom of a Buddha (Bodhijnana), and become associated with the eternal unity and rest of nirvritti.’”—­The Phoenix, Vol.  I., p. 194.

2.  A specimen of “esoteric” and “exoteric” Buddhism;—­the Buddha Tatkagata.

“And as the wisdom of man is, in its origin, but an effluence of the Supreme wisdom (Prajna) of nature, so is it perfected by a refluence to its source, but without loss of individuality; whence Prajna is feigned in the exoteric system to be both the mother and the wife of all the Buddhas, ‘janani sarva Buddkanam,’ and ‘Jina-sundary;’ for the efflux is typified by a birth, and the reflux by a marriage.

“The Buddha is the adept in the wisdom of Buddhism (Bodhijnana) whose first duty, so long as he remains on earth, is to communicate his wisdom to those who are willing to receive it.  These willing learners are the ‘Bodhisattwas,’ so called from their hearts being inclined to the wisdom of Buddhism, and ‘Sanghas,’ from their companionship with one another, and with their Buddha or teacher, in the Viharas or coenobitical establishments.”