The Wheel Of the Law Buddhism

All Buddhists, throughout the wide range of countries where the doctrines of Buddha prevail, call their religion the doctrine of ?The Wheel of the Iaw?. The author has adopted the name for this book, because it is peculiarly appropriate to a theory of Buddhism, which the book in some degree illustrates. Buddha taught a religion of which the wheel was the only proper symbol; for his theory, professing to be complete, dealt with but a limited round of knowledge; ignored the beginning, and was equally vague as to the end. He neither taught of a God, the Creator of existence, nor of a heaven, the absorber of existence, but restrained his teaching within what he believed to be the limits of reason. The wheel of the law, or Buddhism, is in this volume illustrated by three distinct essays or parts, which exemplify the skeptical phase, the traditionary phase, and the ultrasuperstitious phase. The first part is a revised and enlarged edition of the Modem Buddhist, the short essay in which he, last year, introduced to European readers a summary of the ideas of an eminent Siamese nobleman on his own and other religions. The second part, which illustrates the traditionally phase, is a Buddhist Gospel, or ?Life of Buddha?, commencing with events previous to his last birth, and ending with his attainment of the Buddhahood. The third part, which illustrates the ultrasuperstitious phase of Buddhism, is an account of the ?Phrabat, or Siamese Footprint of Buddha?, a curious and gross superstition, which offers a very thorough contrast to the ideas of the ?Modern Buddhist?.