among the cool trees of the garden of Lumbini. There her son

was born. He was given the name of Siddhartha, but we know



him as Buddha, which means the Enlightened One.

In due time, Siddhartha grew up to be a handsome young



prince and when he was nineteen years old, he was married to

his cousin Yasodhara. During the next ten years he lived



far away from all pain and all suffering, behind the protecting

walls of the royal palace, awaiting the day when he should



succeed his father as King of the Sakiyas.

But it happened that when he was thirty years old, he drove



outside of the palace gates and saw a man who was old and

worn out with labour and whose weak limbs could hardly carry



the burden of life. Siddhartha pointed him out to his coachman,

Channa, but Channa answered that there were lots of



poor people in this world and that one more or less did not

matter. The young prince was very sad but he did not say



anything and went back to live with his wife and his father

and his mother and tried to be happy. A little while later he



left the palace a second time. His carriage met a man who

suffered from a terrible disease. Siddhartha asked Channa



what had been the cause of this man's suffering, but the coachman

answered that there were many sick people in this world



and that such things could not be helped and did not matter

very much. The young prince was very sad when he heard this



but again he returned to his people.

A few weeks passed. One evening Siddhartha ordered his



carriage in order to go to the river and bathe. Suddenly his

horses were frightened by the sight of a dead man whose rotting



body lay sprawling in the ditch beside the road. The young

prince, who had never been allowed to see such things, was



frightened, but Channa told him not to mind such trifles. The

world was full of dead people. It was the rule of life that all



things must come to an end. Nothing was eternal. The grave

awaited us all and there was no escape.



That evening, when Siddhartha returned to his home, he

was received with music. While he was away his wife had



given birth to a son. The people were delighted because now

they knew that there was an heir to the throne and they



celebrated the event by the beating of many drums. Siddhartha,

however, did not share their joy. The curtain of life had been



lifted and he had learned the horror of man's existence. The

sight of death and suffering followed him like a terrible dream.



That night the moon was shining brightly. Siddhartha

woke up and began to think of many things. Never again



could he be happy until he should have found a solution to the

riddle of existence. He decided to find it far away from all



those whom he loved. Softly he went into the room where

Yasodhara was sleeping with her baby. Then he called for



his faithful Channa and told him to follow.

Together the two men went into the darkness of the night,



one to find rest for his soul, the other to be a faithful servant

unto a beloved master.



The people of India among whom Siddhartha wandered for

many years were just then in a state of change. Their ancestors,



the native Indians, had been conquered without great difficulty

by the war-like Aryans (our distant cousins) and thereafter



the Aryans had been the rulers and masters of tens of

millions of docile little brown men. To maintain themselves in



the seat of the mighty, they had divided the population into

different classes and gradually a system of ``caste'' of the most



rigid sort had been enforced upon the natives. The descendants

of the Indo-European conquerors belonged to the highest



``caste,'' the class of warriors and nobles. Next came the caste

of the priests. Below these followed the peasants and the



business men. The ancient natives, however, who were called

Pariahs, formed a class of despised and miserable slaves and



never could hope to be anything else.

Even the religion of the people was a matter of caste. The



old Indo-Europeans, during their thousands of years of

wandering, had met with many strange adventures. These had



been collected in a book called the Veda. The language of

this book was called Sanskrit, and it was closely related to the



different languages of the European continent, to Greek and

Latin and Russian and German and two-score others. The



three highest castes were allowed to read these holy scriptures.

The Pariah, however, the despised member of the lowest caste,



was not permitted to know its contents. Woe to the man of

noble or priestly caste who should teach a Pariah to study the



sacred volume!

The majority of the Indian people, therefore, lived in



misery. Since this planet offered them very little joy, salvation

from suffering must be found elsewhere. They tried to



derive a little consolation from meditation upon the bliss of

their future existence.



Brahma, the all-creator who was regarded by the Indian

people as the supreme ruler of life and death, was worshipped



as the highest ideal of perfection. To become like Brahma, to

lose all desires for riches and power, was recognised as the most



exalted purpose of existence. Holy thoughts were regarded

as more important than holy deeds, and many people went



into the desert and lived upon the leaves of trees and starved

their bodies that they might feed their souls with the glorious



contemplation of the splendours of Brahma, the Wise, the

Good and the Merciful.



Siddhartha, who had often observed these solitary wanderers

who were seeking the truth far away from the turmoil



of the cities and the villages, decided to follow their example.

He cut his hair. He took his pearls and his rubies and sent



them back to his family with a message of farewell, which the

ever faithful Channa carried. Without a single follower, the



young prince then moved into the wilderness.

Soon the fame of his holy conduct spread among the mountains.



Five young men came to him and asked that they might

be allowed to listen to his words of wisdom. He agreed to be



their master if they would follow him. They consented, and

he took them into the hills and for six years he taught them



all he knew amidst the lonely peaks of the Vindhya Mountains.

But at the end of this period of study, he felt that he was still



far from perfection. The world that he had left continued to

tempt him. He now asked that his pupils leave him and then



he fasted for forty-nine days and nights, sitting upon the roots

of an old tree. At last he received his reward. In the dusk of



the fiftieth evening, Brahma revealed himself to his faithful

servant. From that moment on, Siddhartha was called Buddha



and he was revered as the Enlightened One who had come to

save men from their unhappymortal fate.



The last forty-five years of his life, Buddha spent within

the valley of the Ganges River, teaching his simple lesson of



submission and meekness unto all men. In the year 488 before

our era, he died, full of years and beloved by millions of people.



He had not preached his doctrines for the benefit of a single

class. Even the lowest Pariah might call himself his disciple.



This, however, did not please the nobles and the priests and

the merchants who did their best to destroy a creed which recognised



the equality of all living creatures and offered men the

hope of a second life (a reincarnation) under happier circumstances.



As soon as they could, they encouraged the people of

India to return to the ancient doctrines of the Brahmin creed



with its fasting and its tortures of the sinful body. But

Buddhism could not be destroyed. Slowly the disciples of the



Enlightened One wandered across the valleys of the Himalayas,

and moved into China. They crossed the Yellow Sea



and preached the wisdom of their master unto the people of

Japan, and they faithfully obeyed the will of their great master,



who had forbidden them to use force. To-day more people

recognise Buddha as their teacher than ever before and their



number surpasses that of the combined followers of Christ and Mohammed.

As for Confucius, the wise old man of the Chinese, his



story is a simple one. He was born in the year 550 B.C. He

led a quiet, dignified and uneventful life at a time when China



was without a strong central government and when the Chinese

people were at the mercy of bandits and robber-barons who



went from city to city, pillaging and stealing and murdering

and turning the busy plains of northern and central China into



a wilderness of starving people.

Confucius, who loved his people, tried to save them. He



did not have much faith in the use of violence. He was a very

peaceful person. He did not think that he could make people



over by giving them a lot of new laws. He knew that the only

possible salvation would come from a change of heart, and he



set out upon the seeminglyhopeless task of changing the character

of his millions of fellow men who inhabited the wide plains



of eastern Asia. The Chinese had never been much interested

in religion as we understand that word. They believed in



devils and spooks as most primitive people do. But they had

no prophets and recognised no ``revealed truth.'' Confucius



is almost the only one among the great moral leaders who did

not see visions, who did not proclaim himself as the messenger



of a divine power; who did not, at some time or another, claim

that he was inspired by voices from above.



He was just a very sensible and kindly man, rather given

to lonely wanderings and melancholy tunes upon his faithful



flute. He asked for no recognition. He did not demand that

any one should follow him or worship him. He reminds us



of the ancient Greek philosophers, especially those of the Stoic

School, men who believed in right living and righteous thinking



without the hope of a reward but simply for the peace of

the soul that comes with a good conscience.