beyond this, and such of their sayings as have reference to the whence, the whither and the why of the universe are obscure precisely because these questions do not fall within the field of religious genius and receive no illumination from its light.  Argumentative as the Buddhist suttas are, their aim is strictly practical, even when their language appears scholastic, and the burden of all their ratiocination is the same and very simple.  Men are unhappy because of their foolish desires:  to become happy they must make themselves a new heart and will and, perhaps the Buddha would have added, new eyes.

Neither the Buddha nor Christ thought it worth while to write anything and both of them ignored ceremonial and sacerdotal codes in a way which must have astounded their contemporaries.  The law-books and sacrifices to which Brahmans and Pharisees devoted time and study are simply left on one side.  The former are replaced by injunctions to cultivate a good habit of mind, such as is exemplified in the Eightfold Path and the Beatitudes, the latter by some observances of extreme simplicity, such as the Patimokkha and the Lord’s Prayer.  In both cases subsequent generations felt that the provision made by the Founders was inadequate and the Buddhist and Christian Churches have multiplied ceremonies which, though not altogether unedifying, would certainly have astonished Gotama and Christ.

For Christ the greatest commandments were that a man should love God and his neighbours.  This summary is not in the manner of Gotama and though love (metta) has an important place in his teaching, it is rather an inseparable adjunct of a holy life than the force which creates and animates it.  In other words the Buddha teaches that a saint must love his fellow men rather than that he who loves his fellow men is a saint.  But the passages extolling metta are numerous and striking, and European writers have, I think, shown too great a disposition to maintain that metta is something less than Christian love and little more than benevolent equanimity.  The love of the New Testament is not eros but agape, a new word first used by Jewish and Christian writers and nearly the exact equivalent of metta.  For both words love is rather too strong a rendering and charity too weak.  Nor is it just to say that the Buddha as compared with Christ preaches inaction.  The Christian nations of Europe are more inclined to action than the Buddhist nations of Asia, yet the Beatitudes do not indicate that the strenuous life is the road to happiness.  Those declared blessed are the poor, the mourners, the meek, the hungry, the pure and the persecuted.  Such men have just the virtues of the patient Bhikkhu and like Christ the Buddha praised the merciful and the peacemakers.  And similarly Christ’s phrase about rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s seems to dissociate his true followers (like the Bhikkhus) from political life.  Money and taxes are the affair of those who put their heads on coins; God and the things which concern him have quite another sphere.