dice is a wholesome one; for we all know
that most of the elements forming common illuminating gas are worthless
except to convey the very small amount of light-giving material, and
that these elements in combustion vitiate the air and give off
deleterious products which corrode, tarnish and destroy. Now though
Buddhist doctrine may have been the light of India, yet to reach the
Northern and Eastern nations of Asia it had, apparently, to be
adulterated for conveyance, as much as is the illuminating gas in our
cities. From the first, Northern Buddhism showed a wonderful affinity,
not only for Brahministic superstitions and speculations, but for almost
everything else with which it came in contact in countries beyond India.
Instead of combating, it absorbed. It adapted itself to circumstances,
and finding certain beliefs prevalent among the people, it imbibed them,
and thus gained by accretion until its bulk, both of beliefs and of
disciples, was in the inverse ratio of its purity. Even to-day, the
occult theosophy of "Isis Unveiled," and of the school of writers such
as Blavatsky, Olcott, etc., seems to be a perfectly logical product of
the Northern Buddhisms, and may be called one of them; yet it is simply
a repetition of what took place centuries ago. Most of the primitive
beliefs and superstitions of Nepal and Tibet were absorbed in the ever
hungry and devouring system of Buddhistic scholasticism.

The Making of a Pantheon.

Let us glance again at this Nepal Buddhism. In the tenth century we find
what at first seems to be a growth out of Polytheism into Monotheism,
for a new Being, to whom the attributes of infinity, self-existence and
omniscience are ascribed, is invented and named Adi-Buddha, or the
primordial Buddha. According to the speculations of the thinkers, he had
evolved himself out of the five Dhyani-Buddhas by the exercise of the
five meditations, while each of these had evolved out of itself by
wisdom and contemplation, the corresponding Buddhas elect. Again, each
of the latter evolved out of his own essence a material world,--our
present world being the fourth of these, that is of Avaloki. One almost
might consider that this setting forth of the primordial Buddha was real
Monotheism; but on looking more carefully one sees that it is as little
real Monotheism as was possible in the system of Gnosticism. Indeed the
force of evolution could not stop here; for, since even this primordial
Buddha rested u