d death. We see the renunciation, the sojourn in the wilderness, the
attainment under the bo-tree, the preaching of the Truth. And all this
sculptured gospel seems to bring home to one, better than the volumes of
the learned, what Buddhism really meant to the masses of its followers.
It meant, surely, not the denial of the soul or of God, but that warm
impulse of pity and love that beats still in these tender and human
pictures. It meant not the hope or desire for extinction, but the
charming dream of thousands of lives, past and to come, in many forms,
many conditions, many diverse fates. The pessimism of the master is as
little likely as his high philosophy to have reached the mind or the
heart of the people. The whole history of Buddhism, indeed, shows that
it did not, and does not. What touched them in him was the saint and the
lover of animals and men. And this love it was that flowed in streams
over the world, leaving wherever it passed, in literature and art, in
pictures of flowers or mountains, in fables and poems and tales, the
trace of its warm and humanising flood.

Still, there is the other Buddhism, the Buddhism of the thinker; his
theory of human life, its value and purpose. And it was this that filled
my mind later as I sat on the summit next to a solemn Buddha against the
setting sun. For a long time I was silent, meditating his doctrine. Then
I spoke of children, and he said, "They grow old." I spoke of strong
men, and he said, "They grow weak." I spoke of their work and
achievement, and he said, "They die." The stars came out, and I spoke of
eternal law. He said, "One law concerns you--that which binds you to the
wheel of life." The moon rose, and I spoke of beauty. He said, "There is
one beauty--that of a soul redeemed from desire." Thereupon the West
stirred in me, and cried "No!" "Desire," it said, "is the heart and
essence of the world. It needs not and craves not extinction. It needs
and craves perfection. Youth passes; strength passes; life passes. Yes!
What of it? We have access to the youth, the strength, the life of the
world. Man is born to sorrow. Yes! But he feels it as tragedy and
redeems it. Not round life, not outside life, but through life is the
way. Desire more and more intense, because more and more pure; not
peace, but the plenitude of experience. Your foundation was false. You
thought man wanted rest. He does not. We at least do not, we of the
West. We want more labour; we want more