natural. The same latitude cannot be allowed in unfamiliar directions.
Thus though a shower of flowers from heaven is not more extraordinary
than talking flowers and is quite natural in Indian poetry, it would
probably disconcert the English reader[715]. An Indian poet would not
represent flowers as talking, but would give the same idea by saying
that the spirits inhabiting trees and plants recited stanzas. Similarly
when a painter draws a picture of an angel with wings rising from the
shoulder blades, even the very scientific do not think it needful to
point out that no such anatomical arrangement is known or probable, nor
do the very pious maintain that such creatures exist. The whole question
is allowed to rest happily in some realm of acquiescence untroubled by
discussions. And it is in this spirit that Indian books relate how when
the Buddha went abroad showers of flowers fell from the sky and the air
resounded with heavenly music, or diversify their theological
discussions with interludes of demons, nymphs and magic serpents. And
although this riot of the imagination offends our ideas of good sense
and proportion, the Buddhists do not often lose the distinction between
what Matthew Arnold called Literature and Dogma. The Buddha's visits to
various heavens are not presented as articles of faith: they are simply
a pleasant setting for his discourses.

Some miracles of course have a more serious character and can be less
easily separated from the essentials of the faith. Thus the Pitakas
represent the Buddha as able to see all that happens in the world and to
transport himself anywhere at will. But even in such cases we may
remember that when we say of a well-informed and active person that he
is omniscient and ubiquitous, we are not misunderstood. The hyperbole of
Indian legends finds its compensation in the small importance attached
to them. No miraculous circumstance recorded of the Buddha has anything
like the significance attributed by Christians to the virgin birth or
the resurrection of Christ. His superhuman powers are in keeping with
the picture drawn of his character. They are mostly the result of an
attempt to describe a mind and will of more than human strength, but the
superman thus idealized rarely works miracles of healing. He saves
mankind by teaching the way of salvation, not by alleviating a few
chance cases of physical distress. In later works he is represented as
performing plentiful and extraord