Altogether he seems to have
been one of those remarkable examples, of genius and virtue occasionally
met with, unaccountably superior to the age and nation that produced
them.

There is no reason to believe that he ever arrogated to himself any
higher authority than that of a teacher of religion, but, _as in modern
factions_, there were readily found among his followers those who
carried his peculiar tenets much further than their founder. These, not
content with lauding during his life-time the noble deeds of their
teacher, exalted him, within a quarter of a century after his death, to
a place among their deities--worshiping as a God one they had known only
as a simple-hearted, earnest, truth-seeking philanthropist.[298:1]

This worship was at first but the natural upgushing of the veneration
and love Gautama had inspired during his noble life, and his sorrowing
disciples, mourning over the desolation his death had occasioned, turned
for consolation to the theory that he still lived.

Those who had known him in life cherished his name as the very synonym
of all that was generous and good, and it required but a step to exalt
him to divine honors; and so it was that Gautama Buddha became a God,
and continues to be worshiped as such.

For more than forty years Gautama thus dwelt among his followers,
instructing them daily in the sacred law, and laying down many rules
for their guidance when he should be no longer with them.[299:1]

He lived in a style the most simple and unostentatious, bore
uncomplainingly the weariness and privations incident to the many long
journeys made for the propagation of the new faith; and performed
countless deeds of love and mercy.

"When the time came for him to be perfected, he directed his followers
no longer to remain together, but to go out in companies, and proclaim
the doctrines he had taught them, found schools and monasteries, build
temples, and perform acts of charity, that they might 'obtain merit,'
and gain access to the blessed shade of Nigban, which he told them he
was about to enter, and where they believe he has now reposed more than
two thousand years."

To the pious Buddhist it seems irreverent to speak of Gautama by his
mere ordinary and human name, and he makes use therefore, of one of
those numerous epithets which are used only of the Buddha, "the
Enlightened One." Such are _Sakya-sinha_, "the Lion of the Tribe of
Sakya;" _Sakya-muni_, "the Sakya Sage;" _Sugata_,