rance to the apparent
circle of fire produced by whirling a lighted torch. This striking
image occurs first in the Maitrayana Upanishad (VI. 24), which shows
other indications of an acquaintance with Buddhism, and also in the
Lankavatara Sutra.

A real affinity unites the doctrine of Sankara to the teaching of
Gotama himself. That teaching as presented in the Pali Pitakas is
marked by its negative and deliberately circumscribed character. Its
rule is silence when strict accuracy of expression is impossible,
whereas later philosophy does not shrink from phrases which are
suggestive, if not exact. Gotama refuses to admit that the human soul
is a fixed entity or Atman, but he does not condemn (though he also
does not discuss) the idea that the whole world of change and
becoming, including human souls, is the expression or disguise of some
one ineffable principle. He teaches too that the human mind can grow
until it develops new faculties and powers and becomes the Buddha
mind, which sees the whole chain of births, the order of the world,
and the reality of emancipation. As the object of the whole system is
practical, Nirvana is always regarded as a _terminus ad quem_ or an
escape (nissaranam) from this transitory world, and this view is more
accurate as well as more edifying than the view which treats Brahman
or Sunyata as the origin of the universe. When the Vedanta teaches
that this changing troubled world is merely the disguise of that
unchanging and untroubled state into which saints can pass, it is, I
believe, following Gotama's thought, but giving it an expression which
he would have considered imperfect.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 163: Translated by Schiefner, 1869. Taranatha informs us (p.
281) that his chief authorities were the history of Kshemendrabhadra,
the Buddhapurana of Indradatta and Bhataghati's history of the
succession of the Acaryas.]

[Footnote 164: The Tibetans generally translate instead of
transliterating Indian names. It is as if an English history of Greece
were to speak of Leader of the People instead of Agesilaus.]

[Footnote 165: They place Kanishka, Vasishka, Huvishka and Vasudeva
before Kadphises I and Kadphises II.]

[Footnote 166: _E.g._ Stael Holstein who also thinks that Kanishka's
tribe should be called Kusha not Kushan. Vincent Smith in his latest
work (_Oxford History of India_, p. 130) gives 120 A.D. as the most
probable date.]

[Footnote 167: My chief difficulty in accepting