by the learned Dr. Erich Bischoff,
was published at Leipzig, by the Griebens Co., and a third translation
into French, by my old friend and colleague, Commandant D. A. Courmes,
was being got ready at Paris. A fresh version in Sinhalese is also
preparing at Colombo. It is very gratifying to a declared Buddhist
like myself to read what so ripe a scholar as Mr. G. R. S. Mead, author
of _Fragments of of a Faith Forgotten_, _Pistis Sophia_, and many other
works on Christian origins, thinks of the value of the compilation. He
writes in the _Theosophical Review_: "It has been translated into no
less than twenty different languages, and may be said without the
faintest risk of contradiction, to have been the busiest instrument of
Buddhist propaganda for many a day in the annals of that long somnolent
dharma. The least that learned Buddhists of Ceylon can do to repay the
debt of gratitude they owe to Colonel Olcott and other members of the
Theosophical Society who have worked for them, is to bestir themselves
to throw some light on their own origins and doctrines."

I am afraid we shall have to wait long for this help to come from the
Buddhist bhikkhus, almost the only learned men of Ceylon; at least I
have not been able during an intimate intercourse of twenty-two years,
to arouse their zeal. It has always seemed to me incongruous that an
American, making no claims at all to scholarship, should be looked to
by the Sinhalese to help them teach the dharma to their children; and
as I believe I have said in an earlier edition, I only consented to
write THE BUDDHIST CATECHISM after I had found that no bhikkhu would
undertake it. Whatever its demerits, I can at least say that the work
contains the essence of some 15,000 pages of Buddhist teaching that I
have read in connexion with my work.

H. S. O.

ADYAR, 7_th February_, 1903.

PREFACE

TO THE FORTIETH EDITION

The popularity of this little work is proved by the constant demand for
new editions, in English and other languages. In looking over the
matter for the present edition, I have found very little to change or
to add, for the work seems to present a very fair idea of the contents
of Southern Buddhism; and, as my object is never to write an extended
essay on the subject, I resist the temptation to wander off into
amplifications of details which, however interesting to the student of
comparative religion, are useless in a rational scheme of elementary
instru