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The opening · free to read
Since this work was in the hands of the printer I have read the recent work of Bishop Copelston, of Columbo, Ceylon, and it was a source of no small gratification to find him in all material points agreeing with the result of my somewhat extensive investigations as given within, for in Ceylon, if anywhere, we would expect accuracy. Here the great Buddhist development first comes in contact with authentic history during the third century B.C. in the reign of the great Asoka, the discovery of whose rock inscriptions shed such a flood of light on primitive Buddhism, while it still retained enough of its primitive power, as we learn from those inscriptions themselves, to turn that monarch from a course of cruel tyranny, and, as we learn from the history of Ceylon, to induce his son and daughter to abandon royalty and become the first missionaries to that beautiful island.
H.T.N.
INTRODUCTION.
The golden age--when men were brothers all, The golden rule their law and God their king; When no fierce beasts did through the forests roam, Nor poisonous reptiles crawl upon the ground; When trees bore only wholesome, luscious fruits, And thornless roses breathed their sweet perfumes; When sickness, sin and sorrow were unknown, And tears but spoke of joy too deep for words; When painless death but led to higher life, A life that knows no end, in that bright world Whence angels on the ladder Jacob saw, Descending, talk with man as friend to friend-- That age of purity and peace had passed, But left a living memory behind, Cherished and handed down from sire to son Through all the scattered peoples of the earth, A living prophecy of what this world, This sad and sinful world, might yet become.
The silver age--an age of faith, not sight-- Came next, when reason ruled instead of love; When men as through a glass but darkly saw What to their fathers clearly stood revealed In God's own light of love-illumined truth, Of which the sun that rising paints the east, And whose last rays with glory gild the west, Is but an outbirth. Then were temples reared, And priests 'mid clouds of incense sang His praise Who out of densest darkness called the light, And from His own unbounded fullness made The heavens and earth and all that in them is. Then landmarks were first set, lest men contend For God's free gifts, that all in peace had shared. Then laws were made to govern those whose sires Were laws unto themselves. Then sickness came, And grief and pain attended men from birth to death. But still a silver light lined every cloud, And hope was given to cheer and comfort men.
The brazen age, brilliant but cold, succeeds. This was an age of knowledge, art and war, When the knights-errant of the ancient world, Adventures seeking, roamed with brazen swords Which by a wondrous art--then known, now lost-- Were hard as flint, and edged to cut a hair Or cleave in twain a warrior armor-clad And armed with shields adorned by Vulcan's art, Wonder of coming times and theme for bards.[1] Then science searched through nature's heights and depths. Heaven's canopy thick set with stars was mapped, The constellations named, and all the laws searched out That guide their motions, rolling sphere on sphere.[2] Then men by reasonings piled up mountain high Thought to scale heaven, and to dethrone heaven's king, Whose imitators weak, with quips and quirks And ridicule would now destroy all sacred things. This age great Homer and old Hesiod sang, And gods they made of hero, artist, bard.
At length this twilight of the ages fades, And starless night now sinks upon the world-- An age of iron, cruel, dark and cold. On Asia first this outer darkness fell, Once seat of paradise, primordial peace, Perennial harmony and perfect love. A despot's will was then a nation's law; An idol's car crushed out poor human lives, And human blood polluted many shrines. Then human speculation made of God A shoreless ocean, distant, waveless, vast, Of truth that sees not and unfeeling love, Whence souls as drops were taken back to fall, Absorbed and lost, when, countless ages passed, They should complete their round as souls of men, Of beasts, of birds and of all creeping things. And, even worse, the cruel iron castes, One caste too holy for another's touch, Had every human aspiration crushed, The common brotherhood of man destroyed, And made all men but Pharisees or slaves. And worst of all--and what could e'en be worse?-- Woman, bone of man's bone, flesh of his flesh, The equal partner of a double life, Who in the world's best days stood by his side To lighten every care, and heighten every joy, And in the world's decline still clung to him, She only true when all beside were false, When all were cruel she alone still kind, Light of his hearth and mistress of his home, Sole spot where peace and joy could still be found-- Woman herself cast down, despised was made Slave to man's luxury and brutal lust. Then war was rapine, havoc, needless blood, Infants impaled before their mothers' eyes, Women dishonored, mutilated, slain, Parents but spared to see their children die. Then peace was but a faithless, hollow truce, With plots and counter-plots; the dagger's point And poisoned cup instead of open war; And life a savage, grim conspiracy Of mutual murder, treachery and greed. O dark and cruel age! O cruel creeds! O cruel men! O crushed and bleeding hearts, That from the very ground in anguish cry: "Is there no light--no hope--no help--no God?"
[1]See Hesiod's description of the shield of Hercules, the St. George of that ancient age of chivalry.
[2]See the celebrated zodiac of Denderah, given in Landseer's "Sabaean Researches," and in Napoleon's "Egypt."
Northward from Ganges' stream and India's plains An ancient city crowned a lofty hill, Whose high embattled walls had often rolled The surging, angry tide of battle back. Walled on three sides, but on the north a cliff, At once the city's quarry and its guard, Cut out in galleries, with vaulted roofs[1] Upborne upon cyclopean columns vast, Chiseled with art, their capitals adorned With lions, elephants, and bulls, life size, Once dedicate to many monstrous gods Before the Aryan race as victors came, Then prisons, granaries and magazines, Now only known to bandits and wild beasts. This cliff, extending at each end, bends north, And rises in two mountain-chains that end In two vast snow-capped Himalayan peaks, Between which runs a glittering glacial stream, A mighty moving mass of crystal ice, Crushing the rocks in its resistless course; From which bursts forth a river that had made Of all this valley one great highland lake, Which on one side had burst its bounds and cut In myriad years a channel through the rock, So narrow that a goat might almost leap From cliff to cliff--these cliffs so smooth and steep The eagles scarce could build upon their sides; This yawning chasm so deep one scarce could hear The angry waters roaring far below.
This stream, guided by art, now fed a lake Above the city and behind this cliff, Which, guided thence in channels through the rock, Fed many fountains, sending crystal streams Through every street and down the terraced hill, And through the plain in little silver streams, Spreading the richest verdure far and wide.[2] Here was the seat of King Suddhodana, His royal park, walled by eternal hills, Where trees and shrubs and flowers all native grew; For in its bounds all the four seasons met, From ever-laughing, ever-blooming spring To savage winter with eternal snows. Here stately palms, the banyan's many trunks, Darkening whole acres with its grateful shade, And bamboo groves, with graceful waving plumes, The champak, with its fragrant golden flowers, Asokas, one bright blaze of brilliant bloom, The mohra, yielding food and oil and wine, The sacred sandal and the spreading oak, The mountain-loving fir and spruce and pine, And giant cedars, grandest of them all, Planted in ages past, and thinned and pruned With that high art that hides all trace of art,[3] Were placed to please the eye and show their form In groves, in clumps, in jungles and alone.
Here all a forest seemed; there open groves, With vine-clad trees, vines hanging from each limb, A pendant chain of bloom, with shaded drives And walks, with rustic seats, cool grots and dells, With fountains playing and with babbling brooks, And stately swans sailing on little lakes, While peacocks, rainbow-tinted shrikes, pheasants, Glittering like precious stones, parrots, and birds Of all rich plumage, fly from tree to tree, The whole scene vocal with sweet varied song; And here a widespread lawn bedecked with flowers, With clumps of brilliant roses grown to trees, And fields with dahlias spread,[4] not stiff and prim Like the starched ruffle of an ancient dame, But growing in luxuriance rich and wild, The colors of the evening and the rainbow joined, White, scarlet, yellow, crimson, deep maroon, Blending all colors in one dazzling blaze; There orchards bend beneath their luscious loads; Here vineyards climb the hills thick set with grapes; There rolling pastures spread, where royal mares, High bred, and colts too young for bit or spur, Now quiet feed, then, as at trumpet's call, With lion bounds, tails floating, neck outstretched,[5] Nostrils distended, fleet as the flying wind They skim the plain, and sweep in circles wide-- Nature's Olympic, copied, ne'er excelled. Here, deer with dappled fawn bound o'er the grass,[6] And sacred herds, and sheep with skipping lambs; There, great white elephants in quiet nooks; While high on cliffs framed in with living green Goats climb and seem to hang and feed in air-- Sweet spot, with all to please and nothing to offend.
Here on a hill the royal palace stood, A gem of art; and near, another hill, Its top crowned by an aged banyan tree, Its sides clad in strange jyotismati grass,[7] By day a sober brown, but in the night Glowing as if the hill were all aflame-- Twin wonders to the dwellers in the plain, Their guides and landmarks day and night, This glittering palace and this glowing hill. Within, above the palace rose a tower, Which memory knew but as the ancient tower, Foursquare and high, an altar and a shrine On its broad top, where burned perpetual fire, Emblem of boundless and eternal love And truth that knows no night, no cloud, no change, Long since gone out, with that most ancient faith In one great Father, source of life and light.[8] Still round this ancient tower, strange hopes and fears, And memories handed down from sire to son, Were clustered thick. An army, old men say, Once camped against the city, when strange lights Burst from this tower, blinding their dazzled eyes. They fled amazed, nor dared to look behind. The people bloody war and cruel bondage saw On every side, and they at peace and free, And thought a power to save dwelt in that tower. And now strange prophecies and sayings old Were everywhere rehearsed, that from this hill Should come a king or savior of the world. Even the poor dwellers in the distant plain Looked up; they too had heard that hence should come One quick to hear the poor and strong to save. And who shall dare to chide their simple faith? This humble reverence for the great unknown Brings men near God, and opens unseen worlds, Whence comes all life, and where all power doth dwell.
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