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THE ROYAL MONASTERY AT MANDALAY.
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CHAPTER VI.
The Buddhist Doctrines and Sacred Books,
Reaction from Brahmanism-Suffering and ignorance-The Eternal Immutable-Vanity of earthly things-The causal nexus-Human responsibility-Punishment of evil-Being and causality-The soul-Nirvana-Moral precepts-Negative morality-Benevolence-Beneficence-Self-discipline-Temptation-Mara-The struggle and victory of the soulStates of abstraction-The four grades of attainment-The person of Buddha-The Buddhist Scriptures-The Dhammapada.
I
T is one of the strangest phenomena, that the system
Reaction
happiness and extinguisher of suffering should be fitly called a philosophy of pessimism, of negation, from of agnosticism. Yet it was a natural reaction Brahmanism. from the Brahman assumption of knowing everything, and that everything would be right if its management were committed to Brahmans. In only one direction did the Buddhists claim to attain knowledge, that was the path by which to attain deliverance from suffering, and ultimate Nirvana. The kernel of this doc
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