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INTRODUCTION.
145
which calls it into action. "Motive' would be somewhat too impersonal, 'volition' too metaphysical a rendering; 'aims' or 'aspirations' seems to me to best express the sense intended in this passage.
In No. 7 (sam mâ-sati) sati is literally memory,' but is used with reference to the constantly repeated phrase 'mindful and thoughtful' (sato sam pagano); and means that activity of mind and constant presence of mind which is one of the duties most frequently inculcated on the good Buddhist. Gogerly's rendering of the term should have been reserved for the last division (samma-samadhi), that prolonged meditation on the deep mysteries of life, which is stated in the Great Decease 1 to be the necessary complement and accessory to intelligence and goodness. Reason and works are good in themselves, but they require to be made perfect by that sa mâdhi which in Buddhism corresponds to faith in Christianity.
This Buddhist ideal of the perfect life has an analogy most instructive from a historical point of view with the ideals of the last pagan thinkers in Europe before the rise of Christianity, and of the modern exponents of what has been called fervent atheism. When after many centuries of thought a pantheistic or monotheistic unity has been evolved out of the chaos of polytheism,-which is itself a modified animism or animistic polydæmonism, - there has always arisen at last a school to whom theological discussions have lost their interest, and who have sought for a new solution of the questions to which the theologies have given inconsistent answers, in a new system in which man was to work out here, on earth, his own salvation. It is their place in the progress of thought that helps us to understand how it is that there is so much in common between the Agnostic philosopher of India, the Stoics of Greece and Rome, and some of the newest schools in France, in Germany, and among ourselves.
1 Chap. I, § 12, and often afterwards.
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| SR No. | 007674 |
| Book Title | Dhammapada |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Max Muller |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1881 |
| Total Pages | 2540 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 45 MB |