Essays Lectures on Religion of Hindu Vol 02

Author(s): H H Wilson
Publisher: Trubner and Company London

Page 19

BAUDDHA TRACTS FROM NEPAL.
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of Benares *. They contribute therefore to throw doubt on the reality of the persons. The extravagant periods assigned to their lives is another suspicious circumstance. But these periods are, no doubt, connected with some legendary classification of the Kalpas, or ages of the world, in which mankind enjoyed a length of life far exceeding any thing in these degenerate days. So GEORGI states that, in the second age of the world and the first of men, the limit of life was 80,000 years; in the third age it was 40,000; in the fourth it was 20,000, and in the fifth one hundred. The Buddhas therefore only partake of the longevity of the periods to which they belong.
The omission of the name of GAUTAMA proves that he is not acknowledged as a distinct Buddha by the Nepalese, and he can be identified with no other in the list than SAKYA Sinia. The Newári comment adds, that the latter was born in the family of SudDHODANA RÁJÁ, and SUDDHODANA is always regarded as the father of GAUTAMA. Other names in the text, which are translated as epithets, Adityabandhu, the friend of the sun, and Lokaikabandhu, the sole or superior friend of the world, occur as synonymes of GAUTAMA as well as ŠÁKYA SINHA, as in the vocabularies of Amara and Hemachandra; “Sakya Muni, Sákya Sinha, Sarvárttha Siddha, Sauddhodaní (the
* [Compare, however, St. Julien, “Voyages des pèlerins Bouddhistes”, I, 315 f. R. Spence Hardy, "Manual of Buddhism", 96 f. Burnouf, "Introduction", 116 & 388.]