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360
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
themselves from all domestic and social obligations: with all its boasted benevolence it enjoins positive inhumanity where women are concerned, and in its anxiety for the purity of the mendicant, prescribes not only that he should not look at or converse with a female, but that, if she be his own mother and have fallen into a river, and be drowning, he shall not give her his hand to help her out; if there be a pole at hand he may reach that to her, but if not, she must drown. An interesting illustration of this barbarity occurs in the drama called Míichchhakati *, which represents Buddhist institutions with singular fidelity. In this spirit is the whole of the Vinaya or Buddhist discipline conceived: it is a set of rules for individuals separated from society, in whom all natural feeling is to be suppressed, all passions and desires extinguished, consistently enough with the doctrine that life is the source of all evil, and that one means of counteracting it is by the checking the increase of living beings. Rigid compliance with the restraints imposed, has, however, been found impracticable, and considerable latitude has been allowed in practice. The rules of abstinence and celibacy must be strictly observed whilst the individual continues in the order of the priesthood, but he may withdraw from that order, either for ever or for a season, and may marry and lead a secular life; he may, after an interval, be readmitted, and his second admission is considered as
* [End of Act VIII.]
