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BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
365
established, but it was more probably the result of internal decay, than of external violence. There are traditions of persecution, and it is very possible that local and occasional acts of aggression were perpetrated by the Brahmanical party: the Buddhist writings intimate this when they represent the Bodhisattwas as saying to Buddha: “When yon have entered into Nirvana, and the end of time has arrived, we shall expound this excellent Sútra, in doing which we will endure, we will suffer patiently, injuries, violence, menaces of beating is with sticks, and the spitting upon us, with which ignorant men will assail us. The Tirthakas, composing Sútras of their own, will speak in the assembly to insult us. In the presence of kings, of the sons of kings, of the Brahmans, of Householders, and other religious persons, they will censure is in their discourses, and will cause the language of the Tirthakas to be heard; but we will endure all this throngh respect for the great Rishis. We must endure threatening looks, and repeated instances of contumely, and suffer expulsion from our Viháras, and submit to be imprisoned and punished in a variety of ways; but recalling at the end of this period the commands of the chief of the world, we will preach courageously this Sútra in the midst of the assembly, and we will traverse towns, villages, the whole world, to give to those who will ask for it, the deposit which thou hast entrusted to us*.” This is the language of
* [Burnouf, Lotus, p. 165 f.]
