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THE PERSON OF BUDDHA.
157 describe methods of producing self-concentration; and frequently they approach pathological or morbid conditions. It is no wonder that hallucinations of the senses should arise in men who have torn themselves from every home tie, and devoted themselves to homelessness and abstraction. But heavenly visions, heavenly sounds, forms of supernatural beings are only rarely seen ; rather the condition commonly attained was that known as clairvoyant, in which the spirit was believed to be peculiarly refined, pure, pliant, and firm. Then the monks imagined they saw the past clearly, even their own past existences, saw into the thoughts of others, acquired miraculous powers, became invisible and again appeared on earth. Many of these may be paralleled by various accounts in the Bible; but there are no parallel results flowing from them.
Among the monks no gradation was at first recognised except the higher order of those who had attained deliverance; but later four grades were acknow- The four ledged: (1) the lowest, those who had attained grades of the path, and were not liable to re-birth in the attainment. lower worlds (hells, world of animals, spirit worlds); (2) those who return once only to this world—these have destroyed desire, hatred, and frivolity; (3) the non-returning, who only enter the higher worlds of the gods, and these attain Nirvana ; (4) the Saints (Arhats). But these grades did not give those who had attained them any special place in the Order.
A special grade was occupied by those who gained participation in the Buddhahood by their own inherent force, having won the knowledge bringing deliverance by their own exertions. They were believed to have lived chiefly in the ages previous to Buddha himself; but they were not equal to the “universal Buddhas” of whom Gautama was one.
The position claimed by and assigned to Buddha is peculiar in that he had no special commission from a supreme Being, and did not put himself for- The person ward as the representative of the invisible of Buddha. powers. He was simply, in the present order of things,
