The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

THE EQUINOX and produce emotions of an almost equal intensity though perhaps of an opposite character to those of his opponents. Yet nevertheless, for a space, the unbending Rationalism of his System prevailed and crushed down the Emotions of his followers, those Emotions which had found so rich and fertile a soil in the decaying philosophy of the old Vedanta. The statement in the Dhammapada that: “ All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts:” * is as equally true of the Vedanta as it is of Buddhism. But, in the former we get the great doctrine and practice of the Siddhis directly attributable to a mastering of the emotions and then to a use of the same, which is strictly forbidden to the Buddhist, but which eventually under the Mahayana Buddhism of China and Tibet forced itself once again into recognition, and which, even as early as the writing of ‘““The Questions of King Milinda,” unless the beautiful story of the courtesan Bindu- mati be a latter day interpolation, was highly thought of under the name of an “ Act of Truth.” Thus, though King Sivi gave his eyes to the man who begged them of him, he received others by an Act of Truth, by the gift of Siddhi, or Iddhi as the Buddhists call it. An Act, which is explained by the fair courtesan Bindumati as follows. When King Asoka asked her by what power she had caused the waters of the Ganges to flow backwards. She answered: Whosoever, O King, gives me gold—be he a noble, or a brahman, or a tradesman, or a servant—I regard them all alike. When I see he is a noble I make no distinction in his favour, If I know him to be a slave I despise him * Dhammapada, v. I. 128