Mr. Pococke, too, the author of India in Greece, would persuade us that the early Greeks were Buddhists, and that Pythagoras, correctly written (according to him) Buddha-gooroos (Buddha’s spiritual teacher), was a Buddhist missionary!
However, let the religion be ancient or modern, in principle it is one of the best that man ever made for man. Mr. Malcom, from whom as a missionary one would of course expect rabid intolerance, bears testimony to this:—“There is scarcely a principle, or precept, in the Bedagat, which is not found in the Bible. Did the people but act up to its principles of peace and love, oppression and injury would be known no more within their borders. Its deeds of merit are in all cases either really beneficial to mankind, or harmless. It has no mythology of obscene and ferocious deities; no sanguinary or impure observances; no self-inflicted tortures; no tyrannizing priesthood; no confounding of right and wrong, by making certain iniquities laudable in worship. In its moral code, its descriptions of the purity and peace of the first ages, of the shortening of man’s life because of its sins, &c., it seems to have followed genuine traditions. In almost every respect it seems to be the best religion which man has ever invented.”[130]
It is true there is another side to the picture; but why should we turn the face to the wall, and expose the tattered back? Let us leave it as it is, but let us recollect that the ill side is there, and make the recollection atone for many faults in the character of the worshippers of Buddha.
Language—Literature—Manuscripts—The Aporazabon—Superstitions—Divination—The Deitton—Astronomy—Division of time.
Of a literature and language so little known as that of Burmah, a notice, of course, can but be brief. The few particulars with which we are acquainted, I will, however, offer to the reader.
The sacred books are in a language usually called Pali, which denomination, Mr. Wilson contends, should only be applied to the character. He proposes that the name of the language should be Magadeh or Puncrit, corresponding to the terms Magari and Sanscrit. He informs us, also, that the language differs from Sanscrit in enunciation only, being softer, and liquifying all the harsh sounds.[131] With this language we have but little to do, as it is only the language of the priests, and not that of the whole population. A grammar of the Pali has been published at Colombo, with a vocabulary attached.[132]