_Esoteric Buddhism_ was an excellent work with a very unfortunate title, though it meant no more than does the title of this work, THE SECRET DOCTRINE. It proved unfortunate, because people are always in the habit of judging things by their appearance rather than by their meaning, and because the error has now become so universal, that even most of the Fellows of the Theosophical Society have fallen victims to the same misconception. From the first, however, protests were raised by Brâhmans and others against the title; and, in justice to myself, I must add that _Esoteric Buddhism_ was presented to me as a completed volume, and that I was entirely unaware of the manner in which the author intended to spell the word “Budh‐ism.”
This has to be laid directly at the door of those who, having been the first to bring the subject under public notice, neglected to point out the difference between “Buddhism”—the religious system of ethics preached by the Lord Gautama, and so named from his title of _Buddha_, the “Enlightened”—and “Budhism,” from _Budha_, Wisdom, or Knowledge (Vidyâ), the faculty of cognizing, from the Sanskrit root _Budh_, to know. We Theosophists of India are ourselves the real culprits, although, at the time, we did our best to correct the mistake.(1) To avoid this deplorable misnomer was easy; the spelling of the word had only to be altered, and by common consent both pronounced and written “Budhism,” instead of “Buddhism.” Nor is the latter term correctly spelt and pronounced, as it ought to be called, in English, Buddhaïsm, and its votaries “Buddhaïsts.”
This explanation is absolutely necessary at the beginning of a work like the present. The Wisdom‐Religion is the inheritance of all the nations, the world over, in spite of the statement made in _Esoteric Buddhism_(2) that “two years ago (_i.e._, in 1883), neither I, _nor any other European living_, knew the alphabet of the Science, here for the first time put into a scientific shape,” etc. This error must have crept in through inadvertence. The present writer knew all that is “divulged” in _Esoteric Buddhism_, and much more, _many years_ before it became her duty (in 1880) to impart a small portion of the Secret Doctrine to two _European_ gentlemen, one of whom was the author of _Esoteric Buddhism_; and surely the present writer has the undoubted, though to her, rather equivocal, privilege of being a European by birth and education. Moreover, a considerable part of the philosophy expounded by Mr. Sinnett was taught in America, even before _Isis Unveiled_ was published, to two Europeans and to my colleague, Colonel H. S. Olcott. Of the three teachers the latter gentleman has had, the first was a Hungarian Initiate, the second an Egyptian, the third a Hindû. As permitted, Colonel Olcott has given out some of this teaching in various ways; if the other two have not, it has been simply because they were not allowed, their time for public work having not yet come. But for others it has, and the appearance of Mr. Sinnett’s several interesting books is a visible proof of the fact. Moreover, it is above everything important to keep in mind that no Theosophical book acquires the least additional value from pretended authority.