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SINOLOGY. 363
Hardy, numbers 369 millions of believers: that is, far
more than any other. These three religions, the most
widely diffused of which, Buddhism, subsists without any
protection whatever from the State, by its own power
alone a circumstance which speaks greatly in its favour
are far from being hostile to one another, and exist quietly
side by side, nay, harmonize even to a certain extent,
perhaps by reciprocal influence, so that the sentence:
" The three doctrines are only one has become ", proverbial.
The Emperor, as such, professes all three ; still many of
the Emperors, even up to the most recent times, have been
especially devoted to Buddhism. This is shown by their
profound respect for the Dalai-Lama, nay, even for the
TesJioo-Lama, to whom they unhesitatingly yield prece
dence. These three religions are neither monotheistic nor
polytheistic, nor are they even pantheistic Buddhism, at
any rate, is not ; since Buddha did not look upon a world
sunk in sin and suffering, whose tenants, all subject to
death, only subsist for a short time by devouring each
other, as a manifestation of G-od. Moreover the word
Pantheism, properly speaking, contains a contradiction ; for
it denotes a self-destroying conception, and has therefore
never been understood otherwise than as a polite term of
expression by those who know what seriousness means.
It accordingly never entered into the heads of the clever,
acute philosophers of the eighteenth century, not to take
Spinoza for an Atheist, on account of his having called the
world Deus ; on the contrary, this discovery was reserved for
the sham philosophers of our own times, who know nothing
Buddha," 1857, a complete compendium of Buddhism, compiled not only
with great erudition and serious industry but also with intelligence and
insight from all the other works I have mentioned above and from many
more besides, which contains all that is essential on the subject. 26.
" The
Life of Buddha," from the Chinese of Palladji, in the
"
Archiv
fur wissenschaftliche Kunde von Kussland," edited by Ennan, vol. xv.
Heft 1, 1856. Add. to 3rd ed.J