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the family affections. If a son declared himself Protestant, which he might do in boyhood, a third of his father's fortune was at once applied to his use; the father's estate was secured to him as heir, a liferent merely being left to the father. A father's settlement to the prejudice of the heir-at-law might be instantly defeated by the heir becoming Protestant. If the heir continued a Papist, the estate gaveled went in equal shares to the sons-a modification of old Irish law introduced to break up the estates of the Papists, so that none should be on the land above the condition of a beggar. If there were no sons it gaveled on the daughters; if no children, then on the collaterals. Papists who had lost their lands, and had grown rich in commerce, could neither buy land nor lend their money on heritable security. The Papists could get no hold, direct or indirect, upon the soil. Even a lease to a Papist, to be legal, must have been short. Any Papist above sixteen years of age might be called on to take the oath of abjuration, and, on thrice declining, he suffered a

pramunire. If he entertained a priest or a bishop,

he was fined; for a third offense he forfeited his whole fortune. The exercise of his religion was forbidden; its chapels were shut up; its priests banished, and hanged if they returned home. ... A Papist could not enter the profession of the law. He could not marry a Protestant (the fatal Kilkenny provision against mixing over again). He could neither vote at vestries, nor serve on grand juries, nor act as a constable, as a sheriff, or under-sheriff, or a magistrate. He could neither vote at elections nor sit in Parliament. In short, he was excluded from any office of public trust or emolument. "The Catholics," says Sir H. Parnell, "in place of being the free subjects of a prince from whom they were taught to expect only justice and mercy, were made the slaves of every one, even of the meanest of their Protestant countrymen." Had they become mere slaves they might have expected some degree of humane treatment; but, as the policy which had made them slaves held them at the same time as the natural and interested enemies of their masters, they were doomed to experience all the oppression of tyranny without any of the chances, which other slaves enjoy, of the tyrants being merciful, and feeling their tyranny secure.

In short, the Irish Roman Catholics who survived their persecutions were literally dispossessed of their native country. Lord Clare, the Irish Lord Chancellor at the time of the Union, made that statement in his place in Parliament. After showing that "the whole land of Ireland had been confiscated, with the exception of the estates of five or six families of English blood," and that "no inconsiderable portion of the island had been confiscated twice, or perhaps thrice, in the course of a century," he goes on to make the following remarkable declaration :

"The situation therefore of the Irish nation at the Revolution (of 1688) stands unparalleled in the his

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tory of the inhabited world. If the wars of England, carried on here from the reign of Elizabeth, had been waged against a foreign enemy, the inhabitants would have retained their possessions under the established law of civilized nations"; but the policy of England was "a declaration of perpetual war against the natives of Ireland, and it has rendered her a blank amid the nations of Europe, and retarded her progress in the civilized world."

Of the Irish landlords he says that "confiscation is their common title; and from their first settlement they have been hemmed in by the old inhabitants brooding over their discontent in sullen indignation." One of the great evils of our dealing with Ireland is, that we have persisted in governing her according to English prejudices and ideas. Not thus have we dealt with India, or French Canada, or even the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The land tenure of Ireland was altogether different from that of England. The land belonged to the sept, not to the chief, or to any of his vassals. This was forgotten or ignored when the lands of chiefs were declared forfeit and granted to fresh landlords. The occupiers, on the other hand, regarded these lands as their own; and this idea, founded originally in fact, has never passed clean out of their minds, and it lies at the root of a good deal of the present land agitation. It was not a mere class which the confiscations disinherited and uprooted from the soil, but the entire race of Irishmen; and these still cherish the tradition that they are the lawful owners of the land.

And, as if it were not enough to have divorced a whole nation from the soil which gave it birth, and which of right belonged to it, the ingenuity of English statecraft found other means of completing the ruin of Ireland. Till Queen Elizabeth's reign the Irish had a flourishing trade in supplying England with cattle. This was supposed to depreciate rents in England, and Irish cattle were accordingly declared by act of Parliament "a nuisance," and their importation was forbidden. Thereupon the Irish killed their cattle at home and sent them to England as salted meat. This provoked another act of Parliament, forbidding in perpetuity the importation of all cattle from Ireland, "dead or alive, great or small, fat or lean." Nevertheless, the Lord-Lieutenant appealed to Ireland on behalf of the sufferers from the great fire of London. The Irish were wretchedly poor, and had no gold or silver to spare; but they sent a handsome contribution in cattle. This gift the landed interest in England resented in loud and angry tones as “a political contrivance to defeat the prohibition of Irish cattle." Driven to their wits' ends, the Irish turned the hides of their cattle into leather, which they exported to England. But here too they were

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baffled by English jealousy. Then they took to sheep-farming, and sent excellent wool to England. Again the landed interest of England took alarm, and Irish wool was declared contraband by act of Parliament in the reign of Charles II. The Irish then manufactured the raw material at home, and soon drove a thriving trade in woolen stuffs. The manufacturers of England thereupon rose up against the iniquity of Irish competition, and the woolen manufactures of Ireland were promptly excluded from the markets of the Continent. They were, however, so excellent and so cheap that the industry still flourished. But English jealousy never ceased its clamor against it, and in the year 1698 both Houses of the English Parliament petitioned the King to suppress it. His Majesty replied to the Lords that he would "take care to do what their lordships desired." To the Commons he said, "I shall do all that in me lies to discourage the woolen manufactures of Ireland." Discouraged they were accordingly; and so effectually that, whereas two centuries ago they held their own against England in foreign markets, I find from an official return of 1866 the following significant figures: The value of the woolen exports of Great Britain in that year was £21,795,971; that of Ireland, £246. The woolen industry being destroyed, the Irish tried their hand, with marked success, at the manufacture of silk. From that field also British jealousy drove them in despair. But they are a pertinacious race, and do not readily "say die." So they tried their hands at the smaller industries, since all the larger ones were tabooed them. Availing themselves of Ireland's facilities for the manufacture of glass, they were summarily stopped by a law which prohibited the exportation of glass from Ireland, and its importation into Ireland from any country save England. Cotton, sugar, soap, candle-making, and other manufactures were all tried in turn, and with a like result. To crush her industries beyond all hope of competition with English merchants, all the Mediterranean ports were closed against her, and she was at length shut out from commerce with the whole world, Old and New, including even our own colonies. To such a pitch did this cruel policy, and not more cruel than stupid, reach, that even the spontaneous produce of the ocean which washed his shores could not be enjoyed by the Irishman without the jealous interference of English interests; and the fishermen of Waterford and Wexford were thought presumptuous for pursuing their calling along their own coasts because, forsooth! the fish-markets of England might thereby be injured. One solitary industry remained to Ireland. She was allowed to cultivate the linen trade, though "British interests" tried to strangle

it also; and Manchester, in 1785, sent a petition to Parliament, signed by one hundred and seventeen thousand persons, praying for the prohibition of Irish linens. The voice of reason and justice for once prevailed, and Derry, and Belfast, and Lisburn flourish to prove what the rest of Ireland might now be, if the purblind champions of "British interests" had not then, as lately, ignorantly sacrificed, to a purely imaginary danger, the welfare and good will of an oppressed race. The sins of nations, as of individuals, are sure to find them out, and we have no just cause of complaint if events should prove that our sins against Ireland are not yet expiated in full. We robbed the Irish of their land, and they betook themselves to other industries for livelihood. Of these we robbed them also, and drove them back upon the land exclusively for their support. Yet we wonder that there is now a land question in Ireland!

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MALCOLM MACCOLL (Contemporary Review).

BUDDHISM AND JAINISM.

[From an article in "The Contemporary Review," entitled "Buddhism and Jainism," we extract a few

passages descriptive of the Jains or Jainas, a religious sect of India.]

BUDDHISM was destined to become extinct with its founder. The Buddha died, like other men, and, according to his own doctrine, became absolutely extinct. Nothing remained but the relics of his burned body, which were distributed in all directions. No successor was ready to step into his place. No living representative was competent to fill up the void caused by his death. Nothing seemed more unlikely than that the mere recollection of his teaching and example, though perpetuated by the rapid multiplication of shrines, symbols, and images of his person, should have power to secure the continuance of his system in his own native country for more than ten centuries, and to disseminate his doctrines over the greater part of Asia. What, then, was the secret of its permanence and diffusion? It really had no true permanence. Buddhism never lived on in its first form, and never spread anywhere without taking from other systems quite as much as it imparted. The tolerant spirit which was its chief distinguishing characteristic permitted its adherents to please themselves in adopting extraneous doctrines. Hence it happened that the Buddhists were always ready to acquiesce in, and even conform to, the religious practices of the countries to which they migrated, and to clothe their own simple

creed in, so to speak, a many-colored vesture of meditation, and true knowledge. In these crupopular legends and superstitious ideas.

Even in India, where the Buddha's memory continued to be perpetuated by strong personal recollections and local associations, as well as by relics, symbols, and images, his doctrines rapidly lost their distinctive character, and ultimately merged in the Brahmanism whence they originally sprang.

Nor is there any historical evidence to prove that the Buddhists were finally driven out of India by violent means. Doubtless occasional persecutions occurred in particular places at various times, and it is well ascertained that fanatical, enthusiastic Brahmans, such as Kumārila and S'ankara, occasionally instigated deeds of blood and violence. But the final disappearance of Buddhism is probably due to the fact that the two systems, instead of engaging in constant conflict, were gradually drawn toward each other by mutual sympathy and attraction; and that, originally related like father and child, they ended by consorting together in unnatural union and intercourse. The result of this union was the production of the hybrid systems of Vaishnavism and S'aivism, both of which in their lineaments bear a strong family resemblance to Buddhism. The distinctive names of Buddhism were dropped, but the distinctive features of the system survived. The Vaishnavas were Buddhists in their doctrines of liberty and equality, in their abstinence from injury (a-hinsā), in their desire for the preservation of life, in their hero-worship, deification of humanity, and fondness for images; while the S'aivas were Buddhists in their love for self-mortification and austerity, as well as in their superstitious dread of the power of demoniacal agencies. What, then, became of the atheistical, philosophy and agnostic materialism of the Buddhistic creed? Those doctrines were no more expelled from India than were other Buddhistic ideas. They found a home, under changed names, among various sects, but especially in a kindred system which has survived to the present day, and may be conveniently called Jainism....

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What is the great end and object of Jainism? Briefly, it may be stated that Jainism, like Brāhmanism and Buddhism, aims at getting rid of the burden of repeated existences. Three rootideas may be said to lie at the foundation of all three systems: first, that personal existence is protracted through an innumerable succession of bodies by the almighty power of man's own acts; secondly, that mundane life is an evil, and that man finds his perfection in the cessation of all acts, and the consequent extinction of all personal existence; thirdly, that such perfection is alone attained through self-mortification, abstract

cial doctrines the theory of Brahmanism is superior to that of Buddhism and Jainism. According to the Brahmans, the living soul of man has an eternal existence both retrospectively and prospectively, and only exists separately from the One Supreme Eternal Soul because that Supreme Soul wills the temporary separate personality of countless individual spirits, dissevering them from his own essence, and causing them to pass through a succession of bodies, till, after a long course of discipline, they are permitted to blend once more with their great Eternal Source. With the Brahmans existence in the abstract is not an evil. It is only an evil when it involves the continued separation of the personal soul from the impersonal Eternal Soul of the Universe.

Very different is the doctrine of Buddhists and Jains. With them there is no Supreme Being, no Supreme Divine Eternal Soul, no separate human eternal soul. Nor can there be any true soul-transmigration. A Buddhist and a Jaina believe that the only eternal thing is matter. The universe consists of eternal atoms which by their own inherent creative force are perpetually developing countless forms of being in ever-recurring cycles of creation and dissolution, re-creation and re-dissolution. This is symbolized by a wheel revolving for ever in perpetual progression and retrogression.

What, then, becomes of the doctrine of transmigration of souls, which is said to be held even more strongly by Buddhists and Jains than by Hindūs? It is thus explained: Every human being is composed of certain constituents (called by Buddhists the five Skandhas). These comprehend body, soul, and mind, with all the organs of feeling and sensation. They are all dissolved at death, and absolute extinction would follow, were it not for the inextinguishable, imperishable, omnipotent force of Karman or Act. No sooner are the constituents of one stage of existence dissolved than a new set is created by the force of acts done and character formed in the previous stage. Soul-transmigration with Buddhists is simply a concatenation of separate existences connected by the iron chain of act. A man's own acts generate a force which may be compared to those of chemistry, magnetism, or electricity-a force which periodically re-creates the whole man, and perpetuates his personal identity (notwithstanding the loss of memory) through the whole series of his separate existences, whether it obliges him to ascend or descend in the scale of being. It may safely be affirmed that Brahmans, Buddhists, and Jains all agree in repudiating the idea of vicarious suffering. All concur in rejecting the notion of a representative man-whether he be a Manu, a Rishi,

a Buddha, or a Jina-suffering as a substituted self-mortification (tapas), self-restraint (yama), victim for the rest of mankind. Every being brought into the world must suffer in his own person the consequences of his own deeds committed either in present or former states of being. It is not sufficient that he be rewarded in a temporary heaven, or punished in a temporary hell. Neither heaven nor hell has power to extinguish the accumulated efficacy of good or bad acts committed by the same person during a long succession of existences. Such accumulated acts must inevitably and irresistibly drag him down into other mundane forms, until at length their potency is destroyed by his attainment of perfect self-discipline and self-knowledge in some final culminating condition of being, terminated by complete self-annihilation.

And thus we are brought to a clear understanding of the true character of a Jina or selfconquering saint (from the Sanskrit root ji, to conquer). A Jina is with the Jains very nearly what a Buddha is with the Buddhists.

He represents the perfection of humanity, the typical man, who has conquered self and attained a condition so perfect that he not only ceases to act, but is able to extinguish the power of former acts; a human being who is released from the obligation of further transmigration, and looks forward to death as the absolute extinction of personal existence. But he is also more than this. He is a being who by virtue of the perfection of his self-mortification (tapas) has acquired the perfection of knowledge, and therefore the right to be a supreme leader and teacher of mankind. He claims far more complete authority and infallibility than the most arrogant Roman pontiff. He is in his own solitary person an absolutely independent and infallible guide to salvation. Hence he is commonly called a Tirthan-kara, or one who constitutes a Tīrtha *— that is to say, a kind of passage or medium through which bliss may be attained-a kind of ford or bridge leading over the river of life to the elysium of final emancipation. Other names for him are Arhat (" venerable "), Sarva-jna (“omniscient"), Bhagavat (“lord ").

A Buddha with the Buddhists is a very similar personage. He is a self-conqueror and selfmortifier (tapasvi), like the Jina, and is besides a supreme guide to salvation; but he has achieved his position of Buddhahood more by the perfection of his meditation (voga, samadhi) than by the completeness of his self-restraint and austerities.

*

and asceticism. Only twenty-four supreme saints and Tirthan-karas can appear in any one cycle of time, but every mortal man may be a selfrestrainer (yati). Every one born into the world may be a striver after sanctity (sādhu), and a practicer of austerities (tapasvi). Doubtless, at first there was no distinction between monks, ascetics, and ordinary men, just as in the earliest days of Christianity there was no division into bishops, priests, and laity. All Jainas in ancient times practiced austerities, but among such ascetics an important difference arose. One party advocated an entire abandonment of clothing, in token of complete indifference to all worldly ideas and associations. The other party were in favor of wearing white garments. The former were called Dig-ambara, sky-clothed, the latter S'vetāmbara (or, in ancient works, S'veta-pata), white-clothed.* Of these the Dig-ambaras were chronologically the earliest. They were probably the first to form themselves into a regular society. The first Jina, Rishaba, as well as the last Jina, Mahāvīra, are said to have been Digambaras, and to have gone about absolutely naked. Their images represent two entirely nude ascetics, whereas the images of other Jinas, like the Buddhist images, are representations of a sage, generally seated in a contemplative posture, with a robe thrown gracefully over one shoulder.

It is not improbable that the S'vetāmbara division of the Jainas were merely a sect which separated itself from the parent stock in later times, and became in the end numerically the most important, at least in western India. The Dig-ambaras, however, are still the most numerous faction in southern India, and at Jaipur in the north.†

And, indeed, it need scarcely be pointed out that ascetics, both wholly naked and partially clothed, are as common under the Brahmanical system as among Jainas and Buddhists. The god S'iva himself is represented as a Dig-ambara, or naked ascetic, whenever he assumes the character of a Mahā-yogi—that is to say, whenever he enters on a long course of austerity, with an absolutely nude body, covered only with a thick coating of dust and ashes, sitting motionless and wrapped in meditation for thousands of years, that he may teach men by his own example the power attainable through self-mortification and abstract contemplation.

*The actual color of an ascetic's dress is a kind of yellowish-pink, or salmon color. Pure white is not much used by the Hindus, except as a mark of mourning,

The whole system hinges on the efficacy of when it takes the place of black with us.

* The word Tirtha may mean a sacred ford or crossing-place on the bank of a river, or it may mean a holy man or teacher.

+ There is also a very low, insignificant, and intensely atheistical sect of Jainas called Dhundhias. They are much despised by the Hindus, and even by the more orthodox Jainas.

It is true that absolute nudity in public is now prohibited by law, but the Dig-ambara Jainas who take their meals, like orthodox Hindus, in strict seclusion, are said to remove their clothes in the act of eating. Even in the most crowded thoroughfares the requirements of legal decency are easily satisfied. Any one who travels in India must accustom himself to the sight of plenty of unblushing, self-asserting human flesh. Thousands content themselves with the minimum of clothing represented by a narrow strip of cloth, three or four inches wide, twisted round their loins. Nor ought it to excite any feeling of prudish disgust to find poor, hard-working laborers tilling the ground with a greater area of suntanned skin courting the cooling action of air and wind on the burning plains of Asia than would be considered decorous in Europe. As to mendicant devotees, they may still occasionally be seen at great religious gatherings absolutely innocent of even a rag. Nevertheless, they are careful to avoid magisterial penalties. In a secluded part of the city of Patna, I came suddenly on an old female ascetic, who usually sits quite naked in a large barrel, which constitutes her only abode. When I passed her, in company with the collector and magistrate of the district, she rapidly drew a dirty sheet round her body.

In the present day both Dig-ambara and S'vetāmbara Jainas are divided into two classes, corresponding to clergy and laity. When the two sects increased in numbers, all, of course, could not be ascetics. Some were compelled to engage in secular pursuits, and many developed industrious and business-like habits. Hence it happened that a large number became prosperous merchants and traders.

All laymen among the Jainas are called S'ravakas, "hearers or disciples," while the Yatis, or "self-restraining ascetics," who constitute the only other division of both Jaina sects, are the supposed teachers (Gurus). Many of them, of course, never teach at all. They were formerly called Nirgrantha, "free from worldly ties," and are often known by the general name of Sādhu, "holy men." All are celibates, and most of them are cenobites, not anchorites. Sometimes four or five hundred live together in one monastery, which they call a Upās'raya, "place of retirement," under a presiding abbot. They dress, like other Hindū ascetics, in yellowish-pink or salmon-colored garments. There are also female ascetics (Sādhvini, or, anciently, Nirgranthi), who may be seen occasionally in public places clothed in dresses of a similar color. When these good women draw the ends of their robes over their heads to conceal their features, and cover the lower part of their faces with pieces of muslin to prevent animalcula from entering VOL. VIII.-24

their mouths, they look very like hooded Roman Catholic nuns.

*

When we come to the Jaina moral code, we find ourselves transported from the mists of fanciful ideas and arbitrary speculation to a clearer atmosphere and firmer ground. The three gems which every Jaina is required to seek after with earnestness and diligence, are right intuition, right knowledge, and right conduct. The nature of the first two may be inferred from the explanations already given. Right conduct consists in the observance of five duties (vratas), and the avoidance of five sins implied in five prohibitions. The five duties are: Be merciful to all living things; practice almsgiving and liberality; venerate the perfect sages while living, and worship their images after their decease; confess your sins annually, and mutually forgive each other; observe fasting. The five prohibitions are: Kill not; lie not; steal not; commit not adultery or impurity; love not the world or worldly honor.

If equal practical importance were attached to these ten precepts, the Jaina system could not fail to conduce in a high degree to the happiness and well-being of its adherents, however perverted their religious sense may be. Unfortunately, undue stress is laid on the first duty and first prohibition, to the comparative neglect of some of the others. In former days, when Buddhism and Jainism were prevalent everywhere, "kill' not" was required to be proclaimed by sound of trumpet in every city daily.

And, indeed, with all Hindus respect for life has always been regarded as a supreme obligation. Ahinsa, or avoidance of injury to others in thought, word, and deed, is declared by Manu to be the highest virtue, and its opposite the greatest crime. Not the smallest insect ought to be killed, lest the soul of some relation should be there embodied. Yet all Hindūs admit that life may be taken for religious or sacrificial purposes. Not so Buddhists and Jainas. With them the sacrifice of any kind of life, even for the most sacred purpose, is a heinous crime. In fact, the belief in transmission of personal identity at death through an infinite series of animal existences is so intense that they live in perpetual dread of destroying some beloved relative or friend. The most deadly serpents or venomous scorpions may enshrine the spirits of their fathers or mothers, and are therefore left unharmed. The Jainas far outdo every other Indian sect in carrying the prohibition, "not to kill," to the most preposterous extremes. They strain water before drinking, sweep the ground with a silken brush before sitting down, never eat or drink in the dark, and often wear muslin before their

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