is in perpetual ecstatic thought, dhyâna, solely occupied with samâdhi (as mystic union); in the third, the mystic may reënter the world without danger (of losing what he has gained); in the fourth, he exercises the Wings of Illumination (Bodhipaksha), virtues and powers; thus in the fifth stage he appears supernaturally wise, conceives the ideal as the universal, etc., and in the sixth comes face to face with reality (Nirvâna as the sum of existence); then in the seventh stage he starts on the way to becoming a Bodhisat, having only the latent impressions left from Karma. In the eighth, freed from personality, he loses even these latent effects and becomes illuminated without his own thought. In the ninth and tenth stages, respectively, he achieves the stage of the Good Spirit and that of the absolutely illumined Buddha.

The Mahâyâna (Mâdhyamika) is found as a mystic philosophy also in Japan. Kobo Daishi there taught that man is essentially one with the Supreme (as Buddha) and even in this life may attain to the Buddha-state. This belief is based on the theory of Kongokai or Diamond World (of ideas) existing in universal thought, to which the world of phenomena is parallel. In the world of ideas the Great Sun, Dainichi, is Vairocana, the All, from whom emanate Bodhisattvas, from whom again emanate lesser beings, leading to phenomena. Shakyamuni, Amitâbha, Akshobhya, and Ratnasambhava stand round the central Vairocana like planets, each with its satellites; or as the center of an eightpetal lotus, Amitâbha, Mitteya, Manjusri, Avalokiteshvara, etc. Man, as an emanation from him, is one with the sun of life and of truth, Vairocana. Ideas are the source of things; so if one has the correct idea, one can control the thing. Hence Shingon, True Word, as name of this sect of the ninth century, which is a mixture of idealism and thaumaturgy, for the True soon becomes the Magic Word, which may even ease the sufferings of the dead. In the Zen sect, truth is communicated by spiritual telepathy rather

than by book-learning; its chief characteristic is meditative abstraction, not a new idea but made the special mark of the sect by Eisai (twelfth century), though the sect was introduced into China by the first Patriarch, Bodhidharma, in the sixth century. Its aim is not so much to escape from rebirth as to escape the limitation of the empirical self by means of union with the Greater Self. As in Yoga, the practice is auto-hypnotic; one remains fixed and staring till one becomes conscious of oneness with all reality, losing all consciousness of self, an ecstatic state in which one passes beyond distinctions of good and evil, wise and foolish, and attains insight through quietism. The minute directions as to the means of attainment, postures, etc., are those of the Yoga; one sits with crossed legs, the right hand on the left. foot, palm up, etc.

In the thirteenth century Nichiren converted the relapsed Buddhism of his day into what he regarded as primitive Buddhism. With his missionary efforts we are not here concerned. He himself was a thorough mystic, who taught that the kingdom of God and God are within. One should strive for the realization of the kingdom of the Lord, who is the soul of every man. The three-fold mystery consists in the Supreme Being, Honzon, the Holy See, Kaidan, and the Sacred Title, Daimoku. This last is enlightenment, Sambhogo-kâya, in distinction from the Dharma-kaya or Mandala (Supreme Being), and from the actual manifestation, Nirmâņa-kâya, the realization of Buddha's mercy organized in the place of the church universal or Holy See, as Buddha in reality is another name for the orderly cosmos. Nichiren believed himself to be the reincarnation of an ancient saint and his method also was that of the Yogin: "I sit on the mat of meditation and in vision I see every truth." The final aim, however, is complete realization of the Supreme Being in man's own soul.

Thus these Mahâyânists, both Hindu and Japanese, seek

through visionary experience and the ecstatic trance to realize truth or God, through the identification of self with real being, sometimes as the world-soul.

Finally we come to that form of mysticism in which devotion plays a larger part than intellect. In the Upanishad era the merging of the self with the world-self is likened in its swooning-like state, but only thus, to the submerged consciousness in conjugal embrace. Emphasis on this leads to an erotic interpretation of intuition from which the cold ethics of early Buddhism preserved its devotees, the more easily as Buddha himself was no subject for romantic love. But with Buddhism rose the feeling of intense devotion which may easily express itself as love. In the early stage this devotion is rather a form of faith than of emotion. Even in Shankara, bhakti, the technical name of this attitude, still means contemplative concentration. And in the Bhagavad Gîtâ, though the connotation is that of affection, bhakti is still without any erotic tinge. As has already been observed, the Gîtâ has rather the content of an Upanishad based upon a belief in a man-god form of the All-god. "The sun shines not, nor moon nor fire, whither they go who return not to earth but to my supreme home" (Gîtâ, xv. 6f). "Seek wisdom (the man-god declares), whose eye sees truth; see self in the All-self, the light of the world. I am that light, as I am the essence of the sap of all life. If one knows me as the Supreme Soul, knowing me as the All, with all his being he devotes himself to me" (ib. 19, bhajati mâm sarvabhâvena). Again, as to the means: Seek solitude; eat little; control the speech, the body and the mind; be intent on union through vision (dhyanayoga); avoid vanity, pride, lust, wrath, avarice; so the Yogin fits himself for the eternal Brahma-being." The devotee," serene of soul, without grief or desire, equable toward all beings, attains to highest devotion to me" (madbhaktim labhate parâm); through bhakti he learns my greatness and my being; then, taking refuge in

me, he enters the supreme; through my grace, matprasâdât, he obtains the eternal place. Think ever of me, be devoted to me, through my grace thou shalt cross over all difficulties" (ib xviii. 52f.). Here maccittah statam bhava is the key to the following (64-67), isto' si me, manmanâ bhava madbhaktah ... mâm evaisyasi priyo 'si me, aham tvâ sarvapâpebhyo mokṣayişyâmi, mâ sucah, "be devoted in thought to me, to whom thou art dear, and thou shalt come to me and I will release thee from all evil." This is not the language of passionate love but of religious devotion and it is this line which the sober saints of the Marathas followed, who rejected metaphysical for personal religion and worshipped Krishna, yet not as a lover, but as a loving god. Thus Jñânesvara, who in the thirteenth century wrote a commentary on the Gîtâ, to save the world," preserves the pantheistic appeal; while the more emotional religion of Tukârâm and Nâmdev is still not erotic, though full of sentimental yearning for the divine. Thus Tukâ speaks:

"With milk of love Oh suckle me,

At thy abounding breast,

O mother, haste, in thee, in thee,
My sad heart findeth rest.

And again:

How poor am I; thy children we,
Mother of loving ways,

Within the shadow of thy grace

Ah, guide us, Tukâ says.

The love of man is like that of a child for its mother, or like that of a faithful wife for the husband:

How the lotus all the night,
Dreameth ever of the light,
As the stream to fishes thou,
As is to the calf the cow;

To the faithful wife how dear
Tidings of her lord to hear.8

The close parallel here is rather with Christian feeling, as

in this plaintive hymn:

New hope to Tukâ dost thou send,

And new world bringest in;
Now know I every man a friend
And all I meet are kin.

So like a happy child I play
In thy dear world, O God,
Where all around and every day
God's bliss is spread abroad.
He still shall rule my life, for he
Is all compassionate;

His is the sole authority,

And on his will I wait.

But it was inevitable that the love proclaimed in the Gîtâ should be rather more warmly felt in certain quarters. Thus in the twelfth century, following other mystics, Jayadeva wrote a mystical poem, the Gîtâ Govinda, in which the attachment between the soul and God is conceived allegorically in terms of a human mistress Râdhâ, and her lover Krishna. So sensuous is the perfervid description that it has been doubted whether the poem was intended as an allegory at all. But like Solomon's Song it is religious to the very religious-minded. Parts of it, however, cannot be translated properly, but an English rhyme may give a general impression:

Say that I Râdhâ in my bower languish

Widowed till Krishna finds his way to me; My eyes are dim with longing, all is anguish

Until, with modest gentle shame, I see my lover come to me.

So ch. ii; later on (vii) Râdhâ grows less modestly shameful:

8 Tukârâm died in 1649. The translations are from Nicol Macnicol in Hibbert Journal, October 1917.