Confucius, although the Buddhistic doctrines were not introduced into
China until about two hundred years before the Christian era. He is
supposed to have belonged to a warlike tribe called Sâkyas, of great
reputed virtue, engaged in agricultural pursuits, who had entered
northern India and made a permanent settlement several hundred years
before. The name by which the reformer is generally known is Gautama,
borrowed by the Sâkyas after their settlement in India from one of the
ancient Vedic bard-families. The foundation of our knowledge of Sâkya
Buddha is from a Life of him by Asvaghosha, in the first century of our
era; and this life is again founded on a legendary history, not framed
after any Indian model, but worked out among the nations in the north
of India.

The Life of Buddha by Asvaghosha is a poetical romance of nearly ten
thousand lines. It relates the miraculous conception of the Indian sage,
by the descent of a spirit on his mother, Maya,--a woman of great purity
of mind. The child was called Siddârtha, or "the perfection of all
things." His father ruled a considerable territory, and was careful to
conceal from the boy, as he grew up, all knowledge of the wickedness and
misery of the world. He was therefore carefully educated within the
walls of the palace, and surrounded with every luxury, but not allowed
even to walk or drive in the royal gardens for fear he might see misery
and sorrow. A beautiful girl was given to him in marriage, full of
dignity and grace, with whom he lived in supreme happiness.

At length, as his mind developed and his curiosity increased to see and
know things and people beyond the narrow circle to which he was
confined, he obtained permission to see the gardens which surrounded the
palace. His father took care to remove everything in his way which could
suggest misery and sorrow; but a _deva_, or angel, assumed the form of