THEOSOPHY AND BUDDHISM.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—I have been out of England for the last three weeks, and have but just received extracts from the Spectator of July 17th with Dr. Wyld's letter, and from your issue of July 24th with that of Dr. Rhys Davids. As both these letters refer to the Theosophical Society (of which I am President as regards the London branch), and, no doubt unintentionally, misrepresent its whole position, may I be allowed to reply in a few words ?
The questions raised are too intricate to argue at length. For any of your readers who wish to investigate the subject further, the Transactions of the Theosophical Society, its magazine, and many books on the subject, are readily procurable. But lest it should be supposed that certaiu charges are admitted for want of any answer on behalf of the Society, permit me to say : — (1.) Dr. Wy ld is ludicrously mistaken in describing the founders of the Theosophical Society as identifying themselves with the Buddhists of the "Southern, or Atheistic school" of Buddhism, (2.) The Society, as such, is not even identified with the par- ticular religious tenets—whatever these may be the founders, but merely with the search for truth. Therefore, it is doubly nonsense to talk about "the teaching of the so-called Theo- sophists of the Atheistic Buddhist school."
(3.) Dr. Rhys Davids may be an authority on the esoteric Pali Scriptures of Ceylon, but seems to me and to many other students of Indian philosophy to whom I could refer him, strangely unacquainted with the alphabet of esoteric thinking, even in reference to Buddhism,—witness his absurd acceptance at the foot of the letter, as if it were a narration of physical fact, of the highly symbolical legend which represents Buddha as dying from the effects of eating "dried boar's flesh." Therefore, his opinion that the doctrines of my book, "Esoteric Buddhism" (the Society has no doctrines), are "not esoteric and not Buddhism," is one which has curiously little value.
(4.) No one but Dr. Wyld can say, of course, why he resigned his place in the Theosophical Society, but he hardly throws as much light as he might cast on that matter, in omitting to state that he resigned the Presidentship of the London branch at the urgent solicitation of the Council. His resignation of his place in the Society followed shortly afterwards.—I am, Sir, &c., A. P. SINNLTT. [The discussion should end here.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
