Buddhist India. By T. W. Rhys Davids, LL.D. (T. Fisher
Unwin. 5s.)—Professor Rhys Davids undertakes in this volume to tell the story of India—i.e., of India in the flourishing period of Buddhism—from the Buddhist, as distinguished from the Brahmin, point of view. The ordinary reader will find not a little that is surprising, something that tends to upset received beliefs, and, unless he is unusually well informed, much that will be absolutely new. Let him look, for example, at the account of King Asoka, whose reign began in 270 B.C. and lasted some thirty years. Asoka was an early Akbar, minus, of course, the culture, which he had no means of acquiring. Professor Rhys Davids remarks that his style, as it is to be seen in his edicts, is rugged and uncouth; but then it is only to be found engraved on rock, and we could hardly expect anything else. But whatever their style, the matter of them is certainly remarkable. Asoka's "whole duty of man" is a very enlightened programme of morals.' Ceremonies In sickness, in travel, at marriage; &a., are "corrupt and Worthless " ; " the lucky ceremony is the Dhamma, and the Dhamma means doing many benefits to others; Coin- passion; liberality; truth ; purity." This is the positive side; the negative is to be free from the passions, and to be indifferent to the future life—a curious characteristic—and to dogma and metaphysics. This is especially interesting ; so are chaps. 3-6, in which Professor Rhys Davids gives us a care- fully worked- out picture of the condition of the Indifin people at the time. The whole volume is a valuable contribution to a province of Indian history of which little is commonly known. It is only right to give such circulation as we can to our author's just complaint of the neglect with which the wealth of material is treated by those whose duty it is that it should receive adequate attention.
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