Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c7.102

c7.102

In practice, Buddhism is a religion of love and pity shown to all living beings; and affords a sufficient sanction for morality in its recognition of the immutable laws of cause and effect, or *karma*, the due recompense, in this world or the next, inevitably attending upon every action. But a great part of the secret of the success of Buddhism lay in the dynamic force of the Buddha’s own personality, and the intensity of his love for all living beings. It should be understood that the Buddhahood could only be obtained as the result of a Social determination exerted through countless ages and countless incarnations, in each of which economy the highest virtues and greatest self-sacrifice must be observed. Hence it is said that in all the world there is not one spot even so large as a mustard seed where he has not Buddhism surrendered his body for the sake of creatures. But the greatest evidence of his perfect love was shown in his renunciation of the bliss of Nirvāṇa ages ago when he was born as the Brahman Sumedha, in the time of Dīpaṅkara Buddha. This implied his voluntary endurance of the miseries of repeated earthly lives until he attained Buddhahood, in order that he might reveal to all beings the way of salvation.