Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.61

c8.61

One class of doubts, however, and this is evident, cannot be fully resolved by this method of explanation. In each individual instance in which we have succeeded in showing that occurrences narrated of Buddha are frequent, or even constant, events in the life of Indian ascetics generally, one may proceed to reason further in two different ways. Either, here we have before us credible memoranda, for we see that things were wont to take this course; or, here we have not credible memoranda before us, for, inasmuch as this course is the regular course which things took in the period succeeding Buddha's death, the legends of Buddha's life must have been concocted so as to suit this precise course of events and no other.