BUDDHA A SCYTHIAN{2).

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two sacrifices coexisted as inseparable parts of the GreatOath. Each year the Tibetans took the Little Oath to theirchiefs, and sacrificed sheep, dogs, and monkeys. But everythird year they solemnized the Great Oath with offerings ofmen and horses, oxen and asses. 1

Whatever significance may attach to this rite, it is certain Buddha, athat, with the advent of Buddhism, Scythic influences made Scythian (?)themselves felt in India . Indeed, it has been attempted,on evidence derived from the Tibetan or Northern Canonof Buddhism , to establish a Scythic origin for Buddha him-self. One of his earliest appearances in the literature of theChristian Church is as Buddha the Scythian . It is arguedthat by no mere accident did the Fathers trace the Manichaean doctrine to Scythianus, whose disciple Terebinthus tookthe. name of Buddha. 2 As already stated, the form ofabjuration of the Manichtean heresy mentions BoSSa andSkvO lavo's (Buddha and the Scythian or Sakya), seemingly,says Weber, a separation of Buddha Sakya-muni into two. 3The Indian Buddhists of the Southern school would dwelllightly on, or pass over altogether, a non-Aryan origin for thefounder of their faith. We have seen how the legend ofBuddha in their hands assimilated itself to the old epic typeof the Aryan hero. But a Scythic origin would be congenialto the Northern school of Buddhism : to the school which wasconsolidated by the Scythic monarch Kanishka, and whichsupplied a religion during more than ten centuries to Scythictribes of Central Asia .

We find, therefore, without surprise, that the sacred books Meaningof Tibet constantly speak of Buddha as the Sakya. In them, of Sakya.Buddha is the heir-apparent to the throne of the Sakyas; hisdoctrine is accepted by the Sakya race; and a too strictadherence to its tenets of mercy ends in the destruction of theSakya capital, followed by the slaughter of the Sakya people. 4If we could be sure that Sakya really signified Scythian , this

1 Early History of Tibet, in Mr. AVoodville Rockhill’s Life of the Buddha,from the Tibetan Classics, p. 204 (Trlibner, 1884).

2 ‘ X believe the legend of Sakya was perverted into the history ofScythianus. 5 —Beal’s Catena of the Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese,p. 129 (Triibner, 1871).

3 Weber’s History of Indian IAterature, p. 309, footnote 363 (Triibner,

1878). But Buddhism probably reached the Early Church through theScythians ; so that Buddha might be called Slcuthianos, as the Scythian religious founder, without implying that he was a born Scythian . Videpost, chap. ix.

4 Vide ante, p. 185.