APPENDIX   VIII.
 

     THE  PRESENT STATE OF BUDDHISM  IN  CEYLON.



             The  Bishop  oe Colombo on Buddhism.*



                    {Review by Mr. J. Ferguson.')



I THINK the bishop may be complimented, if not heartily congratulated

on the able way in  "which he has discharged the self-imposed duty of

affording a fair representation of " Buddhism " in Ceylon—of its history

in the past and  its condition at the present time.  Still more may all

who are interested in the correct state of things  being described for the

benefit of  readers in  England—in Europe and America too—feel a deep

satisfaction at the  appearance of this volume.  Since its announcement

was  made, I have been able, whenever asked  for information about

Ceylon  Buddhism, to advise all  and sundry,  literary, ministerial  or

missionary enquirers, to wait for the latest and most authentic informa¬

tion until Dr. Copleston's work appeared?; and I am quite satisfied that

a felt need is now supplied, and  that  here we  have, what will be for

many years to come, the standard  authority and book of reference on

all  questions connected with Ceylon Buddhism.  Behind the  shield  of

these learned and yet very simple and  easily-followed  chapters, the

average Englishman who  has never left the old country will be  quite

able to counteract  the absurd glosses and glamours which the versifying

of Edwin Arnold, and the lectures (more than the books) of Rhys Davids

and other Western so-called Buddhists, have put on the system to make

it attractive to the ignorant and curious in England.and America who

are ever seeking after something new.  Studiously moderate in language,

fair  and courteous to opponents almost  in some  instances to the  point

of weakness, fully  acknowledging anything that is good in Buddhism—

it is impossible for any one to say that  the bishop is not a trustworthy

exponent and arbiter when lie delineates what he knows or has seen, or

weighs the system and its fruits in the balance.

  The evidence  of his  careful enquiry  and erudition, of his  adequate

acquaintance with all past  and present  authorities, and  of his industry

in bringing his work to the level of the  very latest results, is most fully

manifest.   The volume is therefore, to my mind, a very satisfying one,

albeit  on a wide  and difficult subject.   Dr.  Copleston, .with his  great

philological acquirements  and close acquaintance with Oriental as well

as Western literature on the subject, does not hesitate to criticise  very

 keenly  some of the weak  points in the w^ork of previous writers.  The



  ";h " Buddhism, Primitive and  Present,  in  Magadha and in Ceylon," by

Reginald Stephen Copleston, D.D., Bishop of Colombo, President of the Ceylon

Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.  Longmans, Green & Co., London,  1892.
 

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