Lastly, I have depicted Buddhism from the standpoint of a believer in Christianity, who has shown, by his other works on Eastern religions, an earnest desire to give them credit for all the good they contain.
In regard to this last point, I shall probably be told by some enthusiastic admirers of Buddhism, that my prepossessions and predilections--inherited with my Christianity--have, in spite of my desire to be just, distorted my view of a system with which I have no sympathy. To this I can only reply, that my consciousness of my own prepossessions has made me the more sensitively anxious to exhibit Buddhism under its best aspects, as well as under its worst. An attentive perusal of my last Lecture (see p. 537) will, I hope, make it evident that I have at least done everything in my power to dismiss all prejudice from my mind, and to assume and maintain the attitude of an impartial judge. And to this end I have taken nothing on trust, or at second hand. I have studied Pali, as I have the other Indian Prak[r.]its, on my own account, and independently. I have not accepted unreservedly any man's interpretation of the original Buddhist texts, and have endeavoured to verify for myself all doubtful statements and translations which occur in existing treatises. Of course I owe much to modern Pali scholars, and writers on Buddhism, and to the translators of the 'Sacred Books of the East;' but I have frequently felt compelled to form an independent opinion of my own.
The translations given in the 'Sacred Books of the East'--good as they generally are--have seemed to me occasionally misleading. I may mention as an instance the constant employment by the translators of the word 'Ordination' for the ceremonies of admission to the Buddhist monkhood (see pp. 76-80 of the present volume). I have ventured in such instances to give what has appeared to me a more suitable equivalent for the Pali. On the same principle I have avoided all needless employment of Christian terminology and Bible-language to express Buddhist ideas.
For example, I have in most cases excluded such words as 'sin,' 'holiness,' 'faith', 'trinity,' 'priest' from my explanations of the Buddhist creed, as wholly unsuitable.
