Copyright, 1884, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge: 198 5617.4 es 1884 INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. THIS book was written in the early part of 1883, and now that I am venturing to recommend it to public notice afresh in the latter part of 1884, after three English editions have passed through the press, I find myself in possession of much additional information bearing on many of the problems dealt with. But I am glad to be able to say that such later teaching as I have yet received only reveals incompleteness in my original conceptions of the esoteric doctrine, no material error so far. Indeed, I am happy enough to have received, from the great adept himself from whom I obtained my instruction in the first instance, the assurance that the book as it now stands is a sound and trustworthy statement of the scheme of Nature as understood by the initiates of occult science, which may have to be a good deal developed in future, if the interest it excites is keen enough to constitute an efficient demand for further teaching of this kind on the part of the world at large, but will never have to be remodeled or apologized for. Further than this, the reception of the book in India has shown that the doctrines thus for the first time set forth in a coherent and straightforward way are recognized, when thus stated, by various schools of Oriental philosophy as consonant with their fundamental views. A Brahman Hindoo, writing in the Indian magazine, "The Theosophist," for June, 1884, criticises the present volume as departing unnecessarily from accepted Sanskrit nomenclature; but his objection merely is that I have given unfamiliar names in some cases to ideas which are already expressed in Hindoo sacred writings, and that I have done too much honor to the religious system commonly known as Buddhism, by representing that as more closely allied with the esoteric doctrine than any other. "The popular wisdom of the majority of the Hindoos to this day," says my Brahman critic, "is more or less tinged with the esoteric doctrines taught in Mr. Sinnett's book,, misnamed 'Esoteric Buddhism,' while there is not a single hamlet or village in the whole of India in which people are not more or less acquainted with the sublime tenets of the Vedanta philosophy. . . . The effects of Karma in the next birth, the enjoyment of its fruits, good or evil, in a subjective or spiritual state of existence prior to the re-incarnation of the spiritual monad in this or any other world, the loitering of the unsatisfied souls or human shells in the earth (Kamaloca), the pralayic and manwantaric periods, . are not only intelligible but are even familiar to a great many Hindoos, under names different from those made use of by the author of Esoteric Buddhism.' So much the better from the point of view of Western readers, to whom it is a matter of indifference whether the exoteric Hindoo or Buddhist religion is nearest to absolutely true spiritual science, which should certainly bear no name that appears to wed it to any one faith in the external world more than to another. All that we in the West can be anxious for is to arrive at a clear understanding as to the essential principles of that science, and if we find the principles defined in this book claimed by the cultured representatives of more than one great Oriental creed as equally the underlying truths of their different systems,) we shall be all the better inclined to believe the present exposition of doctrine worth our attention. In regard to the complaint itself, that the teachings here reduced to an intelligible shape are incorrectly described by the name this book bears, I cannot do better than quote the note by which the editor of "The Theosophist" replies to his Brahman contributor. He says: 6 "We print the above letter, as it expresses, in courteous language and in an able manner, the views of a large number of our Hindoo brothers. At the same time it must be stated that the name of Esoteric Buddhism' was given to Mr. Sinnett's latest publication, not because the doctrine propounded therein is meant to be specially identified with any particular form of faith, but because Buddhism means the doctrine of the Buddhas, the Wise, i. e. the Wisdom Religion." For my own part I need only add that I fully accept and adopt that explanation of the matter. It would, indeed, be a misconception of the design which this book is intended to subserve, to suppose it concerned with the recommendation, to a dilettante modern taste, of old world fashions in religious thought. The external forms and fancies of religion in one age may be a little in another age a purer, little more corrupt, but they inevitably adapt themselves to their period, and it would be extravagant to imagine them interchangeable. The present statement is not put forward in the hope of making Buddhists from among the adherents of any other system, but with the view of conveying to thoughtful readers, as well |