Christian Lectures on Buddhism, and Plain Facts by Buddhists

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Black versus White Magic Series · 16 pages

A reply, and a well-armed one. Sir Monier Monier-Williams had lectured on Buddhism in terms Blavatsky found both condescending and inaccurate, and this essay answers him — beginning with the observation that applause is no argument in favour of the correctness of a statement.

Her method is to answer an Oxford orientalist with other authorities he could not easily dismiss. Monier-Williams's own Oxford rival, Professor Max Müller, is quoted pronouncing the moral code of Buddhism among the most perfect the world has known; and the leading organ of Roman Catholic opinion in England is cited conceding the Buddhist moral standard. To the charge of pseudo-Buddhism she returns the observation that Europe is full of pseudo-Christians, nominal and more Grundy-fearing than God-fearing, and that France, Germany and Italy are eaten to the core with free-thought and atheism. It is polemic, but polemic that does its homework, and it shows the argumentative style that made Lucifer worth reading to people who disagreed with everything in it.

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