Esoteric Buddhism / by A.P. Sinnett.

  • Alfred Percy Sinnett
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Esoteric Buddhism / by A.P. Sinnett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    which were presented to my mind. I am by no means convinced that in all cases I have coined the best possible phrases and hit on the most neatly ex- pressive words. For example, at the threshold of the subject we come upon the necessity of giving some name to the various elements or attributes of which the complete human creature is made up. “ Element” would be an impossible word to use, on account of the confusion that would arise from its use in other signifi- cations ; and the least objectionable on the whole seemed to me “ principle,” though to an ear trained in the niceties of metaphysical expression this word will have a very unsatisfactory sound in some of its present applications. Quite possibly, therefore, in process of time the Western nomenclature of the eso- teric doctrine may be greatly developed in advance ot that I have provisionally constructed. The Oriental nomenclature is far more elaborate, but metaphysical Sanscrit seems to be painfully embarrassing to a translator—the fault, my Indian friends assure me, not of Sanscrit, but of the language in which they are now required to express the Sanscrit idea. Eventually we may find that, with the help of a little borrowing from familiar Greek quarries, English may prove more receptive of the new doctrine—or rather, of the primeval doctrine as newly disclosed—than has been supposed possible in the East.
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