Sacred Writings: Volume II

And the god Mara mounting his elephant which was a hundred and fifty leagues high and had the name Girded-with-mountains caused a thousand arms to appear on his body and with these he grasped a variety of weapons. Also in the remainder of that army no two persons carried the same weapon; and diverse also in their appearance and countenances the host swept on like a flood to overwhelm the Great Being. -from The Attainment of Buddhaship The preeminent American educator of the 19th century CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT (1834-1926) believed that a sound liberal education could be achieved not through textbooks but by exploring firsthand the great books and great ideas of Western civilization. (Eliot knew a good education when he saw one: during his time as president of Harvard University from 1869 till 1909 he transformed the school from a regional college to the preeminent educational institution in the United States.) In this 1910 collection-part of his 50-volume Harvard Classics his dream library at the foundation of enlightened scholarship-Eliot gathers the great writings of the worlds dominant religions. As the faithful read them examine: . the letters of Paul to the Corinthians from the Bible . hymns of the Christian Church . the story of the Buddha . Buddhist doctrine on the ego karma purity and the attainment of nirvana . the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita . and chapters from the Koran.