people. In this respect the voluminous mass of Taoist literature must take a secondary place.
We are now in a position to sum up the Chinese conception of their island Elysium.
It is somewhere to the East, in mid-ocean, beyond the ken of man. Accounts differ as to the number of the islands, but popular fancy has crystallized them into a group of three. To mortals who search for them, they prove elusive and unattainable. There Nature, always in her most beneficent mood, satisfies every physical desire. Nay more, the jewelled splendours there surpass all mundane beauty, whether the work of Nature or of man. Most precious of all are certain vitalizing plants and fountains of life, all of which confer the boon of deathlessness as well as immunity from the infirmities and limitations of the flesh.
Entrance to this enchanted land lies not through the portals of death, for alone hsien and more exalted illuminates of TAO people its shores, and share its bliss with etherealized counterparts of earthly birds and beasts. These happy ones pass their days in intellectual companionship varied with full enjoyment of sensuous delights, innocent enough from all accounts, unless exception be taken to the amiable scenes of bibulous revelry that artists love to portray.
Let us look round the world for conceptions analogous to this. Many are to be found, but time imposes a limited choice, and it seems best to confine the survey to the closest parallels occurring among our own kin, the Aryan-speaking races.
One example is Sukhāvatī, the Happy Universe of the West, presided over by the Buddha Amitābha. Brahmanic in its ultimate origin, it exercises a strong hold on the imagination of Chinese and Japanese Buddhists to the present day.
Its gorgeous beauty, described with such rich detail and
