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Updated: May 25, 2025
From a religious and philosophical point of view, Buddhism at first did not materially differ from Brahmanism. The same dreamy pietism, the same belief in the transmigration of souls, the same pantheistic ideas of God and Nature, the same desire for rest and final absorption in the divine essence characterized both.
This want of a central authority, though less complete than in Brahmanism, marks the early life of the Buddhist community. We read in later works of a succession of Elders who are sometimes called Patriarchs but it would be erroneous to think of them as possessing episcopal authority. They were at most the chief teachers of the order.
They seem to be the gymnosophists, or naked philosophers, described by Clitarchos as living in India at the time of the expedition of Alexander, and their history crops out in various accounts that of Clement of Alexandria, then of the Chinese Fu-Hian in the fourth and fifth centuries, and of the celebrated Chinese Hiouen-Tsang in the seventh century, at which last period they appear to have been the prevailing sect in India, and to have increased in favor until in the twelfth century the Rajpoots, who had become converts to Jainism, were schismatized into Brahmanism and deprived the naked philosophers of their prestige.
In Brahmanism, God is the perfect unity, which may be approximated by dwelling on identities and ignoring differences; in Platonism, God is the good-for-all, which may be approximated by dwelling exclusively upon the utilities and fitness of things. The absolute world still remains beyond this world and excludes it, although a hint of its actual nature may now be obtained.
In the first chapter I enquire whether there is any element common to the religions of India and to the countries of Eastern Asia and find that the worship of nature spirits and the veneration of ancestors prevail throughout the whole of this vast region and have not been suppressed by Buddhism or Brahmanism.
He is to give up all attachments, and in this way, as his body decays, he enters even here into a state of perfect freedom and repose and union with the great spirit. Such ideas prove that the mind of Brahmanism was not occupied with sacrifices alone.
In all this poetry there rings out a note of almost defiant monotheism, iconoclasm and antisacerdotalism. It may be partly explained by the fact that in the south Brahmanism was preceded, or at least from early times accompanied, by Buddhism and Jainism.
For transmigration is no theory of Buddhism at all, but was a leading tenet in the far older faith of Brahmanism, of which Buddhism was but an offshoot, as was Christianity of Judaism. I have not, indeed, always attempted to reach the explanation of things I have seen.
The tenacity and vitality of the Brahmans enabled them ultimately to lead the conqueror captive, and Râmacandra became a champion of Brahmanism as much as Paraśu-râma.
The manifestation of Christ to the Bengalees could not be made without rousing the hate and the opposition of the vested interests of Brahmanism. So long as Carey was an indigo planter as well as a proselytiser in Dinapoor and Malda he met with no opposition, for he had no direct success.
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