The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c14.4

c14.4

To go back to the Indian village: if one divides the southern half of the pradakshinâ path, which followed the movement of the sun had accepted, more abstruse metaphysical and philosophical theses, so that both the Hînayâna and Mahâyâna schools merged into modern Hinduism in the same way as the earlier schools of Vedic India had merged into Buddhism. The Hînayâna, which was then the southern school of Buddhism, grew into the modern Saivaite school, which inherited the ascetic traditions of pre-Buddhist times; while the Vaishnavaites, who represent the reforming schools of northern India, absorbed the following of Mahâyânist philosophy. It must, however, be remembered that in modern times the two main sects, or groups of sects, have intermingled at so many points that the old distinctions have been largely superseded by others which individual Hindu teachers, like Sankarâcharya, Râmanûja and Chaitanya, have introduced.