History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c41.s6.11

v3.c41.s6.11

Such was in a nutshell the development of religious thought in India till about 1000 B. C. While the orthodox believed in all these tenets, different teachers denied some of them and accepted others. The many protestant thinkers who arose hereafter are, however, forgotten but the last two Mahāvīra and Gautama were more powerful than the rest and founded protestant religions which survive to this day. Both Gautama and Mahāvīra denied the first five items, and accepted the last viz. the law of Karman; but while Mahāvīra accepted also the two Aśramas of Tapas and Sanyāsa, Gautama went beyond him and denied Tapas and only stuck to Sanyāsa. Naturally he was heard with greater zest, especially as he admitted all people whether Aryans or non-Aryans (the Traivarṇikas and Śūdras), whether male or female, to his order of Sanyāsa and did not recognise Tapas or self-mortification at all. There was no God nor Atman; at least, Buddha asked his followers not to think about them. He, however, laid the greatest stress on a moral life for a layman and on renunciation in addition for a monk. Mahāvīra was behind him, so to speak, in protest and believed in self-mortification such as fast etc., and insisted on absolute renunciation including the abandoning of clothes for monks. He too laid the highest stress on a moral life for laymen. Both, of course, supported the Yoga and Sānkhya philosophies but absolutely denied the Vedas and the Brahmins.