A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c8.26

c8.26

Such, however, were not the usual weapons with which Brahmanism fought against Buddhism. The principal objection has always been, that Buddha’s teaching could not be true, because it did not derive its sanction from Śruti or revelation. The Brahmans, as a caste, would readily have allowed being and not-being, and the whole of Buddha’s philosophy, as they did the Sânkhya philosophy, which on the most important points is in open opposition to the Vedânta. But while Kapila, the founder of the Sânkhya school, conformed to the Brahmanic test by openly proclaiming the authority of revelation as paramount to reasoning and experience, Buddha would not submit to this, either for his philosophical (abhidharma), or for his much more important moral and religious doctrines (vinaya). No doubt it would have been easy for him to show how some of his doctrines harmonised with passages of the Veda, as in the Veda all possible shades of the human mind have found their natural reflection. If he had done so only for some of his precepts, such, for instance, as, "Thou shalt not murder,"¹ "Thou shalt not drink,"² "Thou shalt eat standing,"³ the Brahmans would readily have passed over other doctrines, even such as came into practice after Buddha's death, like "Who longs for heaven, shall worship the holy sepulchre,"⁴ "He shall pull out his hair,"⁵ &c. As he refused to do so, the line of argument taken by the Brahmans was simply confined to an appeal to revelation, in disproof of the possibility of the truth of Buddha's doctrines.