A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c8.s3.54

c8.s3.54

Now this is mere party insolence, intelligible in the fifth century A. D., when the Brahmans, as a party, were re-establishing their hierarchical sway. Nothing of the kind is to be found in the canonical books of the Buddhists. Buddha had his opponents, and among them chiefly the Tîrthakas; but so had all eminent sages of whom we read in the Brâhmaṇas. But Buddha had also his friends and followers, and they likewise were Brahmans and Rishis; some of them accepted his doctrines, not excluding the abolition of caste. Buddhism, in its original form, was only a modification of Brahmanism. It grew up slowly and imperceptibly, and its very founder could hardly have been aware of the final results of his doctrines. Before the time that Buddhism became a political power, it had no history, no chronology, it hardly had a name. We hear nothing of Bauddhas in the Brâhmaṇas, though we meet there with doctrines decidedly Buddhistic. The historical existence of Buddhism begins with Aśoka, and the only way to fix the real date of Aśoka is by connecting him with Chandragupta, his second predecessor, the Sandrocottus of the Greeks. To try to fix it according to the early Buddhist chronology would be as hopeless as fixing the date of Alexander according to the chronology of the Purâṇas.