A History of Indian Literature v2.c21.11

v2.c21.11

Even when we eliminate all legendary and mythical elements from the tradition, the Buddhist texts still afford us a life-like and very plausible picture of the personality of Gotama and his career as the founder of a religion and as a preacher.² If the personality of the Buddha, with its strong reaction on the contemporaries, had never existed, it would indeed be passing strange that in Buddhist literature it is precisely the picture of the Master which is so living. “It is no exaggeration to say,” says Sir Charles *Eliot* (I, 297), “that the Buddha is the most living figure in Hindu literature. He stands before us more distinctly not only than Yājñavalkya and Śaṅkara, but than modern teachers like Nānak and Rāmānuja, and the reason of this distinction can, I think, be nothing but the personal impression which he made on his age.”