Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c19.21

c19.21

Purāṇic literature that Buddhistic interpretation of it seems unwarranted. As a matter of fact this importance of the tortoise in a religion may betray its indigenous nature and origin. As for the idea of Dharma, who is the Lord Supreme, it will be more correct to say that he represents the conception of the Lord Supreme found in the religious beliefs of India than to say that he represents the idea of Buddha. The idea of the Lord Supreme, as conceived in all forms of Tāntric Buddhism, is, as we have already hinted, almost the same as conceived in many systems of Hindu theology. The followers of the Dharma cult have proceeded a step farther than the Tāntric Buddhists and Dharma here represents the formless Brahman of the Upaniṣads, the Lord Śiva of the Śaivites and the Tāntrics, Viṣṇu of the general Vaiṣṇavites, Kṛṣṇa of the Kṛṣṇite Vaiṣṇavas and Rāma of the Rāmite Vaiṣṇavas The followers of the Dharma cult seem to have altogether forgotten that this Supreme deity may have something to do with the Buddha of the Buddhists; and excepting two remarks that the original place of Dharma is the land of Ceylon and the Deity Dharma is much revered in the land of Ceylon,¹ there is no direct evidence in the liturgical works or in the Maṅgala literature of the knowledge of the Dharmites that their religion and their deity have anything to do with Buddhism and the Buddha. Even the above remarks seem to be a mere tradition transmitted to the Dharmites and their import may not be clear to the Dharmites themselves.