The Philosophy of the Upanishads c12.s2.t2.3

c12.s2.t2.3

The attempt has often been made to understand man's longing for deliverance from another side as the result of the heavy pressure upon the Indian people of the Brâhmanical system. Thereby, according to the view suggested, the ancient delight in existence had been ruined and lost in consequence of the subservience of the mind to the Brâhmans, and the body to the Kshatriyas. But not to mention that the conditions of life in the rich valley of the Ganges were in all probability hardly worse than formerly in the Panjâb, and that the idea of emancipation had certainly arisen not in the circle of the oppressed but rather in that of the oppressors, a disposition to pessimism, such as the theory assumes, was not at all peculiar to the times in which the doctrine of emancipation arose.¹ It is true that by emancipation suffering also with all its possibilities was removed; but Buddhism was the first to transform that which was a mere consequence into a motive, and by conceiving emancipation as an escape from the sufferings of existence, to make selfishness the ultimate mainspring of existence,—even if not to the extent that was done later by Islâm, which is never weary of depicting to the people the glories of heaven and the terrors of hell.