The Religions of India c19.147

c19.147

Buddhism lingered in India till the twelfth or thirteenth century, although in the seventh it was already decadent, as appears from the account of Hiouen-Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim. It is found to-day in Tibet, Ceylon, China, Japan, and other outlying regions, but it is quite vanished from its old home. The cause of its extinction is obvious. The Buddhist victorious was not the modest and devout mendicant of the early church. The fire of hate, lighted if at all by Buddhism,² smouldered till Brahmanism, in the form of Hinduism, had begotten a religion as popular as Buddhism, or rather far more popular, and for two reasons. Buddhism had no such picturesque tales as those that enveloped with poetry the history of the man-god Krishna. Again, Buddhism in its monastic development had separated itself more and more from the people. Not mendicant monks, urging to a pure life, but opulent churches with fat priests; not simple discourses calculated to awaken the moral and religious consciousness, but subtle arguments on discipline and metaphysics were now what Buddhism represented. This religion was become, indeed, as much a skeleton as was the Brahmanism of the sixth century. As the Brahmanic belief had decomposed into spiritless rites, so Buddhism, changed into dialectic and idolatry (for in lieu of a god the later church worshipped Buddha), had lost now all hold upon the people. The love of man, the spirit of Buddhism, was dead, and Buddhism crumbled into the dust. Vital and energetic was the sectarian ‘love of God’ alone (Hinduism), and this now became triumphant. Where Buddhism has succeeded is not where the man-gods, objects of love and fear, have entered; but where, without rivalry from more sympathetic beliefs, it has itself evolved a system of idolatry and superstition; where all that was scorned by the Master is regarded as holiest, and all that he insisted upon as vital is disregarded.¹ One speaks of the millions of Buddhists in the world as one speaks of the millions of Christians; but while there are some Christians that have renounced the bigotry and idolatry of the church, and hold to the truth as it is in the words of Christ, there are still fewer Buddhists who know that their Buddhism would have been rebuked scornfully by its founder.