The Religions of India c19.75

c19.75

But Buddha cut down all obstacles. He made the lowest equal with the highest. It is true that he was no democrat. It is true that his success depended, in great part, on political influence, on the conversion of kings and nobles, men of his own class. It is true also that Buddha at first, like every other Hindu theosophist, sought no salvation for the world around him, but only for himself. But he was moved with pity for the multitude. And why? The sages among them knew no path to happiness save through life-long torture; the common people knew only a religion of rites in which they took no interest, the very words of which were unintelligible; and its priests in their eyes, if not contemptible, at least were unsympathetic. And at the same time the old caste-system oppressed and insulted them. It is evident that the times were ripe for a more humane religion and a new distribution of social privileges.