The History of Buddhist Thought c9.5

c9.5

Neither of these is the case with Buddhism, which represents its founder as having by his own unaided effort discovered “ the doctrine unheard before ”, and as having shown a way of salvation which makes an end of pain. But this new teaching cannot be fully explained by itself. It was expressed in accordance with the conceptions of the Hindu world in the sixth century B.C., and as it continued to develop it took for granted all the current views on the nature of the world and man so far as they were not in conflict with its own principles. This is the Buddhism with which we have to deal, not merely the kernel of new doctrine, but the actual system with all that it assimilated from the thought and social conditions of its environment, or adopted as it attracted new followers. The history of Buddhism is the history of the developments, schisms, corruptions, and reforms which the system underwent as it spread in India and beyond, and as it became accepted and reinterpreted by the most diverse cultures of Asia.