The History of Buddhist Thought c9.6

c9.6

The problem of the relation of Buddhism to Brahminism and of their interaction as religious and philosophical schools runs throughout the whole history. But Brahminism was not merely a rival; it was in the first place the system in the midst of which Buddhism originated. Brahminism had long grown out of the prehistoric nature religion of Aryan India, and, influenced doubtless by contact with non-Aryan peoples, had become by the sixth century B.C. an elaborate sacrificial and sacerdotal system. It had also originated the philosophical principles which have ever since dominated it. A consideration of this early form of Brahminism will be important in so far as it may have had an influence in determining the ideas of the thinker or thinkers who struck out a new path. We need to ascertain, if possible, the world of thought in which Buddha lived, what there was in it that he found inadequate or erroneous, and in opposition to which his teaching made such a powerful appeal.