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III.
BUDDISM.
what sense it is also the most ancient. — Literature of Buddhism : the Tripitaka. — Buddha, his life and death : date of the Nirvana. — Difficulty in defining the Master's own personal teaching. — Anti-theological and little given to speculation, primitive Buddhism atheistic and occupied exclusively with the problem of salvation. — Its Four Noble verities. — The Nidanas or conditions of existence. — Existence, as it is essentially perishable ; the skandhas, the karman, and the new births, — Nirvana, absolute annihilation. — Negations of Buddhism : issue in nihilism in the school of Nagarjuna. — Affinities with the Sankhya and the Yedanta. — The rapid advance of Buddhism and the causes in explanation : the personality and the legend of Buddha. — Spirit of charity and propagandism. — Preaching of and training in its principles, and direction of the conscience. — Formation of a Buddhist mythology : the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. — Organisation of Buddhism. — Institution of monasticism and a clergy : the Sangha. — Buddhism and caste. — Wealth of the religious order and magnificence of the cultus. — Political circumstances favourable to Buddhism : establishment of the great monarchies. — Agoka and the Buddhist missions. — Domination abroad : cosmopolitan spirit of Buddhism. — Decay and total extinction of Buddhism in India. — Has it been unable to withstand persecution ? — Fanaticism in India. — Kumarila and Qankara. — The real causes of the downfall of Buddhism its internal vices, which
have disabled it from competing with the sectarian religions.As we pass to the younger religions which have developed in the train of Brahmanism, the first of these which presents itself to us is Buddhism, not because it has been proved to be the most ancient, but because it attained a separate independent existence before any other, and is in a way a direct offshoot from the old stock, while its rivals have rather been engrafted into it like parasitic plants. Buddhism presents, in fact, a twofold aspect. On the one hand, it is a Hindu phenomenon, a natural product, so to speak, of the age and social circle that witnessed
