Zend Avesta Part 01

SR No.: 007671
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1895
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 1881

26
BHAGAVADGITA.
fortifying the results of the acgative argument already set forth. To me Buddhism is perfectly intelligible as one outcome of that play of thought on high spiritual topics, which in its other, and as we may say, less thorough-going manifestations, we see in the Upanishads and the Gitá'. 'But assume that Buddhism was a protest against Brahmanism prior to its purification and elevation by the theosophy of the Upanishads, and those remarkable productions of ancient Indian thought become difficult to account for. Let us compare our small modern events with those grand old occurrences. Suppose our ancestors to have been attached to the ceremonial law of the Vedas, as we are now attached to a lifeless ritualism, the Upanishads and the Gitâ might be, in a way, comparable to movements like that of the late Raja Rammohun Roy. Standing, as far as possible, on the antique ways, they attempt, as Raja Rammohun attempted in these latter days, to bring into prominence and to elaborate the higher and nobler aspects of the old beliefs. Buddhism would be comparable to the further departure from old traditions which was led by Babu Keshub Chander Sen. The points of dissent in the olden times were pretty nearly the same as the points of dissent now. The ultimate motive power also was in both cases identical-a sense of dissatisfaction in its integrity with what had come down from old times encrusted with the corruptions of years. In this view the old system, the philosophy of the L'panishads and the Gità, and the philosophy of Buddha, constitute a regular intelligible progression. But suppose the turn events took was different, as is supposed by the alternative theory indicated above. Suppose Babu Keshub's movement was chronologically prior, and had begun to tell on orthodox socicty. Is it likely, that then one of the orthodox party
Cl. Weber's History of India Literature, p. 285. lo Mr. Davids' Buddhism, p. 94, we have a noteworthy extract from a standard Buddhistic work, touching the existence of the soul Compare that with the corresponding doctrine in the Gita. It will be found that the two are at one in rejecting the identity of the soul with the senses &c. The Gita then goes on to admit a soul separate from these. Buddhism rejects that also, and ses gothing but the senses.
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