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burden upon the subjects whose cattle were taken away without compensation; the fruits of the yajna were success in battle, and the constant warfare implied thereby meant heavy losses to the traders, and general distress. The whole basis had to be denied, and non-killing, which is what ahimsa means literally, cuts at the roots of both sacrifice and war.
Primitive religion differs from civilized religion in one main respect, not matter how much of the ritual is carried over. The earlier type concentrates upon the cult and its ritual alone; the correct performance of certain rites. bring certain fruit. In the commoner cases, this yield is to be seen in the present world, in the way of better crops, avoidance of disease and of the deadly spirits that might cause it; perhaps success in ventures. But a very important portion deals with the problem of continuity, of what happens to a person after death. Something of the individual is supposed to survive, though it might be in changed form and of impalpable substance as in the dream world. Here comes the essential difference between the two types of religion: the later substitutes, to a considerable extent, good deeds and the good life for correct ritual. The change is due to the existence of a form of society far more heterogeneous than the original simple tribe-community. It is a discovery of the first magnitude that religion can be used to ease the difficulties of early society, to make the common life of diverse elements of society easier,
The Buddhist sermons make clear the duties of a householder; its prime virtues such as truthfulness are social virtues. There is no Buddhist ritual whatever. The basic theory of transmigration may have been totemic in origin, the dead man reverting to the original totem animal that had first been the food of the tribe, hence its very substance; and ultimately become taboo (another basis for ahimsa) except in ritual feasts by one of those dialectic inversions that mark crucial changes in society. But observe that a man's action, karma weighs his soul, and automatically fits him for the body he will occupy in his next birth. Buddhism claims to point the way to the negation of this otherwise unending cycle of rebirth, but the action of Karma is a trade, barter, or wage-payment transaction. It differs as greatly as possible from the earlier ritualistic conception of an after-life, and from the later developments which substitute a short cut by means of bhakti, faith in a personal god. Ritual is a matter of individual choice for the layman, and often there are polemics against ritual as well as against brahminical pretensions (Jat 545). Finally, the new proponent of the religion bases himself upon the goodwill of society, living only by its alms; he does not support the king in sacrifice nor does he receive whole villages in fee as does the brahmin priest. In its initial stages, therefore, Buddhism succeeds because the karma doctrine, the social rules deduced from it, and the much cheaper mode of life of the almsman all appeal, economically as well as philosophically,
