Great Indian Religion

Author(s): G T Bettany
Publisher: Ward Lock Bowden and Co

Page 75

KUMARILA BHATTA.
gods, four sons were born of his three wives, the eldest, Rama, having one-half the nature of Vishnu; the second, Bharata, one-fourth; and two others, twins, Partial having each one-eighth. This exemplifies the incarnations. Brahman doctrine of partial incarnations, Krishna being a full incarnation; and, beyond this, there might be fractional incarnations of the Divine essence, in men, animals and even inanimate objects. The wonderful youth, marriage to Sita, and exile of Rama, are next told, and the refusal of Bharata to take the kingdom on his father's death. Rama continuing an exile, Ravana, the demon king of the south, heard of his wife's beauty, and carried her off in a magical chariot to Conquests Ceylon. Rama then makes alliances with the of Rama. aboriginal peoples of Southern India, invades Ceylon, slays Ravana and delivers his wife, who has to undergo the further trial of being suspected of infidelity and banished. She is the type of womanly devotion and purity, and after sixteen years' exile is reconciled to her husband, with whom she is after all translated to heaven.
Such was the framework in which the change from ancient Brahmanism to modern Hinduism was developed and taught. These epics bear witness to the fact that notwithstanding the great extension of Buddhism in India, there was no time when Brahmanism was not working with great skill and intellectual force to adapt itself to the changed conditions. At a council Resistance of of the Buddhist monarch Siladitya at Kanauj Brahmanism. on the Ganges in A.D. 634, while a statue of Buddha was installed on the first day, on the second an image of the Sun-god, on the third an image of Siva, the product of later Brahmanism, was inaugurated. A great series of Brahman apostles arose simultaneously with the decay of Buddhism, beginning with Kumarila Bhatta, about A.D. 750, who revived the old Brahman doctrine of Kumarila a personal God and Creator, and reconverted Bhatta. many of the people. He was the first of a long line of influential religious reformers, who all solemnly cut themselves off from the world like Buddha, and give forth a simple message, readily understood, including in essence,