Introduction to the Science of Religion

Author(s): Max Muller
Publisher: Longmans Green and Compny London

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LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.
which fed the deeper and broader stream of Vedic religion, Mohammedanism springs, as far as its most vital doctrines are concerned, from the ancient fountain-head of the religion of Abraham, the worshipper and the friend of the one true God.
If you keep before your mind the following simple outline, you can see at one glance the river-system in which the religious thought of the Aryan and the Semitic nations has been running for centuries-of those, at least, who are in possession of sacred and canonical books.
ARYAN FAMILY.
SEMITIC FAMILY.
Veda Brahmanism
Old Testament
Mosaism
Zend-Avesta Zoroastrianism
Tripitaka Buddhism
New Testament
Christianity
TURANIAN
ARYAN
Koran Mohammedanism
While Buddhism is the direct offspring, and, at the same time, the antagonist of Brahmanism, Zoroastrianism is rather a deviation from the straight course of ancient Vedic faith, though it likewise contains a protest against some of the doctrines of the earliest worshippers of the Vedic gods. The same, or nearly the same relationship holds together the three prin