Story of Nation Buddhist India

Author(s): T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: T Fisher Unwin Ltd

Page 9

PREFACE
ing equally true for five centuries before Christ and five centuries after. Shade of Kumárila! what are we coming to when the writings of these fellowsrenegade brahinins among them too-are actually taken seriously, and mentioned without a sneer? If by chance they say anything well, that is only because it was better said, before they said it, by the orthodox brahmins, who form, and have always formed, the key-stone of the arch of social life in India. They are the only proper authorities. Why trouble about these miserable heretics?"
Well, I would plead, in extenuation, that I ain not the first guilty one. People who found coins and inscriptions have not been deterred from con. sidering them seriously because they fitted very badly with the brahmin theories of caste and history. The matter has gone too far, those theories have been already too much shaken, for any one to hesitate before using every available evidence. The evidence here collected, a good deal of it for the first time, is necessarily imperfect; but it seems of. ten to be so suggestive, to throw so much light on points hitherto dark, or even unsuspected, that the trouble of collecting it is, so far at least, fairly justi. fied. Any words, however, are, I am afraid, of little avail against such sentiments. Wherever they exist the inevitable tendency is to dispute the evidence, and to turn a deaf ear to the conclusions. And there is, perhaps, after all, but one course open, and that is to declare war, always with the deepest re. spect for those who hold them, against such views. The views are wrong. They are not compatible