Page:An Essay On Hinduism.pdf/97

Thus the Indian system became the authorized interpreter of the old. The Indian system simply gave them new knowledge and thus united all the various pre-existing cults.

I say that it was Hinduism which united the worships of Japan because the doctrines which bound Japan together are the very things which Gautama opposed. All that had been exorcised came back again. The doctrine of the essential unity of the Self (Ātman) was never preached by Gautama. Thus Buddhism would have lost the all-absorbing power which is so essential a characteristic of Hinduism, had not his followers furtively returned to the great theories of Vedanta philosophy. This underhand deal was transacted according to the following method.

The place of Brahma in the Vedanta philosophy was taken by Buddha in the Buddhistic philosophy. Buddha himself was identified with the Absolute. The figure of the historic Buddha was kept, but it was greatly modified. The historic Buddhas were represented to be many, but were regarded as all one in the invisible being of the infinite. Thus the historical Gautama occupied a subordinate place, since a way was opened for beliefs in many Buddhas and salvation in Nirvāna is replaced by the desire for the attainment of Buddhahood and absorption in the absolute. Buddhism did not remain merely a system of the teaching of Buddha, but a system leading the followers to be re-absorbed in the absolute through a number of stages which lead to the absolute; and in the series of stages "the Perfect one" was supposed to have reached the highest stages.

The fate of Gautama's teachings should not lead us to draw a conclusion that the original good doctrine was corrupted by unworthy followers. A charge of this kind is