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We can find no reason why the Siitras should not have been ranked as Srutj, except the lateness of their date, if compared with the Br&hmanas, and still more with the Mantras. Whether the Brahmans themselves were aware that ages must have elapsed between the period during which most of the poems of their Rishis were com- posed, and the times which gave rise to the Br&h- manas, is a question which we need hardly hesitate to answer in the affirmative. But the recklessness with which Indian theologians claim for these Brahmanas the same title and the same age as for the Mantras, shows that the reasons must have been peculiarly strong which deterred them from claiming the same divine authority for the Siitras. To ascribe to literary compositions such as the Mantras and Br&hmanas a divine origin, and to claim for them a divine and absolute authority, is a step which can hardly pass unnoticed in the intellectual history of a nation, whether for the circumstances which Jed to it, or for the results which it produced. Now, in India the results of that fatal step are pal- pable. It may have been intended as a check on re- ligious reforms, but it led to a religious revolution. 78 thebkIhmanas acknowlbdged as revelation. Buddhism would be unintelligible, unless as the over* throw of a system which had tried to maintain its position by an appeal to a divine revelation ; and we may be certain that the distinction between Sruti and Smriti, between revealed and profane literature, was established by the Brahmans, previous to the schism of Buddha. If the belief was once establishedi that not only the simple eflPusions of the Rishis, but the pointed doc- trines of the Brd^hmanas also, emanated from a divine source, and could not therefore be attacked by human reasoning, it is clear that every opposition to the pri- vileges which the Brahmans claimed for themselves, on the sacred authority of the Veda, became heresy ; . and where the doctrines of the Brahmans were the religion of the people, or rather of the king, such op- position was amenable to the hierarchical laws of the state. The Brahmans themselves cared much more to see the divine authority of the Sruti as such im- plicitly acknowledged, than to maintain the doctrines of the Rishis in their original simplicity and purity. In philosophical discussions, they allowed the greatest possible freedom ; and, although at first three philo- sophical systems only were admitted as orthodox (the two Mim&ns&s and the Ny&ya), their number was soon raised to six, so as to include the YaiSeshika, S&nkhya, and Yoga-schools.^ The most conflicting views on points of vital importance were tolerated as > Kum^rila quotes Sankhya and Yoga, together with other heretical Bystems. UllSl^n^lMN^MMia^MdSm^ftii^- MRu^dM^'ra^fvl^N^IPlll As to the Yai^eshikas, see page 84. THE AUTHOBITT OIT EBVELATION ATTACKBD. 79 long as their advocates sacceeded, no matter by what means, in bringing their doctrines into harmony with passages of the Yeda, strain^ and twisted in every possible sense. If it was only admitted that, besides the perception of the senses and the induction of rea- son, revelation also, as contained in the Yeda, fur- nished a true basis for human knowledge, all other points seemed to be of minor importance. Philo- sophical minds were allowed to exhaust all possible views on the relation between the real and transcen- d^tal world, the Creator and the created, the divine and the human nature. It was not from such lucu- brations that danger was likely to accrue to the caste of the Brahmans. Nor was the heresy of Buddha Sfikya Muni found so much in his philosophical doc- trines, many of which may be traced in the orthodox athebm of Eapila. His real crime lay in his opposi- tion to the exclusive privileges and abuses of the Brfthmans. These abuses were sanctioned by the divine authority of the Yeda^, and particularly of the Br&hmanas. In attacking the abuses, Buddha at- tacked the divine authority on which they were founded, and the argument was short : he is a heretic ; anathema esto. Buddha was a Eshatriya.^ He was of princely * The Buddhists say that the three Yedas were propounded originallj by Maha Brahma, at which time thej were perfect troth ; bat they have since been corrupted by the Brahmans and now contain many errors. Cf. B. Spence Hardy, Eastern Mona- chism, p. 185. * Kumfirila always speaks of Buddha as a Eshatriya who tried to become a Brahman. For instance, And again, 5^: lj<1<€|l^^l(?t*l?l ^W^Kj/t f^l\ 82 BKAUMANISM VERSUS BUDDHISM that one man should chaLlenge the authority of the Brahmans, the gods of the earth, (bhiideva), and preach among the scorned and degraded creatures of God the simple truth that salvation was possible without the mediation of priests, and without a belief in books to which these very priests had given the title of revelation. This man was Buddluz J§dkya Muni. Now if we inquire how Buddha's doctrines were met by the Brahmans, it is true that here and there in their philosophical works they have endeavoured to overthrow some of his metaphysical axioms by an appeal to reason. An attempt of this kind we have, for instance, in Y&chaspati Mi6ra's commentary on the Yed&nta Siitras. In commenting on the tenet of Buddha, that ^^ ideas like those of being, and not* being, &c., do not admit of discussion," ^ Yachaspati observes that the very fact of speaking of these ideas, includes the possibility of their conception ; nay, that to affirm they do not admit of reasoning involves an actual reasoning on them, and proves that the mind can conceive the idea of being as different from that of not-being. . Such, however, were not the usual weapons with which Brabmanism fought against Buddhism. The principal objection has always been, that Buddha's teaching could not be true, because it did not derive its sanction from l§ruti or revelation. The Brah- mans, as a caste, would readily have allowed being and not-being, and the whole of Buddha's philoso- phy, as they did the S&nkhya philosophy, which Adr.f% j^_rjsrj%r v^mv^^ ^aDDi£lS2k£* ^"^^^ yx^J^o^te^iJ ^€>j„£s i„ open op^ . , :H3^ schiool, oorj/or/ned to the Br^fe a ^Gnljr i>T'CK:Jaimin^ *Ae authority of re ve^^S. ou/2* to -r-eiison/i^,^;- and experience, Bojtl t sufarn^fc tio tihisi, *^e* for his phHogop^ Ihariiaa^^, or- £c>xr litis much more import^ [ rGli^ioua cJocstr-ines (vinaya). No doi* ive foeen ^^^^^y for* liim ^ to show how so triUGS zisa-i-nno*:! i^*cl. "^vith passages of t the V"ec3i. £.1I jpossible shades of the hmi:* buiicl thcjxir nc^tviral reflection. If he h [y for- sorrxes of* Iiis precepts, such, f^ XUou. sWalt Txot i3nurder,"uTjiou slj. Xhovi. slxa-lfc eat standing,"* the Br^ reaaily Ixa-ve i>o.sse<i over other doctrirj , catTTio into t>^.ctie after Buddha's deat 3 OTigs iFor lTea.veTa, slmU worship the J,^ J" ioctx-inca. ,„^t-in^ very ttrnpting in thi ™u.t. ^ °";;**";"f that i. uferUm^ ti,* ** tlio^x sllt not drink *noca„g ^^„^„,„ : I o 3 84 RCVELATION OF THE BUDDHISTS/ Buddhists also endeavoured to claim the same divine^ character for their sacred writings which the Brah- ihans had established for the Veda. A curious in- stance of this is given in the following discussion, from Kumfirrila's Tantra-varttika. Here the opponent (pArva-paksha) observes, that the same arguments which prove that the Veda is not the work of human authors, apply with equal force to j§d,kya's teaching. His authority, he says, cannot be questioned, because his precepts are clear and intelligible ; and as j^llkya is not the inventor, but only the teacher of these pre- cepts, and no name of an author is given for S&kya's doctrines, the frailties inherent in human authors affect them as little as the Veda.^ Everything, in fact, he concludes, which has been brought forward by the Mimd.nsakas to prove the authority of the Veda, proves in the same way the authority of Buddha's doc- trine. Upon this, the orthodox Eumftrila grows very wroth, and says : " These S&kyas, Vai^eshikas, and other heretics, who have been frightened out of their wits by the faithful Mimd^nsakas, prattle away with our own words as if trying to lay hold of a shadow. They say that their sacred works are eternal; but they are of empty minds, and only out of hatred they wish to deny that the Veda is the most ancient book. REYELATION OF THE BUDDHISTS.