[Footnote 68: For the same reason we do not enter upon the outer form of Buddhism as expressed in demonology, snake-worship (JRAS. xii. 286) and symbolism (ib. OS. xiii. 71, 114).]
[Footnote 69: SBE. vol. x, part ii, p. 3.]
[Footnote 70: Dhammapada (Franke, ZDMG. xlvi, 731). In Sanskrit one has dharmapatha with the same sense. The text in the main is as translated by Müller, separately, 1872, and in SBE., voL x. It was translated by Weber, Streifen. i. 112, in 1860.]
[Footnote 71: That is, they die no more; they are free from the chain; they enter Nirv[=a]na.]
[Footnote 72: Buddha's words on becoming Buddha.]
[Footnote 73: It is to be observed that transmigration into animal forms is scarcely recognized by Buddha. He assumes only men and superior beings as subjects of Karma. Compare Rhys Davids' Lectures, pp. 105,107. To the same scholar is due the statement that he was the first to recognize the true meaning of Nirv[=a]na, 'extinction (not of soul but) of lust, anger, and ignorance.' For divisions of Buddhist literature other than the Tripitaka the same author's Hibbert Lectures may be consulted (see also Müller, SBE. X, Introduction, p. i).]
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CHAPTER XIV.
EARLY HINDUISM.
While the great heresies that we have been describing were agitating the eastern part of India,[1] the old home of Brahmanism in the West remained true, in name if not in fact, to the ancient faith. But in reality changes almost as great as those of the formal heresies were taking place at the core of Brahmanism itself, which, no longer able to be the religion of a few clans, was now engaged in the gigantic task of remodelling and assimilating the indigenous beliefs and religious practices of its new environment. This was not a conscious act on the part of Brahmanism. At first it was undertaken almost unwittingly, and it was accomplished later not without repugnance. But to perform this task was the condition of continued existence. Brahmanism had to expand, or shrink, wither, and die.