was the murderer of his own
family, and has been handed down to posterity, because of the success of
the policy of his party, as a great, a virtuous, and a pious
sovereign--under his auspices missionaries were sent out in all
directions, and monasteries richly endowed were everywhere established.
The singular efficacy of monastic institutions was rediscovered in
Europe many centuries subsequently.

[Sidenote: Contest between the Brahmans and Buddhists.]

In proclaiming the equality of all men in this life, the Buddhists, as
we have seen, came into direct collision with the orthodox creed of
India, long carried out into practice in the institution of castes--a
collision that was embittered by the abhorrence the Buddhists displayed
for any distinction between the clergy and laity. To be a Brahmin a man
must be born one, but a Buddhist priest might voluntarily come from any
rank--from the very dregs of society. In the former system marriage was
absolutely essential to the ecclesiastical caste; in the latter it was
not, for the priestly ranks could be recruited without it. And hence
there followed a most important advantage, that celibacy and chastity
might be extolled as the greatest of all the virtues. The experience of
Europe, as well as of Asia, has shown how powerful is the control
obtained by the hierarchy in that way. In India there was, therefore, no
other course for the orthodox than to meet the danger with bloody
persecutions, and in the end, the Buddhists, expelled from their native
seats, were scattered throughout Eastern Asia. Persecution is the mother
of proselytes.

[Sidenote: Buddhism is founded on the conception of Power or Force.]

[Sidenote: It does not recognize a personal God,]

The fundamental principle of Buddhism is that there is a supreme power,
but no Supreme Being. From this it might be inferred that they who adopt
such a creed cannot be pantheists, but must be atheists. It is a
rejection of the idea of Being, an acknowledgment of that of Force. If
it admits the existence of God, it declines him as a Creator. It asserts
an impelling power in the universe, a self-existent and plastic
principle, but not a self-existent, an eternal, a personal God. It
rejects inquiry into first causes as being unphilosophical, and
considers that phenomena alone can be dealt with by our finite minds.
Not without an air of intellectual majesty, it tolerates the Asiatic
time-consecrated idea of a trinity, pointing