t to spread freely, and the very meagreness of
its doctrine, and its freedom from ritual, were also in its favour.

[Footnote 6: Millions of Buddhists in China and Japan are also
adherents of the other religions of these countries.]

Buddhism made Popular.--Buddhism proved able to spread over many
lands because it was so simple, and in its essence so moral and so
broadly human. But, like other faiths which have spread to many
lands, it assumed very different forms in different countries, and
the later form is often very different from the early simplicity.
Even at the outset it was not free from a strong infusion of magic;
the Arahat, like the Brahmanic ascetic before him, was believed to
obtain influence over the gods by his virtues, and thus a claim to
supernatural power is brought in, which agrees but ill with the
ethical doctrine. The religion, which at first ignored the gods and
bade each man trust to his own efforts for his highest good, became,
ere long, what a popular religion at the stage of progress prevailing
at that time necessarily was, namely, a worship of superior beings
and a method of obtaining benefits from them. The national gods were
discarded, but the deification of the founder early furnished a being
who could be worshipped. Legend grew luxuriantly round his birth and
early career; and he obtained the rank of the greatest of all the
gods. Former Buddhas who had lived in former ages still lived as
gods; and the divine family, being once founded, admitted of various
additions; even a popular deity, such as Indra, could be joined to
the growing circle. The chief scenes of the life of the founder
became holy places and objects of pilgrimage, where relics were
exposed for adoration. The growth of legend and of magic proceeded
more rapidly, and went to greater lengths, in Northern than in
Southern Buddhism; but in the land of its birth, too, Buddhism proved
unable to serve as a working religion without additions and
modifications entirely foreign to its true character. The profession
of Buddhism was combined even with the savage worship of the
non-Aryan tribes; Siva was identified with Buddha and then worshipped
instead of him, as also was Vishnu, and the perversion and
degradation of the religion prepared for its expulsion from the
country of its birth. That expulsion was probably brought about more
immediately by the advance of Mohammedanism in India, and took place
in the period of the early Middle