how in full bloom first grew and
budded.

Thus we have evidence of the existence in pre-Buddhist India of rites
and beliefs--the latter chiefly of the kind called animistic--disowned for
the most part by the Buddhists and only tolerated by the Brahmans. No
elaborate explanation of this popular religion or of its relation to
more intellectual and sacerdotal cults is necessary, for the same thing
exists at the present day and the best commentary on the Sila-vagga is
Crooke's _Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India_.

In themselves such popular superstitions may seem despicable and
repulsive (as the Buddha found them), but when they are numerous and
vigorous, as in India, they have a real importance for they provide a
matrix and nursery in which the beginnings of great religions may be
reared. Saktism and the worship of Rama and Krishna, together with many
less conspicuous cults, all entered Brahmanism in this way. Whenever a
popular cult grew important or whenever Brahmanic influence spread to a
new district possessing such a cult, the popular cult was recognized and
brahmanized. This policy can be abundantly illustrated for the last four
or five centuries (for instance in Assam), and it was in operation two
and a half millenniums ago or earlier. It explains the low and magical
character of the residue of popular religion, every ceremony and deity
of importance being put under Brahmanic patronage, and it also explains
the sudden appearance of new deities. We can safely assert that in the
time of the Buddha, and _a fortiori_ in the time of the older
Upanishads[250] and Brahmanas, Krishna and Rama were not prominent as
deities in Hindustan, but it may well be that they had a considerable
position as heroes whose exploits were recited at popular festivals and
that Krishna was growing into a god in other regions which have left no
literature.

CHAPTER VII

THE JAINS[251]

1

Before leaving pre-Buddhist India, it may be well to say something of
the Jains. Many of their doctrines, especially their disregard not only
of priests but of gods, which seems to us so strange in any system which
can be called a religion, are closely analogous to Buddhism and from one
point of view Jainism is part of the Buddhist movement. But more
accurately it may be called an early specialized form of the general
movement which culminated in Buddhism. Its founder, Mahavira, was an
earlier contemporary of the Buddha and not a