ns in modern times) that salvation
is obtainable by self-mortification but this is the method which the
Buddha condemned after prolonged trial. It is clear that in his own
opinion and that of his contemporaries the rule and ideal of life which
he prescribed differed widely from those of the Jains, Ajivikas and
other wandering ascetics.

BOOK III

PALI BUDDHISM

BOOK III

In the previous book I have treated chiefly the general characteristics
of Indian religion. They persist in its later phases but great changes
and additions are made. In the present book I propose to speak about the
life and teaching of the Buddha which even hostile critics must admit to
be a turning point in the history of Indian thought and institutions,
and about the earliest forms of Buddhism. For twelve centuries or more
after the death of this great genius Indian religion flows in two
parallel streams, Buddhist and Brahmanic, which subsequently unite,
Buddhism colouring the whole river but ceasing within India itself to
have any important manifestations distinct from Brahmanism.

In a general survey it is hardly possible to follow the order of strict
chronology until comparatively modern times. We cannot, for instance,
give a sketch of Indian thought in the first century B.C., simply
because our data do not permit us to assign certain sects and books to
that period rather than to the hundred years which preceded or followed
it. But we can follow with moderate accuracy the two streams of thought
in their respective courses. I have wondered if I should not take
Hinduism first. Its development from ancient Brahmanism is continuous
and Buddhism is merely an episode in it, though a lengthy one. But many
as are the lacunae in the history of Buddhism, it offers more data and
documents than the history of Hinduism. We know more about the views of
Asoka for instance than about those of Candragupta Maurya. I shall
therefore deal first with Buddhism and then with Hinduism, while
regretting that a parallel and synoptic treatment is impracticable.

The eight chapters of this book deal mainly with Pali Buddhism[293]--a
convenient and non-controversial term--and not with the Mahayana, though
they note the tendencies which found expression in it. In the first
chapter I treat of the Buddha's life: in the second I venture to compare
him with other great religious teachers: in the third I consider his
doctrine as expounded in the Pali Tripitaka