d, and the question has been answered both
affirmatively and negatively, whether the climatic conditions of
Buddha's home were in part responsible for the pessimistic tone of his
philosophy. If one compare the geographical relation of Buddhism to
Brahmanism and to Vedism respectively with a more familiar geography
nearer home, he will be better able to judge in how far these
conditions may have influenced the mental and religious tone. Taking
Kabul and Kashmeer as the northern limit of the period of the Rig
Veda, there are three geographical centres. The latitude of the Vedic
poets corresponds to about the southern boundary of Tennessee and
North Carolina. The entire tract covered by the southern migration to
the time of Buddhism, extending from Kabul to a point that corresponds
to Benares (35 deg. is a little north of Kabul and 25 deg. is a little south
of Beh[=a]r), would be represented loosely in the United States by the
difference between the northern line of Mississippi and Key West. The
extent of Georgia about represents in latitude the Vedic province (35 deg.
to 30 deg.), while Florida (30 deg. to 25 deg.) roughly shows the southern
progress from the seat of old Brahmanism to the cradle of young
Buddhism. These are the extreme limits of Vedism, Brahmanism and
proto-Buddhism. South of this the country was known to Brahmanism only
to be called savage, and not before the late S[=u]tras (c. 300 B.C.)
is one brought as far south as Bombay in the West. The [=A]itareya
Br[=a]hmana, which represents the old centre of Brahmanism around
Delhi, knows of the [=A]ndhras, south of the God[=a]var[=i] river in
the southeast (about the latitude of Bombay and Hayti), only as outer
'Barbarians.' It is quite conceivable that a race of hardy
mountaineers, in shifting their home through generations from the
hills of Georgia and Tennessee to the sub-tropical region of Key West
(to Cuba), in the course of many centuries might become morally
affected. But it seems to us, although the miasmatic plains of Bengal
may perhaps present even a sharper contrast to the Vedic region than
do Key West and Cuba to Georgia, that the climate in effecting a moral
degradation (if pessimism be immoral) must have produced also the
effect of mental debility. Now to our mind there is not the slightest
proof for the asseveration, which has been repeated so often that it
is accepted by many nowadays as a truism, that Buddhism or even
post-Buddhistic literature