isciples, c'est avec la serenite d'un sage qui a
pratique le bien toute sa vie, et qui est assure d'avoir
trouve le vrai.' (Page v.)

[Footnote 62: Burnouf, 'Lotus de la bonne Loi,' p. 300.]

* * * * *

There still remain, no doubt, some blurred and doubtful pages in the
history of the prince of Kapilavastu; but we have only to look at the
works on ancient philosophy and religion published some thirty years
ago, in order to perceive the immense progress that has been made in
establishing the true historical character of the founder of Buddhism.
There was a time when Buddha was identified with Christ. The
Manichaeans were actually forced to abjure their belief that Buddha,
Christ, and Mani were one and the same person.[63] But we are thinking
rather of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when elaborate
books were written, in order to prove that Buddha had been in reality
the Thoth of the Egyptians, that he was Mercury, or Wodan, or
Zoroaster, or Pythagoras. Even Sir W. Jones, as we saw, identified
Buddha, first with Odin, and afterwards with Shishak, 'who either in
person or by a colony from Egypt imported into India the mild heresy
of the ancient Bauddhas.' At present we know that neither Egypt nor
the Walhalla of Germany, neither Greece nor Persia, could have
produced either the man himself or his doctrine. He is the offspring
of India in mind and soul. His doctrine, by the very antagonism in
which it stands to the old system of Brahmanism, shows that it could
not have sprung up in any country except India. The ancient history of
Brahmanism leads on to Buddhism, with the same necessity with which
mediaeval Romanism led to Protestantism. Though the date of Buddha is
still liable to small chronological oscillations, his place in the
intellectual annals of India is henceforth definitely marked: Buddhism
became the state religion of India at the time of A_s_oka; and
A_s_oka, the Buddhist Constantine, was the grandson of _K_andragupta,
the contemporary of Seleucus Nicator. The system of the Brahmans had
run its course. Their ascendency, at first purely intellectual and
religious, had gradually assumed a political character. By means of
the system of caste this influence pervaded the whole social fabric,
not as a vivifying leaven, but as a deadly poison. Their increasing
power and self-confidence are clearly exhibited in the successive
periods of their ancient literature. It b