CHAPTER XI.

RELATION OF BUDDHISM TO THE OLDER HINDOO MYTHOLOGY.

Buddhism accepted the Hindoo mythology, with the sacred books of the Brahmans, so far as it agreed with its own dogmas--The gods Indra, Brahma, and Ishwara listen as disciples to Buddha--Eight classes of Devas--Four kings of Devas--Yakshas--Mahoragas--Pretas--Maras--Yama, king of the dead--Creation is denied to the Hindoo gods in the Chung-lun and other works.

FOLLOWING the guidance of the Buddhist books, the existence of the Vedas and their mythology at least five or six centuries before the Christian era must be regarded as an established fact. Religious divisions had then already arisen in the social life of the Hindoos, and numerous adherents of all castes were joining the newly-raised standard of Buddhism. Colonel Sykes and others have maintained the hypothesis that Buddhism was the original religion of Hindostan, and that the Vedas with their religion, the four castes, and the Sanscrit language itself were all invented at a later date by the Brahmans. This conjecture has little to support it from any source of evidence, and is perfectly untenable when recourse is had for information to the Buddhist books. From them it is clear that the Brahmans were in antagonism with the system of Shakyamuni from the first, that the four Vedas were already venerated as the sacred books of the nation, and that the truth of their mythology was not denied by the founder of Buddhism or his followers. So far from opposing the popular belief in such beings as

[paragraph continues] Indra and Yama, the Asuras, Devas, and Gandharvas, they are included in the mythological personnel of the new religion, and these names have thus become known from Japan to Persia, and from Java to the Altai mountains. No mythology perhaps has ever spread so far as the Hindoo, forming as it does a part of the people's religion in all Buddhist countries, as well as in its mother-land.

An account of the opening scene of the Saddharma-pundarika, or "Lotus of the Good Law," in Chinese Fa-hwa-king, will show the place assigned in the Sutras of the Great Development class to these fictitious beings. The Sanscrit names in most instances are taken from Burnouf's translation of the Nepaulese original.