The empire of India . , lifes flamebeing unfed by the fuel of desire, they might win thegreatest of boons in release from the perilous course oftransmigration. So emotionless a creed can hardly havebeen attractive to the world at large : its rules appearto have been designed for the regulation rather of the asce-tic than of the working life, and it expressed itself in thefoundation of monasteries and nunneries. For upwards oftwelve centuries Buddhism competed with Brahminismfor popular respect; but we may conjecture that, likeBuddhism and Shintoism in present-day Japan, the twocreeds did not d
The empire of India . , lifes flamebeing unfed by the fuel of desire, they might win thegreatest of boons in release from the perilous course oftransmigration. So emotionless a creed can hardly havebeen attractive to the world at large : its rules appearto have been designed for the regulation rather of the asce-tic than of the working life, and it expressed itself in thefoundation of monasteries and nunneries. For upwards oftwelve centuries Buddhism competed with Brahminismfor popular respect; but we may conjecture that, likeBuddhism and Shintoism in present-day Japan, the twocreeds did not divide the people, but shared almostindiscriminately their alms and devotions,—in fact, thatthe priests of each cult were its only sectaries. Buddhismwas adopted by Ceylon before the commencement of ourera : it spread to China in the fourth century, and we oweto the narratives of two Chinese pilgrims such informationas we possess of India during the fifth and seventhcenturies. Indeed, to the speculations of Hindu 158. BUDDHISM philosophy the religions of Eastern Asia are in such debtas Christianity must acknowledge to Greek apart, we may detect Indian ideas in theNature worship (Shintoism) of Japan. But the philo-sophical abstractions of Buddhistic teaching could notsatisfy the masses, and its tenets were enlarged by thedeification of its founder, and by the widening of thepath which led to its promises. In India proper it wasvanquished by Brahminism, and has been dead for thelast ten centuries. In Burma it has held its ground forfourteen centuries, but divides its authority over thepeople with the capricious demons of a spirit world. Herethe monastic system, indeed, survives : it is utilised as atemporary discipline, and to pass some years in the habitof a monk is a feature in the customary training of monasteries teach as weU as discipline, and a know-ledge of reading and writing is far more diffused in Burmathan in any Indian province. Nor can
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