Buddhism: Its History and Literature

Religious Theories in India before Buddhism.

IT has often been maintained that there is no nation or tribe without religion. But what is meant by religion? The word, as is well known, is not found in languages not related to our own, and its derivation is uncertain. Cicero, in one passage, derived it from re and lego> and held that its real meaning was the repetition of prayers and incantations. Another interpretation derives the word from re and ligo, and makes its original sense that of attachment, of a continual binding (that is, no doubt, to the gods). A third derivation connects the word with lex, and explains it as a law-abiding, scrupulously conscientious, frame of mind. This last seems to be most in accordance with the conceptions prevalent when the use of the phrase began, and more in harmony with the similar expressions that arose under similar circumstances elsewhere in China, for instance, and in India. In India, indeed, the same word is used by the followers of every school of thought for law and for religion the word Dharma, etymologically equivalent to the Latin forma^ and constantly reminding us in its implied connotation of the English phrase “good form.”