Buddhism and Its Christian Critics

BRAHMANISM THE CRADLE OF BUDDHISM.

ABOUT two and a half millenniums ago, India was already in a very prosperous condition. The land yielded rich harvests; industries and arts flourished; and science kept abreast with the material development of civilization. Logic, however, and abstract reasoning had attained an unusually high development, for in these arts the ancient Indians were masters above all other nations in the world.

In those days the religious question was, perhaps, for the first time, recognized in its full importance, and led to investigations, discussions and various modes of solution. The central problem which lies at the root of all religion is concerned with the origin of, and the deliverance from, evil. We are thirsting for life, not only for life in general, but for individual life, for the preservation of our personal existence, its continuance, welfare, and further evolution; yet life involves us in pain, misery, labors, struggles, sickness, old age and death. The very contents of life seem to be made up of evils, as a means of escape from which religion was sought, and the religion of India was in those days, as it is now again, Brahmanism.