so that for some time nothing else is present to
the mind and the image of the flower is seen and realized in all its
details, is most efficacious for producing mental calm and alertness. By
such simple exercises the mind learns how to rest and refresh itself.
Its quickness of apprehension and its retentive power are considerably
increased, for words and facts imprinted on it when by the suppression
of its ordinary activities it has thus been made a _tabula rasa_ remain
fixed and clear.

Such great expressions of emotional theism as the Ramayana of Tulsi Das
are likely to find sympathetic readers in Europe, but the most original
feature of Indian thought is that, as already mentioned, it produces
systems which can hardly be refused the name of religion and yet are
hardly theistic. The Buddha preached a creed without reference to a
supreme deity and the great Emperor Asoka, the friend of man and beast,
popularized this creed throughout India. Even at the present day the
prosperous and intelligent community of Jains follow a similar doctrine
and the Advaita philosophy diverges widely from European theism. It is
true that Buddhism invented gods for itself and became more and more
like Hinduism and that the later Vedantist and Sivaite schools have a
strong bent to monotheism. Yet all Indian theism seems to me to have a
pantheistic tinge[93] and India is certainly the classic land of
Pantheism. The difficulties of Pantheism are practical: it does not lend
itself easily to popular cries and causes and it finds it hard to
distinguish and condemn evil[94]. But it appeals to the scientific
temper and is not repulsive to many religious and emotional natures.
Indeed it may be said that in monotheistic creeds the most thoughtful
and devout minds often tend towards Pantheism, as witness the Sufis
among Moslims, the Kabbalists among the Jews and many eminent mystics in
the Christian Church. In India, the only country where the speculative
interest is stronger than the practical, it is a common form of belief
and it is of great importance for the history and criticism of religion
to see how an idea which in Europe is hardly more than philosophic
theory works on a large scale.

Later Buddhism--the so-called Mahayana--may be justly treated as one of
the many varieties of Indian religion, not more differentiated from
others than is for instance the creed of the Sikhs. The speculative side
of early Buddhism (which was however mainly a pr