the unique
position acquired by the Brahman aristocracy have determined the
character of Hindu religion--protean and yet unmistakeably Indian in all
its phases--and I also investigate the influence of the belief in
rebirth, which from the time of the Upanishads onwards dominates Indian
thought. In the fourth and fifth chapters I trace the survival of some
ancient ideas and show how many attributes of the Vedic gods can be
found in modern deities who are at first sight widely different and how
theories of salvation by sacrifice or asceticism or knowledge have been
similarly persistent. In the sixth chapter I attempt to give a picture
of religious life, both Brahmanic and non-Brahmanic, as it existed in
India about the time when the Buddha was born. Of the non-Brahmanic
sects which then flourished most have disappeared, but one, namely the
Jains, has survived and left a considerable record in literature and
art. I have therefore devoted a chapter to it here.

My object in this book is to discuss the characteristics of Indian
religion which are not only fundamental but ancient. Hence this is not
the place to dwell on Bhakti or relatively modern theistic sects,
however great their importance in later Hinduism may be.

CHAPTER I

RELIGIONS OP INDIA AND EASTERN ASIA

The countries with which this work deals are roughly speaking India with
Ceylon; Indo-China with parts of the Malay Archipelago; Japan and China
with the neighbouring regions such as Tibet and Mongolia. All of them
have been more or less influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism and in hardly
any of them is Mohammedanism the predominant creed[103], though it may
have numerous adherents. The rest of Asia is mainly Mohammedan or
Christian and though a few Buddhists may be found even in Europe (as the
Kalmuks) still neither Hinduism nor Buddhism has met with general
acceptance west of India.

In one sense, the common element in the religion of all these countries
is the presence of Indian ideas, due in most cases to Buddhism which is
the export form of Hinduism, although Brahmanic Hinduism reached Camboja
and the Archipelago. But this is not the element on which I wish now to
insist. I would rather enquire whether apart from the diffusion of ideas
which has taken place in historical times, there is any common
substratum in the religious temperament of this area, any fund of
primitive, or at least prehistoric ideas, shared by its inhabitants.
Such common idea