nism the bond of union supplied
by the Brahmans who by sometimes originating, sometimes tolerating and
adapting, have managed to set their seal upon all Indian beliefs.

3

Thus the dominance of the Brahmans and their readiness to countenance
every cult and doctrine which can attract worshippers explains the
diversity of Indian religion, but are there no general characteristics
which mark all its multiple forms? There are, and they apply to Buddhism
as well as Hinduism, but in attempting to formulate them it is well to
say that Indian religion is as wilful and unexpected in its variations
as human nature itself and that all generalizations about it are subject
to exceptions. If we say that it preaches asceticism and the subjection
of the flesh, we may be confronted with the Vallabhacaryas who inculcate
self-indulgence; if we say that it teaches reincarnation and successive
lives, we may be told that the Lingayats[131] do not hold that doctrine.
And though we might logically maintain that these sects are unorthodox,
yet it does not appear that Hindus excommunicate them. Still, it is just
to say that the doctrines mentioned are characteristic of Hinduism and
are repudiated only by eccentric sects.

Perhaps the idea which has had the widest and most penetrating influence
on Indian thought is that conception of the Universe which is known as
Samsara, the world of change and transmigration. The idea of rebirth and
the wandering of souls from one body to another exists in a fragmentary
form among savage tribes in many countries, but in India it makes its
appearance as a product of ripening metaphysics rather than as a
survival. It plays no part in the Vedic hymns: it first acquires
importance in the older Upanishads but more as a mystery to be
communicated to the elect than as a popular belief and to some extent as
the special doctrine of the military class rather than of the Brahmans.
At the time of the Buddha, however, it had passed beyond this stage and
was as integral a part of popular theology as is the immortality of the
soul in Europe.

Such expressions as the transmigration of souls or metempsychosis
imperfectly represent Indian ideas. They are incorrect as descriptions
of Buddhist dogmas, which start by denying the existence of a soul, and
they are not entirely suitable to those Vedantic schools which regard
transmigration as part of the illusory phenomenal world. The thought
underlying the doctrine is rather t