casioned the rise of various theological
and philosophical systems. To these belong, first, the "Vedanta," (end
of the Veda) or the dogmatic-apologetic exposition of the Veda. This
contains (1) the establishment of the authority of the Veda as holy
scripture revealed by Brahma, and also of the relation in which it
stands to tradition; (2) the proof that everything in the Veda has
reference to Brahma; (3) the ascetic system, or the discipline. To
explain contradictory statements in the older and later parts of the
Veda, Brahminical learning makes use of the subtleties of an
harmonistical method of interpretation. Second, the "Mimansa" (inquiry),
devoted to the solution of the problem, How can the material world
spring from Brahma, or the immaterial? According to this system, there
is only one Supreme Being, Paramatma, a name by which Brahma himself had
been already distinguished in Manu's book of law. Outside of this
highest _Being_, there is nothing real. The world of sense, or nature,
(Maya, the female side of Brahma), is mere seeming and illusion of the
senses. The human spirit is a part of Brahma, but perverted, misled by
this same illusion to the conceit that he is individual. This illusion
is done away with by a deeper insight, by means of which the dualism
vanishes from the wise man's view, and the conceit gives place to the
true knowledge that Brahma alone really exists, that nature, on the
contrary, is nought, and the human spirit nothing else than Brahma
himself. Third, the "Sankya" (criticism) originating with Kapila, in
which, in opposition to the "Mimansa," the individual being and the real
existence of nature, in opposition to spirit, is laid down as the
starting-point, and the result reached is the doctrine of two original
forces, spirit and nature, from whose reciprocal action and reaction
upon each other the union of soul and body is to be explained. Is this
union unnatural, then the effort of the wise man should be to free
himself, through the perception that the soul is not bound to the body,
from the dominion of matter. In this system, there is no room for an
infinite being, for, if a material world exist, then must God be limited
by its existence, and therefore cease to be infinite, that is God. The
Sankya philosophy here came in conflict with the orthodox doctrine of
the Brahmins, and prepared the way for Buddhism.

_d. Buddhism._

Against Brahminism Buddhism arose as a reaction. Siddharta, son o