Chap. XI.] BEAHMANISM TRIUMPHS OVER BUDDHISM. 



From the earliest period of Indian tradition, the strug- 

 gle between the religion of Buddha and that of Brahma 

 was carried on with a fanaticism and perseverance which 

 resulted in the ascendancy of the Brahmans, perhaps about 

 the commencement of the Christian era, and the eventual 

 expulsion some centuries later of the worship of their 

 rivals from Hindustan ; but at what precise time the latter 

 catastrophe was consummated has not been recorded in 

 the annals of either sect.^ 



That Buddhism thus dispersed over eastern and central 

 Asia became an active agent in the promotion of whatever 

 civilisation afterwards enlightened the races by whom 

 its doctrines were embraced, seems to rest npon e\ddence 

 which admits of no reasonable doubt. The introduction 

 of Buddhism into China is ascertained to have been con- 



one time eonj ectured to Toe the Woden 

 of the Scythians; at another the 

 prophet Daniel, whom Nebnchad- 

 nezzar had created master of the 

 astrologers, or chief priest of the Magi, 

 as the title is rendered in the Septua- 

 gint — Apyoi'-ci Majif)}'. An anti- 

 quarian of Wales, in devising a 

 pedigTee for the Cymri, has imported 

 ancestors for the ancient Britons from 

 Ceylon ; and a writer in the Asiatic 

 JResearches, in 1807, as a preamble to 

 the proof that the binomial theorem 

 was familiar to tlie Hindus, has 

 traced Western ciAilisation to an 

 irruption of philosophers from India, 

 identified the Druids with the Brah- 

 mans, and declared Stoueheuge to be 

 ''one of the temples of Boodh." 

 (Asiat. 2ies., vol. ii. p. 448.) A stiU 

 more recent investigator, M. Mattpied, 

 has collected, in his Essai sur V Orif/ine 

 dcs Pciqjles Anciens, what he considers 

 to be the evidence that Buddhism 

 may be indebted for its appearance in 

 India to the captivity of the Jews by 

 Salmanasar, 729 B.C.; to their disper- 

 sion by Assar-Addon at a still more 

 recent period ; to their captivity in 

 Babylon, 006 B.C. ; their diffusion 

 over Media and the East, Persia, 

 Bactria, Thibet, and China, and the 

 communication of tlieir sacred book 



to the nations amongst whom they 

 thus became sojourners. He ven- 

 tures even to suggest a possible iden- 

 tity between the names Jehovah and 

 Buddha: " Les voyelles du mot 

 Bouddha sont les memes que celles 

 du mot Jehovah, qu'on prononce 

 aussi JoKva ; mais d'ailleurs le noni 

 de Boudda a bien pu eti-e tire du mot 

 Jeoudda Juda, le dieu de Joudda 

 Boudda.'" — Chap. ix. p. 2.35. To 

 account for the purer morals of Budd- 

 hism, Mavpied has recourse to the 

 conjecture that they may have been 

 influenced by the preaching of St. 

 Thomas at Ceylon, and Bartholomew 

 on the continent of India. '' Or il 

 nous semble locjique de condure de tons 

 ces faits que le Bouddhisme, dans ses 

 doctrines essetitielles, est cT orif/ine Juice 

 et Chretienne; consequence inattendue 

 pour In jilus de nos lecteurs sans doute." 

 — Maupied, ch. ix. p. 257 ; ch. x. 

 p. 263. 



^ The final overthrow of Buddhism 

 in Bahar and its expulsion from Hin- 

 dustan took place probably between 

 the seventh and twelfth centuries of 

 the Christian era. Colonel Sykes, 

 however, extends the period to the 

 tliirteenth or fom-teonth (Asiatic 

 Journal, vol. iv. p. 334). 



