SECTION A BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM 



(Hall 8, September 23, 10 a. m.) 



SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR HERMANN OLDENBERG, University of Kiel. 



PROFESSOR MAURICE BLOOMFIELD, Johns Hopkins University. 

 SECRETARY: DR. REGINALD C. ROBBINS, Harvard University. 



THE RELATIONS OF THE RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT INDIA 

 TO THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION 



BY HERMANN OLDENBERG 

 (Translated from the German by Prof. E. W. Bagster-Collins, Columbia University) 



[Hermann Oldenberg, Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Grammar, Univers- 

 ity of Kiel, Prussia, b. 1854, Hamburg, Germany. University of Berlin, 1871- 

 72; University of Gottingen, 1872-74; University of Berlin, 1874-75. Ph.D. 

 University of Berlin; Privat-docent, University of Berlin, 1878-81; Professor 

 extraordinarius, ibid. 1881-89; Professor ordinarius, University of Kiel, since 

 1889. Member of German Oriental Society, Corresponding Member of Society 

 of Sciences, Gottingen. Author of Buddha ; The Hymns of the Rig-Veda; The 

 Religion of the Veda; From India and Iran; The Literature of Ancient India.} 



IN this paper I shall attempt to answer for my own theme those 

 questions which this Congress puts to the representatives of every 

 science. What relation does the investigation of the religions of an- 

 cient India bear to other allied branches of research and to the 

 science of religion as a whole? 



Before, however, tracing the lines of connection that carry us 

 beyond the boundaries of our own province, I dare not, self-evident 

 as this may seem, fail to mention the fact that a large part of our 

 scientific labor has to be carried on within its own domain, so to 

 speak, for itself alone. Like all historians, we investigate individual 

 forms that are never again identically repeated. At the most they 

 are only similar. Our first desire is, then, not to compare these 

 forms with others, nor to subordinate them to general formulas. We 

 wish, rather, to grasp their meaning truly and fully as if they were 

 independent. Everywhere in the study of history there is to-day 

 a mighty force that impels the student to search for the incom- 

 mensurable, the elemental in the lives of nations as well as of individ- 

 uals. And perhaps in few fields of historical investigation is this 

 feature naturally so strongly accentuated as in our own. The people 



