478 BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM 



an historical problem broad in scope. What forces, what thoughts 

 have been set in motion here during these thousands of years! The 

 forms, however, in which the sacrifice appears are at first incompre- 

 hensible hieroglyphics; our task is to decipher them Nowhere do 

 we find such exhaustive details regarding the sacrifice as in ancient 

 India, especially the period of its richest maturity, to which it had 

 been brought by the long labors of the priestly caste. How much 

 more clearly we see the Vedic Brahman exercising his office than the 

 Roman Flamen, for instance! Accordingly, I think, and the results 

 already obtained bear me out, that any one who desires to recon- 

 struct and interpret the remains of Western sacrificial rites and 

 ceremonies must get his inspiration above all from India. Indian 

 tradition is just as instructive, if one attempts to get a glimpse of 

 how those tendencies that incline toward uniting religion and morals 

 forced their way into the old mass of religious ideas, that were 

 rather indifferent to moral ideals. It would be an endless task, how- 

 ever, to indicate all similar problems. We should meet with the same 

 experience in every case; namely, that the Vedic religion, both by 

 virtue of its historic position and its magnificent state of preserva- 

 tion, offers unparalleled opportunities for study to any one who 

 desires to penetrate to the heart, to the very foundations of those 

 old religions, religions with an old and crude basis, with the crea- 

 tions of riper thought and feeling above, and finally, we may add, 

 with the seeds just visible of a still riper, more perfect future 

 growth. 



I should like to illustrate still further the importance of the 

 Indian religions for the general problems of the science of religion 

 by mentioning one form that appears later than the Vedic period. 

 Buddhism represents to us one of the highest forms of religion. 

 Buddhism and Christianity have long since seemed to be comparable 

 to the mind that seeks to bring harmony into the bewildering relig- 

 ious phenomena. They are the most powerful religions of the East 

 and West. Both are world-religions having no national boundaries. 

 Both are religions teaching salvation, breaking all restrictions set 

 by ceremony or law. The same type of religion of salvation thus 

 the relation has been formulated has been realized twice in the 

 history of the world, in the West by Christianity, and in the East 

 by Buddhism. 



It is quite evident how great the interests of the science of relig- 

 ion are in a discussion of this scheme. The student of Buddhism 

 will, however, appreciate the fact that he and his fellow worker in the 

 New Testament will not of themselves be able to make such a dis- 

 cussion possible. A third must help, the student of Greek thought. 

 It is known how nearly related to Buddhism are the ideas that 

 flourished in certain old Grecian religious orders and schools of 



