1849.] Br ahmans and Buddhists. 129 



If the brahmans, when Buddhism was advancing, had possessed but a 

 fraction of that power the Hindu priesthood now has, there would have 

 been no Buddhism within the area of its influence. They must then 

 have feared the people, and the latter must have had no serious, if any, 

 obstacle opposed to a change of religion. In fact, the whole of Indian 

 society, brahmans included, seems for a long period to have been fer- 

 menting with opposing philosophical, religious and metaphysical theories, 

 which prevented the public mind from settling down to one belief, and 

 it was a mighty point gained by Buddha or the Buddhas, when he, or 

 they, drew off the minds of the multitude from vain antological specu- 

 lations and ethnical absurdities and grossnesses, and directed it to the 

 plain, although perhaps not equally attractive path of ethology. 



It is observed (p. 807,) that Sakya attached little importance to reli- 

 gious forms or to the offering of flowers and perfumes. If it be meant 

 by this that flowers and perfumes were Buddhist offerings in the last 

 Buddha's time, to whom were they offered ? They must have been so 

 to a prior Buddha. If such offerings had no existence until after Sa- 

 kya' s death, this Buddhism could only be properly said to have com- 

 menced from that last period when these honors were paid at his 

 shrine. But I agree with Dr. Roer in believing that there must have 

 been statues of the three* Buddhas previous to Sakya' s time ; and this, 

 whether such persons ever existed or not — I have already stated my 

 opinion that they did exist within reasonable periods gauged by the 

 moral necessities of the Indian population, or any other one amongst 

 whom they lived, although the objection might be started that they 

 were merely the exponents of Astronomical or Cosmographical periods. 



That which has in the west been called Buddhism, or a derivative 

 from it, such as Druidism and the religion of Odin or Wodin, and per- 

 haps other religions, have been assigned almost invariably to some 

 region of upper central Asia; Indo-Scythia generally. The Buddhism of 

 India therefore must, if connected with any more western one, have 

 been much more ancient than Sakya' s system, or in other words, the 

 parent of it. The Goths brought with them from Indo-Scythia to the 

 west the mythology of those religions bordering on Persia and Hin- 

 dustan, f 



* I suppose 4 is a misprint. 



t Faber's Cabiri, Vol. I. p. 290. 



S 



