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 of Suddhodana, the King of Kapilavastu, of the family of the Sakya, (about 450 B.C.) moved by the misery of his fellow-countrymen, determined to examine into the causes of it, and, if possible, to find means of remedying it. Initiated into the wisdom of the Brahmins, but not satisfied with that, after years of solitary retirement and quiet meditation, penetrated with the principles of the Sankya, he traversed the land as pilgrim (Sakya-muni, Sramana, Gautama) and opened to the people of India a new religious epoch. The tendency of the new doctrine was to break up the system of caste, and free the people from the galling yoke of the Brahminical hierarchy and dogmas. While in Brahminism man was deprived of his individuality, and regarded only as an effluence from Brahma, and tormented by the fear of hell, and by the thought of a ceaseless process of countless new births awaiting him after death, whence the necessity of the most painful penances and chastisements, Sakya-muni began with man as an individual, and in morals put purity, abstinence, patience, brotherly love, and repentance for sins committed above sacrifice and bodily mortification, and opened to his followers the prospect, after this weary life, no more to be exposed to the ever-recurring pains of new birth, but released from all suffering to return to Nirvana, or nothingness. While Brahminism drew a distinction between man and man, and with hierarchical pride took no thought of the Sudra or lower class of the people, and limited wisdom to the priestly caste, Sakya-muni preached the equality of all men, came forward as a preacher to the people, used the people's language, and chose his followers out of all classes, even from among women. Both of these opposed systems are one-sided. In Brahminism, God is all, and man, as personal being, nothing; in Buddhism, man is recognized as an individual, but apart from God, while in both systems, the highest endeavor is to be delivered from, according to Brahminism a seeming, according to Sakya-muni a really existing individuality, the source of all human woe, and to lose one's self either in Brahma or in the Nirvana.

Less on account of his doctrine, in which there is found neither a God nor a personal immortality, than on account of the universal character of his words and of his life, Sakya-muni continued in honor after his death, as the benefactor of the people and as the Buddha, the wise, pre-eminently; and afterwards was deified, and took his place in the ranks of the recognized gods as their superior. Thus there arose in Buddhism, by a departure from the doctrine of the master, a new polytheism. This was afterwards, through the influence of the Brahminical priestly caste, suppressed in India, but spread over other parts of Asia, to the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and also to China.

e. Later modification of Brahminism in connection with the worship of Siva and Vishnu.

While Brahminism saw itself menaced by the steadily increasing influence of Buddhism, the former nature-religion, dispossessed by the Brahmins, asserted its rights in the worship of Siva in the valleys of the Himalaya Mountains, and in that of Vishnu on the banks of the Ganges. Siva is the Rudra of the Veda, the boisterous god of storms, the giver of rain and growth. Vishnu is the same divinity among other races, conceived under the influence of a softer climate in a modified form as the blue sky. Both divinities, originally belonging to different parts of India, were afterwards taken, first Vishnu, and then also Siva, into the theological system of the Brahmins, and formed with Brahma, but not until the fourth century after Christ, the trimurti, according to which the one supreme being Parabrama is worshiped in the threefold form of Brahma the creating, Vishnu the sustaining, and Siva the destroying power of nature. To this later period of Brahminism belongs also the alteration of the old epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, by which the heroes Rama and Krishna are represented as avatars, that is incarnations or human impersonations, of Vishnu. In this also there is evidently an effort to bring the deity, conceived as the abstract One, into closer union with man, an effort which is likewise visible in the later Yoga system of the Brahmins, in which, by the admission of Buddhistic elements, the visible world is recognized as real, the old rigid asceticism mitigated, Vishnu represented as the soul of the world, and immortality taught as a return of the individual soul to Brahma.

2. THE WEST ARIANS, IRANIANS.

[THE BACTRIANS, MEDES, PERSIANS.]

The ancient religion of the Bactrians in the period before Zoroaster was patriarchal, and consisted in the worship of fire, as the beneficent power of nature, and of Mithras, the god of the sun, combined with that of the good spirits (Ahuras), among which were Geus-Urva (the spirit of the earth), Cpento-mainyus (the white spirit), Armaiti (the earth, or also the spirit of piety), and of the hero-spirits Sraosha, Traetona, which as light and darkness are distinguished from Angro (the black spirit).

Later, as it seems, the theology and worship of the neighboring nomadic Arya penetrated to these nations, and caused a religious conflict which ended with the migration of Arya to the south. At this period Zarathustra[2] (Zoroaster) came forward under the Bactrian priest and King Kava Vistaspa, as defender and reformer of the religion of the fathers against the encroachments of a strange doctrine. The Devas (Zend, Dews) or the gods of the Indian Veda appear with Zarathustra as evil spirits. Not Indra, but the hero Traetona, wages war with Ahi (Zend, Azhi), while the kavis, or priests, are attacked by him as deceivers and liars. From the belief in good spirits (Ahuras, i.e., the living, and Mazdas, i.e., the wise), the ancient genii of the country, Zarathustra developed the belief of one highest God, Ahura-Mazda (Ormuzd, Greek, [Greek: Osompzês]), a doctrine which he received by divine