Buddhism, says Max Müller, is the frontier between ancient and modern literature in India. He gives 477 B.C. as the probable date of Buddha’s death,[257] and describes the religion of that great sage as standing in the same relation to the ancient Brahmanism of the Veda as Italian to Latin, or as Protestantism to Catholicism. It is a development from Brahmanism, yet it is not the religion of India, though it has greatly influenced Hindu thought.[258]
Buddha’s religious system recognised no supreme deity; a Buddhist never really prays, he merely contemplates.[259]
Man can himself become the only god Buddha’s system finds room for. God becomes man in Brahmanism; man becomes a god in Buddhism. All existence is an evil to the Buddhist; “act” is to be got rid of as effectually as possible, for action means existence. The great end of the system is _Nirvāna_, or non-existence. “Of priests and clergy in our sense,” says Professor Williams, “the Buddhist religion has none.” Though there is no God, prayer is practised as a kind of charm against diseases; for malignant demons, as we might have expected, are believed by Buddhists to cause these and other evils. These Buddhist prayers are used like the Mantras of the Brahmins as charms against evils of all kinds. The Buddhists have a demon of love, anger, evil, and death, called Māra, the opponent of Buddha. He can send forth legions of evil demons like himself. Some of the precepts of Buddha are fully equal to those of the highest religions—Charity, Virtue, Patience, Fortitude, Meditation, and Knowledge. The special characteristic of Buddhism is the perfection of its tenderness and mercy towards all living creatures, even beasts of prey and noxious insects not being outside the circle of its sympathy. According to the Buddhist’s belief, all our acts ripen and go to form our Karma. The consequences of our acts must inexorably be worked out. This is Brahminical as well as Buddhistic doctrine. “In the Sábda-kalpa-druma, under the head of _Karma-vipāka_,” says Williams, “will be found a long catalogue of the various diseases with which men are born, as the fruit of evil deeds committed in former states of existence, and a declaration as to the number of births through which each disease will be protracted, unless, expiations be performed in the present life.”[260]
