Search

The word religion, as commonly used, refers to complex institutions which are made up of many different elements. I am not so much interested in the complex institutions which we call religions as I am in isolating from them the element which causes us to call them religions. I am interested in the religious attitude of mind rather than in religion as an institution. Similarly, in regard to science, I am interested in the scientific attitude of mind rather than in applied science. To most people the word science means applied science rather than the scientific attitude of mind.

Buddhist literature is not complete in any one language. The primary sources for the study of Buddhism consist of texts in Pali, in Sanskrit (with some fragments in Prakrit, and a few texts in a mixed dialect — as though composed by men who were trying to turn Prakrit into Sanskrit but who had a very imperfect knowledge of Sanskrit grammar), in Chinese, in Tibetan, and in several of the languages which were current in Chinese Turkestan. There are also texts in Mongolian, but these seem to be derivatives from Tibetan, and not of primary importance.

IN MANY RECENT BOOKS, both by Indian and by western writers, is found the statement that the civilization of India is and always has been essentially spiritual. It is a wide-spread idea that Indian civilization has been completely dominated by mysticism and asceticism, by world-renouncing religions. The Indians are depicted as dreamy lotus-eaters who have been so engrossed with spiritual things, with questions of God, their souls, and their salvation, that they have paid a minimum of attention to worldly things. The facts of the matter are in sharp contradiction to the point of view just stated. Indian civilization has always been controlled by precisely the same combination of forces that has controlled western civilizations or any other civilization in the world. There never has been a people which has devoted itself, as a whole, exclusively to the practice of religion, which has directed its efforts exclusively to spiritual and non-worldly ends. This religious element has been only one factor in Indian life, and a much less important factor than is generally supposed. There have been millions whose lives have been dominated, in whole or in major part, by purely spiritual impulses, but these have never formed more than a small minority of the population as a whole. It is probably true that in India a religious sanction has been extended over more social matters than anywhere else in the world, but in the resulting synthesis of religious and social life which we call Hinduism most of these matters have become so stereotyped that they really have much less spiritual content than is commonly supposed. A merely nominal participation in external religious ceremonies does not necessarily imply a deep spiritual content. One reason for the exaggerated emphasis which is often placed upon the spiritual element in Indian life is the fact that the only literature which has been preserved from the first thousand years or so of Indian literary history is almost entirely religious. Moreover, in dealing with the later period much more attention has