368 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
an allusion to Buddhism in the Gita. [1] But his idea was based on a confusion between the Buddhists and the Charvakas or materialists. [2 ] Failing that allusion, we have nothing very tangible but the unsatisfactory ‘negative argument’ based on mere non-mention of Buddhism in the Gita. That argument is not quite satisfactory to my own mind, although, as I have elsewhere pointed out, [3] some of the ground occupied by the Gita is common to it with Buddhism, and although various previous thinkers are alluded to directly or indirectly in the Gita. There is, however, one view of the facts of this question, which appears to me to corroborate the conclusion deducible by means of the negative argument here referred to. The main points on which Budddha’s protest against Brahmanism rests, seem to be the true authority of the Vedas and the true view of the differences of caste. On most points of doctrinal speculation. Buddhism is still but one aspect of the older Brahmanism [4] . The various coincidences to which we have drawn attention show that, if there is need to show it. Well now, on both these points, the Gita, while it does not go the whole length which Buddha goes, itself embodies a protest against the views current about the time of its composition. The Gita does not, like Buddhism, absolutely reject the Vedas, but it shelves them. The Gita does not totally root out caste. It places caste on a less untenable basis. One of two hypothesis therefore presents itself as a rational theory of these facts. Either the Gita and Buddhism were alike the outward manifestation of one and the same spiritual upheaval which shook to its centre the current religion, the Gita being the earlier and less thorough going form of it; or Buddhism having already begun to tell on Brahmanism, the Gita was an attempt to bolster it up, so to say, at its least weak points, the weaker ones being altogether abandoned. I do not accept the latter alternative, because I cannot see any indication in the Gita of an attempt to compromise with a powerful attack on the old Hindu system while the fact that, though strictly orthodox, the author of the Gita still undermines the authority, as unwisely venerated, of the Vedic revelation; and the further fact, that in doing this, he is doing what others also had done before him or about his time; go, in my opinion, a considerable way towards fortifying the results of the negative argument already set forth. To me Buddhism is perfectly intelligible as one outcome of that play of thought on high
1 Essays on Sanskrit Literature. Vo. Ill p. 150.
2 See our remarks on this point in the Introductory Essay to our Gita in verse p. II seq.
3 Introduction to Gita in English verse p. v. seq,
4 Cr. Max Muller’s Hibbert Lectures, p. 137 Webet’s Indian Literature, pp. 288, 289: and Rhys Davids’ excellent little volume on Buddhism, p. 151; and see also p. 83 of Mr. Davids’ book.