INDIAN HISTORY IS...............BRAHMINISM 335
revolution affecting the society morals. Government and philosophy which can be proved to have privilege of the ancient Indians. India probably was one of the countries which preached rationalism such as the kind of which the world before nowhere has seen. India has been a land of revolution in comparison to which the French Revolution would be only “Bagatella” and nothing more.
Differences between Brahminism and Buddhism
Students of Indian History, in my judgment, must bear one fact in mind and it is the one which has been completely neglected by the historians who have written about history of India. It is a fundamental fact and unless that was borne in mind, no one can understand the history of India. The fundamental fact is that there has in ancient India, a great struggle between Buddhism and Brahminism. The history of India is nothing if it is not one of great struggle. It is not even a struggle as has been repeated by professors of philosophy but a quarrel over some creed. It was not only a revolution in doctrine but a revolution in the political and social philosophy. The quarrel between Buddhism and Brahminism was on this one issue and that was “What is truth ? What can be accepted as truth ?” That is the bedrock of the question with which rationalism deals. The answer that Buddha gave as to what was truth was fundamentally different from the one which the Brahmins gave. Buddha said that truth was something to which any one of the “Dasa Indriyas” can bear witness. The Brahminic doctrine of truth was that it was something which was declared by Vedas (Laughter). They should make no mistake but that was the most important doctrine of Brahminism. The Buddhists were revolutionaries and Brahmins were counter-revolutionaries. That was the difference between Buddhism and Brahminism. Why the Brahmins from the ancient times insisted that the Vedas must be accepted as the Final authority of all social and religious doctrines, it is something difficult to say. But I am surprised that so clever a people like the ancient Brahmins should have insisted upon fastening such tremendous sanctity and authority on such books which consisted nothing else but tomfoolery.