Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 134
BUDDHISM have come to learn of Buddhism, had never visited. India. They had only studied this religion in books; an unfortunate twist of fate made them chance upon the works of philosophical sects written five or six centuries after the death of Buddha, these being absolutely alien to the religion practised in reality. . The metaphysical speculations which had so astonished Europeans by their profoundity were in fact nothing new. Ever since the books of India have been better known, these have been found in the writings of philosophical sects which had developed during the Brahmanic period. * 1. So far, Dr Le Bon seems to be perfectly right in his criticism, but as is apparent from the following text, he himself committed the same mistake of not deriving the concept of true Buddhism, strictly as it is presented by the writings on the stupas which never mention Buddhism as polytheistic. In the words of Dr Le Bon:. It is not in the books, but in the monuments that one should study what Buddhism used to be. What the monuments tell us differs strangely from what certain books teach us. The monuments prove that this religion, which modern scholars want to see as an atheistic cult, was, on the contrary, the most polytheistic out of all the cults. * 2. It is this last part of his statement which is false as will be presently shown. . After Dr Le Bon, another renowned scholar, Arthur. Lillie drew a completely different conclusion from his careful study of the inscriptions on Ashoka's stupas. He amply quotes them in his book, India in Primitive *. Both these passages have been faithfully translated from Dr. Le Bon's original book which is in French. 134