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The Brahminical system has not ceased to maintain its supremacy in India since the time when it was presented to view in the law-codes. But it has not escaped alteration and attack. New movements, religious and political, have appeared to modify its character. Of these, Buddhism is by far the most memorable.

THE LIFE OF BUDDHA.—Of the life of Buddha we have only legendary information, where it is impossible to separate fact from romance. The date of his death was between 482 and 472 B.C. He was then old. He belonged to the family of Gautamas, who were said to be of the royal line of the Çâkyas, a clan having its seat about a hundred and thirty-seven miles north of Benares. The story is, that, brought up in luxury, and destined to reign, he was so struck with the miseries of mankind, that, at the age of twenty-nine, he left his parents, his young wife, and an only son, and retired to a solitary life to meditate upon the cause of human suffering. From Brahminical teachers he could obtain no solution of the problem. But after seven years of meditation and struggle, during which sore temptations to return to a life of sense and of ease were successfully resisted, he attained to truth and to peace. For forty-four years after this he is said to have promulgated his doctrine, gathering about him disciples, whom he charged with the duty of spreading it abroad.

THE BUDDHISTIC DOCTRINE.—Buddhism was not a distinct revolt against the reigning system of religion. Buddha left theology to the Brahmans. Indra, Agni, and the other divinities, and the services rendered to them, he left untouched. Being an anchorite, he was not required to concern himself with the rites and observances in which others took part. His aim was practical. His doctrine, though resting on a theoretical basis, was propounded simply as a way of salvation from the burdens that oppressed the souls of men. Nor did he undertake a warfare against caste. The blessing of deliverance from the woes of life he opened to all without distinction. This was the limit of his opposition to caste.

THE ROAD TO NIRVANA.—Buddha taught, (1) that existence is always attended with misery; (2) that all modes of misery result from passion, or desire unsatisfied; (3) that desire must be quenched; (4) that there are four steps in doing this, and thus of arriving at NIRVANA, which is the state in which self is lost and absorbed, and vanishes from being. These four ways are (1) the awakening to a perception of the nature and cause of evil, as thus defined; (2) the consequent quenching of impure and revengeful feelings; (3) the stifling of all other evil desires, also riddance from ignorance, doubt, heresy, unkindliness, and vexation; (4) the entrance into Nirvana, sooner or later, after death. The great boon which Buddha held out was escape from the horrors of transmigration. He attributed to the soul no substantial existence. It is the Karma, or another being, the successor of one who dies, the result and effect of all that he was, who re-appears in case of transmigration. Buddhism involved atheism, and the denial of personal immortality, or, where this last tenet was not explicitly denied, uncertainty and indifference respecting it. On the foundation of Buddha's teaching, there grew up a vast system of monasticism, with ascetic usages not less burdensome than the yoke of caste. The attractive feature of Buddhism was its moral precepts. These were chiefly an inculcation of chastity, patience, and compassion; the unresisting endurance of all ills; sympathy and efficient help for all men.

DEIFICATION OF BUDDHA.—By the pupils of Buddha he was glorified. He was placed among the Brahminical gods, by whom he was served. A multitude of cloisters were erected in his honor, in which his relics were believed to be preserved. On the basis of the simpler doctrine and precepts of the founder, there accumulated a mass of superstitious beliefs and observances.

THE SPREAD OF BUDDHISM.—After the death of Buddha, it is said that his disciples, to the number of five hundred, assembled, and divided his teaching into three branches—his own words, his rules of discipline, and his system of doctrine. During the next two centuries Buddhism spread over northern India. One of the most conspicuous agents in its diffusion was Asoka, the king of Behar, who was converted to the Buddhistic faith, and published its tenets throughout India. His edicts, in which they were set forth, were engraved on rocks and pillars and in caves. He organized missionary efforts among the aborigines, using only peaceful means, and combining the healing of disease, and other forms of philanthropy, with preaching. He carried the Buddhistic faith as far as Ceylon. It spread over Burmah (450 A.D.). Siam was converted (638 A.D.), and Java between the fifth and seventh centuries of our era. Through Central Asia the Buddhistic missionaries passed into China in the second century B.C., and Buddhism became an established system there as early as 65 A.D. At present, this religion numbers among its professed adherents more than a third of the human race.

THE BRAHMINICAL RE-ACTION.—In India Buddhism did not supplant the old religion. The Brahmans modified their system. They made their theology more plain to the popular apprehension. They took up Buddhistic speculations into their system. But they rendered their ceremonial practices more complex and more burdensome. Their ascetic rule grew to be more exacting and oppressive. In diffusing and making popular their system, customs, like the burning of widows, were introduced, which were not known in previous times. The divinities, Brahma, the author of all things, Vishnu the preserver, and Siva the destroyer, were brought into a relation to one another, as a sort of triad. Successive incarnations of Vishnu became an article of the creed, Krishna being one of his incarnate names. For centuries Brahmanism and Buddhism existed together. Gradually Buddhism decayed, and melted into the older system; helping to modify its character, and thus to give rise to modern Hinduism. For ten centuries Buddhism, with multitudinous adherents abroad, has had no existence in the land of its birth.

THE GREEK-ROMAN PERIOD.—In 327 B.C., Alexander the Great advanced in his victorious career as far as India, entered the Punjab, which was then divided among petty kingdoms, and defeated one of the kings, Porus, who disputed the passage of the river Jhelum. The heat of the climate and the reluctance of his troops caused the Macedonian invader to turn back from his original design of penetrating to the Ganges. Near the confluence of the five rivers he built a town, Alexandria. He founded, also, other towns, established alliances, and left garrisons. On the death of Alexander (323 B.C.) and the division of his empire, Bactria and India fell to the lot of Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the Syrian monarchy. About this time a new kingdom grew up in the valley of the Ganges, under the auspices of Chandra Gupti, a native. After various conflicts, Seleucus ceded the Greek settlements in the Punjab to this prince, to whom he gave his daughter in marriage. The successors of Seleucus sent Græco-Bactrian expeditions into India. Thus Greek science and Greek art exerted a perceptible influence in Hindustan. During the first six centuries of the Christian era, Scythian hordes poured down into northern India. They were stoutly resisted, but effected settlements, and made conquests. The events as well as the dates of the long struggle are obscure. The non-Aryan races of India, both on the north and on the south of the Ganges, many of whom received the Buddhistic faith, were not without a marked influence—the precise lines of which it is difficult to trace—upon the history and life of India during the period of Greek and Scythic occupation and warfare. The Dravidian people in southern India, made up of non-Aryans, number at present forty-six millions.

LITERATURE.—Mill's History of India (Wilson's edition, 9 vols.); MONIER WILLIAMS, Indian Wisdom; Max Müller's History of Sanskrit Literature; EARTH'S The Religions of India, 1882; Encycl. Brit., Arts. India, Brahmanism, Buddhism.