3. The Art of Writing

trade relations with Babylonia through the Persian Gulf, and India had become acquainted with the Aramaic alphabet. This alphabet, somewhat modified, came into use in northwestern India. It now goes under the name of Kharoshti, but did not long survive. Another script, probably the invention of Indian minds, and now known as the Brahmi script, supplanted the former and spread over India, becoming the parent of all Indian scripts. The introduction of the art of writing had a marked influence on Indian religious history, traceable from the time when Buddhism and Jainism (qq.v.) used the vernacular to spread their faiths. The Brahmans, however, .partly because of the perishable nature of the material used for writing, partly because of a natural conservatism, and partly because the Sanskrit was held too sacred to be committed to writing, did not use the new invention for the preservation of what came down to them from the sacred past. Thus Vedic hymns still passed from generation to generation through (;he avenue of memory.

This long period, from unknown times to the rise of Buddhism and its contemporary Jainism, about

4. Amalgamation of Civilizations

portion the amalgamation of two differ- ant civilizations, Aryan and Dravidian,

Civilizations.

and the commingling of their religious ideas, but with supremacy to the

Aryan, may be considered the preparatory .period in the development of the religious history of India. Not until the amalgamation of the two races was complete could there be a history proper of Indian religious life. The Aryan race supplied India with her philosophy suited to the intelligent; the' Dravidian race supplied the elements for. worship and the practical religious life. Each was made to explain the other, and so far as can be gathered, a common elastic faith, suited to different intelligences, and undisturbed by heresies, pervaded the civilized part of India.

1. Rise of Buddhism and Jainism

previously completed, Indian religious

Buddhism thought and life developed undisand turbed. The invasion of India by

Jainism. Alexander the Great in 327 B.C. was a temporary exception to freedom from foreign invasion, as was the Mohammedan occupation of the valley of the Indus 711 A.D. to 829 A.D. These invasions left no permanent mark on the religious history of India. Syrian Christians had settled on the west coast in the second century, and had increased in numbers, but whatever influence these adherents of Nestorian Christianity exerted, it was, so far as it can be traced, purely local. The rise and spread of Buddhism and Jainism were natural developments of Indian thought in its

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struggle to answer the great problems of existence, and of practical life. Indian religious thought and life thus separated into three main streams, the old form of Brahmanism and the heresies of Buddhism and Jainism (qq.v.). The heresies spread with

!a est effect among the masses of non-Aryan 7Witn' and soon became serious rivals of the old faith: The philosophy of both being essentially Vedantic, it was not against the philosophy as such that the revolt came, but against the particular explanation and application of this philosophy to the experiences of human life. The propaganda of both these heresies was conducted with vigor. Their spread was among non-Brahmanical castes, and especially among those who were the descendants of the aborigines. Thus Brahmanism, Jainism, and Buddhism contended amid the lower forms of religious belief and worship of the great mass of the non-Aryan aborigines. Under the inspiration of Asoka, 150 B.C., who, by his wide conquest, founded the first Indian empire, Buddhism spread over the larger part of India. The inscribed pillars and rocks, the Buddhist stupas and cave temples, still found over India, are witnesses both to the spread of Buddhism, and to its command of the intelligence and wealth of the country. Buddhism subsequently divided into two schools, the Hinayana or "Little Vehicle," or adherents of the primitive faith, and the Mahayarea or "Great Vehicle," the faith of the great mesa of the Buddhists. In this latter form Buddhas, Bodhiaatvas, and numerous deities and demons came to be worshiped, and their images in temples form a marked contrast to the simplicity and absence of images of primitive Buddhism. The cave temples of Nasik, Kuda, and the transformations in the Karla caves, by which the older and simpler sculptures are cut away, and others more sensuous are produced in their stead, are illustrations of the later form of Buddhism as recorded in atone.

The Second Indian Empire under the Gupta Dynasty, 320 A.D., saw a decided revival of Brah- manism, manifested in several ways. s. Renal- There was first the gradual assimilation cence of of Buddhism and the lower strata of

Brahmanism

religious ideas of the masses into a : the conglomerate of ideas and practises Philosophers. which goes under the name Hinduism (q.v.). Among the outer manifestations were the development of religious architecture, that assumed wonderful proportions and beauty, and attracted to itself the religious life of the people. A further manifestation was a revival of Sanskrit literature, resulting in the eighteen Puranas, the Dhorma Shaatras, and Tantras. Claeaical Sanskrit literature also took its rise at this time. In the centuries from 320 A.D., the beginning of the Gupta era, to 1001, the date of the first great Mohammedan invasion, India was divided into many minor states, continually warring with one another, and yet those troublous times were not unfavorable to the development of the philosophic spirit or to the application of philosophy to the daily religious and social life. The great Sankaracharya, who gave Vedantism the fixed form that has continued to the present day, flourished about

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800 A.D. He was a Brahman of southern India who attempted to bring into one logical system the philosophic teachings of the Upanishads. He was a man of vast learning, and clear philosophical insight into the deepest problems of existence, who advanced Indian thought to its supreme expression. His philosophy is called the Advaitd, or pure monism. Two other philosophers of note, although connected in date with the period of Mohammedan influence, belong really to the latter part of this period of undisturbed development. R,amanuja, a Brahman of southern India (b. 1017), taught a modified Vedantism, called the Vish%shtadvaita, or modified monism, which admits that Brahma may be said to possess qualities. Madhavacharya, also of southern India (b. 1119 A.D.), taught the Dvaita philosophy, or dualism, the reality of Brahma and of finite souls and matter as distinct essences. As the Mohammedan period approached, however, both literature and philosophy declined, and the ethically lower forms of worship and ritual assumed a dominating place.