Buddhism as a separate religion has almost ceased to exist in India; yet it is part, and a vital part, of India’s Great heritage.It has left its mark upon her great buildings, and not less upon her national consciousness. Not only did it absorb and crystallize much from the Hinduism out of which it sprang, and express much of Hindu aspirations and ideals, but it has in turn been reabsorbed into that amazing creed and has given of its life and spirit to it. Especially is this true of the ethical teaching of Gautama Buddha. This is a heritage for which India can hardly be too grateful; for it has been her greatest weakness that she has never risen to the conception of a Righteous God, and so has missed the moral fibre which that conception alone can impart. And whilst Gautama himself failed of this sublime achievement, and therefore failed to hold her allegiance, yet he taught of a force ‘which makes for righteousness’, and his own example of pure and loving manhood has been a mighty of pure for good. Had India been able to seize the best in Buddhism, and to blend it with her mystic intuition of the reality and the nearness of God, how different her story would have been! O-day when the Christ, purer, more loving, more majestic and mighty to save, is beginning in strange and incalculable ways to dominate her sub-consciousness, and to dictate the programme of her social reforms, it is being seen that Gautama, agnostic though he was yet a forerunner, and is still a prophetic voice of whom she has much to learn.
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