A General History for Colleges and High Schools

ourneying from the northwest, settled first the plains of the Indus and then occupied the va

race, whom they either subjugated and reduced to serfdom, or drove out of the gre

s were the despised and oppressed non-Aryan aborigines. The two middle classes, the warriors and the cultivators of the soil, were of mixed Aryan and non-Aryan blood. Below these several castes were the Pariahs, or outcasts, the most degraded of the degraded natives. [Footnote: At a later period, the Brahmans, in order to perpetuate their own ascendancy and to secure increased reverenc

system of Buddhism (see p. 11), has characterized Hindu society from the time the system

which were composed chiefly during the long period, perhaps a thousand years or more, while the Aryans were slowly working their way from the mountains on the northwest of India across the peninsula to the Ganges. These hymns are filled with memorie

an religions. It was at first a pure nature-worship, that is, the worship of the most striking phenomena of the physical world as intelligent and moral beings. The ch

Brahmanism. Brahma, an impersonal essence, is conceived as the primal existence. Forth from Brahma emanated, as heat and light emanate from the sun, all things and all life. Banish a personal God f

ourselves by remembering what are our own ideas of this earthly life. We call it a feverish dream, a journey through a vale of sorrow. Now the Hindu regar

ul-suicide. Brahmanism teaches that the only way to extinguish self and thus get rid of the burden of existence, is by re-absorption into Brahma. But this return to Brahma is dependent upon the soul's purification, for no impure sou

soul and eternal repose found in Brahma. He who lives a virtuous life is at death born into some higher caste, and thus he advances towards the longed-for end. The evil ma

Sudras and the outcasts are forbidden to read the sacred books, and for a

the universal misery of mankind, that he voluntarily abandoned the luxury of his home, and spent his life in seeking out and making known to men a new and better way of salvation. He condemned the severe p

on: STATUE

orn Brahman, and thus Buddhism was a revolt against the earlier harsh and exclusive system of B

nd missionary spirit, like that of Christianity, Buddha having commanded his disciples to make known to all men the way to Nirvana and consequently during the very period when India was being lost, the missionaries of the reformed creed were spreadi

ism is a very different religion from that of the ancient system; hence it is usually given a new name, being known as Hinduism. [Footnote: Among the c

tact with that of the progressive nations of the West. From that day to our own its systems of philosophy, its wealth, and its commerce have been more or less important factors in universal history. Greece carried on an intellectual commerce with this country; Rome, and the Italian republics