A General History for Colleges and High Schools | Page 7

goal, it follows that the great
majority of men must be born again, and yet again, until all evil has
been purged away from the 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 man, however, is

born into a lower caste, or perhaps his soul enters some unclean animal.
This doctrine of re-birth is known as the transmigration of souls
(metempsychosis).
Only the first three classes are admitted to the benefits of religion. The
Sudras and the outcasts are forbidden to read the sacred books, and for
any one of the upper classes to teach a serf how to expiate sin is a
crime.
BUDDHISM.--In the fifth century before our era, a great teacher and
reformer, known as Buddha, or Gautama (died about 470 B.C.), arose
in India. He was a prince, whom legend represents as being so touched
by 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
penances and the self-torture of the Brahmans, yet commended poverty
and retirement from active life as the best means of getting rid of desire
and of attaining Nirvana, that is, the repose of unconsciousness.
[Illustration: STATUE OF BUDDHA.]
Buddha admitted all classes to the benefits of religion, the poor outcast
as well as the high-born Brahman, and thus Buddhism was a revolt
against the earlier harsh and exclusive system of Brahmanism. It holds
somewhat the same relation to Brahmanism that Christianity bears to
Judaism.
Buddhism gradually gained the ascendancy over Brahmanism; but after
some centuries the Brahmans regained their power, and by the eighth
century after Christ, the faith of Buddha was driven out of almost every
part of India. But Buddhism has a profound 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 spreading the teachings of their master among the peoples
of all the countries of Eastern Asia, so that to-day Buddhism is the
religion of almost one third of the human race. Buddha has probably
nearly as many followers as both Christ and Mohammed together.

During its long conflict with Buddhism, Brahmanism was greatly
modified, and caught much of the gentler spirit of the new faith, so that
modern Brahmanism 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 customs introduced into Brahmanism
during this period was the rite of Suttee, or the voluntary burning of the
widow on the funeral pyre of her husband.]
ALEXANDER'S INVASION OF INDIA (327 B.C.).--Although we
find obscure notices of India in the records of the early historic peoples
of Western Asia, yet it is not until the invasion of the peninsula by
Alexander the Great in 327 B.C. that the history of the Indian Aryans
comes in significant contact 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 of the Middle Ages, a more material
but not less important trade. Columbus was seeking a short all-sea route
to this country when he found the New World. And in the upbuilding of
the imperial greatness of the England of to-day, the wealth and trade of
India have played no inconsiderable part.
2. CHINA.
GENERAL REMARKS: THE BEGINNING.--China is the seat of a
very old civilization, older perhaps than that of any other land save
Egypt; yet Chinese affairs have not until recently exerted any
appreciable influence upon the general current of history. All through
ancient and mediæval times the country lay, vague and mysterious, in
the haze of the world's horizon. During the Middle Ages the land was
known to Europe under the name of Cathay.
The beginning of the Chinese nation was a band of Turanian wanderers
who came into the basin of the Yellow River, from the West, probably
prior to 3000 B.C. These immigrants gradually pushed out the
aborigines whom they found in the land, and laid the basis of
institutions that have endured to the present day.

DYNASTIC HISTORY.--The government of China since the remotest
times has been a parental monarchy. The Emperor is the father of his
people. But though an absolute prince, still he dare not rule tyrannically:
he must rule justly,