Buddhist India

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About the Book This book describes ancient India from the perspectives of Brahmins and Rajputs. It provides information about ancient times when Buddhism was in a powerful state. The chapters bring forth the knowledge of rulers, their clans, the villages, the social grades, the language and literature, and the religion. The book focuses largely on the literature and writing and discusses Pali books and Jataka books as well.

About the Author Thomas William Rhys Davids FBA (1843-1922) was an English scholar of the Pali language and founder of the Pali Text Society. He took an active part in founding the British Academy and London School for Oriental Studies. He then studied for the bar and briefly practised law, though he continued to publish articles about Sri Lankan inscriptions and translations, notably in Max Müller's monumental Sacred Books of the East. From 1882 to 1904 Rhys Davids was Professor of Páli at the University of London, a post which carried no fixed salary other than lecture fees.In 1905 he took up the Chair of Comparative Religion at the University of Manchester. Rhys Davids attempted to promote Theravada Buddhism and Päli scholarship in Britain.

Preface W the following work a first attempt has been IN th made to describe ancient India, during the period of Buddhist ascendancy, from the point of not so much of the brahmin, as of the rajput. The two points of view naturally differ very much. Priest and noble in India have always worked very well together so long as the question at issue did not touch their own rival claims as against one an- other. When it did-and it did so especially during the period referred to-the harmony, as will be evident from the following pages, was not so great.

Even to make this attempt at all may be regarded by some as a kind of lèse majesté. The brahmin view, in possession of the field when Europeans entered India, has been regarded so long with erence among us that it seems almost an impertinence now, to put forward the other. "Why not leave well alone? Why resuscitate from the well- deserved oblivion in which, for so many centuries, they have happily lain, the pestilent views of these tiresome people? The puzzles of Indian history have been solved by respectable men in Manu and the Bhárata, which have the advantage of being equally true for five centuries before Christ and five centuries after. Shade of Kumárila! what are we to when the writings of these fellows renegade brahmins among them too-are actually taken seriously, and mentioned without a sneer? If by chance they say anything well, that is only because it was better said, before they said it, by the orthodox brahmins, who form, and have always formed, the key-stone of the arch of social life in India. They are the only proper authorities. Why trouble about these miserable heretics?"

Well, I would plead, in extenuation, that I am not the first guilty one. People who found coins and inscriptions have not been deterred from considering them seriously because they fitted very badly with the brahmin theories of caste and history. The matter has gone too far, those theories have been already too much shaken, for anyone to hesitate before using every available evidence. The evidence here collected, a good deal of it for the first time, is necessarily imperfect; but it seems of. ten to be so suggestive, to throw so much light on points hitherto dark, or even unsuspected, that the trouble of collecting it is, so far at least, fairly justi fied. Any words, however, are, I am afraid, of little avail against such sentiments. Wherever they exist the inevitable tendency is to dispute the evidence, and to turn a deaf ear to the conclusions. And there is, perhaps, after all, but one course open, and that is to declare war, always with the deepest respect for those who hold them, against such views. The views are wrong.

**Contents and Sample Pages**