Page:Classical Poets Of Gujarat.pdf/20

 8

religion nor the poetry of the Veda and the subsequent literature could be taken from or given to others than the sacerdotal communities. But Buddhiem made the first wide breach in this Chinese wall; when Buddhism itself was driven away to China, Japan and Ceylon, the breach was retained and enlarged through a clever com- promise. The religion of the Veda was restored as an external raiment, but the individual that put it on had a different soul within his frame and different featuges under the raiment. When Brahmanism recovered ground on the ruins of Buddhism, it ceased to draw its actual religion from the Vedic sacrifice and rituals. Itconstructed two new religions under the mask of the old Vedic religion. The one religion was for the learned few, and the other was for the masses. [he great and powerful Sankaracharya was the pioneer of the former, and started a religion of asceticism and philosophy, and he professed to base it on the archaic philosophy of Vyas and of the ‘Upanishads. But while this was so done, it may equally besaid that his philo- sophy assimilated so much of the spirit of Buddhism within itself that his Brahmanic enemies taunted him with the epithet of “the disguised Buddha.” One result of this assimilation was that unlike the Upanishads, his philosophy was thrown open to all people and all castes, and even at this day, instances are not unknown of Kunbis and Banyas, who became ascetics and