Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/176

166 he appears to have studied it for himself at first hand. But it is in his treatment of Buddhism that he is at his best; and his treatment of it has the merit of originality. He looks upon Buddha as a great religious genius, which of course he was. But while Buddhism is usually regarded as pessimistic, a way of escape from sorrow and pain. Dr. Bussell regards the inward peace of the Buddhist monk to be a message of gladness to the world. And he admires the Buddhist conception of the world process as an effort of nature to rise out of and above itself, an effort which ends after the lapse of centuries in the production of a Bodhisat. This, says Dr. Bussell, is a consistent cosmodice, an interpretation of the world process as rational and moral.

When our author treats of Indian monism and Buddhism, or Indian folk-lore and the like, he is on firm ground. But the known facts regarding ancient India are comparatively few, and modern theories are many. Many of these theories are attractive, but it should be distinctly understood that judgment is still in suspense on many of the subjects treated of. For instance it is a favourite theory with certain scholars, and one which Dr. Bussell adopts, that Indian philosophy sprang out of a Kshatriya revolt against Brahmanical sacerdotalism. It may be so, but the facts are capable of another and perhaps a more natural explanation. Nor is it probable that the Sakyas were purer Āryas than their neighbours. Everything points the other way. The Āryas on either bank of the Gandak had been separated for centuries from the main body of the Ārya tribes; they lived in the midst of a Dravidian population; Buddha's regard for the Sudras and for Dravidian cults was probably due to a large admixture of Dravidian blood; and his whole missionary activity was confined to Āryo-Dravidians. Many similar instances could be quoted, but Dr. Bussell can always fall back on well-known authorities for his statements, and we have noted only one serious error. The years 400-600 were not the most flourishing period of Indian Buddhism (p. 210). Except in its native country of Behar, Buddhism throughout Northern India was everywhere on the decline. It was being rapidly supplanted by the neo-Hinduism of the Gupta period. A more correct view is given on p. 134.