BUDDHISM AND HINDUISM 155
teenth century. In the two last-named cases, however, the citizen-disciples, Grihastha-bhaktas, have a well-defined background in which they inhere. Hinduism is long ago a virtual unity—though that fact may not yet have been realised and defined—with its choice of religious systems to meet the needs of various types of character, and the great monastic guru stands outside all as a quickening and spiritualising force, whose influence is felt in each alike. The citizen-bhakta of Ramdas or Ramakrishna remains a Hindu,
In the days of Asoka, however, Hinduism was not yet a single united whole. The thing we now know by that name was then probably referred to as the religion of the Brahmans. Its theology was of the Upanishads. Its superstitions had been transmitted from the Vedic period. And there was as yet no idea that it should be made an inclusive faith. It co-existed with beliefs about snakes and springs and earth-worship, in a loose federation which was undoubtedly true to certain original differences of race.
With the age of Buddhism all this was changed. The time had now come when men could no longer accept their beliefs on authority. Religion must for all equally be a matter of the personal experience, and there is no reason to doubt the claim made by the Jainas, that Buddha was the disciple of the same guru as Mahavira. We know the age of a heresy by the tenets it contradicts, and in repudiating the authority of the Vedas,
