i62 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY
For hundreds of years, then, before this emergence of Shiva as the main Hindu conception of
God (which for a time he was), devout souls had
loved Buddha and hastened with a special devotion
to give alms to sadhus, without on that account
suspecting for a moment that they were of any
but the accepted Arya-Vedic household of faith.
Less dependence on the great powers that dwelt
beneath the mountain springs ; less sense of the
mystery of serpent and forest ; an ever-deepening
reverence for the free soul for the sadhu, for the
idea of renunciation, this was all of which anyone
was conscious. And yet in this subtle change of
centres, history was being made ; a new period
was coming to the birth. Verily, those were great
days in India between 500 B.C. and A.D. 200 or
thereabouts. For the national genius had things
all its own way, and in every home in the land
the little was daily growmg less, and the real and
the universal were coming more and more prominently into view. Those were probably the
days of Gitas made in imitation of the Buddhist
Suttas. And this fact alone, if it be true, will give
us some hint as to the preoccupation of the period
with great thought.
" Thou that art knowledge itself,
Pure, free, ever the witness, Beyond all thought and beyond all qualities, To thee the only true Guru
My Salutation : Shiva Guru ! Shiva Guru ! Shiva Guru ! "
