Chapter (অধ্যায়): REPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF THE MAHARAJA OF KHETRI PAGE-326Page: 326 of 516
ancient India produced, were both Kshatriyas-Krishna and Buddha-and still more significant is the fact that both of these God-men threw open the door of knowledge to everyone, irrespective of birth or sex.
In spite of its wonderful moral strength, Buddhism was extremely iconoclastic; and much of its force being spent in merely negative attempts, it had to die out in the land of its birth, and what remained of it became full of superstitions and ceremonials, a hundred times cruder than those it was intended to suppress. Although it partially succeeded in putting down the animal sacrifices of the Vedas, it filled the land with temples, images, symbols, and bones of saints.
Above all, in the medley of Aryans, Mongols, and aborigines which it created, it unconsciously led the way to some of the hideous Vamacharas. This was especially the reason why this travesty of the teaching of the great Master had to be driven out of India by Shri Shankara and his band of Sannyasins.
Thus even the current of life, set in motion by the greatest soul that ever wore a human form, the Bhagavan Buddha himself, became a miasmic pool, and India had to wait for centuries until Shankara arose, followed in quick succession by Ramanuja and Madhva.
By this time, an entirely new chapter had opened in the history of India. The ancient Kshatriyas and the Brahmins had disappeared. The land between the Himalayas and the Vindhyas, the home of the Aryas, the land which gave birth to Krishna and Buddha, the cradle of great Rajarshis and Brahmarshis, became silent, and from the very farther end of the Indian Peninsula, from races alien in speech and form, from families claiming descent from the ancient Brahmins, came the reaction against the corrupted Buddhism.
What had become of the Brahmins and Kshatriyas of Aryavarta? They had entirely disappeared, except here