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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: VII.?The Buddhist View Of Caste. On entering on this subject it is necessary for us to mark the present stage of our chronological advancement. We view Dr. Max Miiller's date of the Siitra period, ?from 600-200 before Christ, ?as correct enough for general practical purposes. It is abundantly evident from the notices which we have given, from even the earliest of this series of works, that the Caste system had reached its maturity when they were prepared. It is also manifest from the Aranyakas and Upanishads, that even before this time, Indian speculation, in which it is admitted on all hands BudTlhism originated, had made considerable progress. With Caste, then, Buddhism had to deal. Its peculiar treatment of this institution, as we shall immediately see, was one of the principal causes of its rapid establishment in India. Buddhism in its most important social aspect was a reaction against Caste, the tyranny of which multitudes had begun to feel to be unbearable, though previous to its origin they had considered themselves unable to assail the religious foundations on which it was supposed to rest. The Brahmans, the inventors and guardians of Caste, had up to the time of Buddha been nearly omnipotent in Indian society. The word Buddha is not a name, but an appellative. It means the intelligent-one, or the party possessed of intelligence (in the sense of omniscience). The proper name of the individual on whom it is conferred is unknown, as is the case with those of not a few of the most celebrated of the Hindu religionists. Other common denominations of Buddha were Shdkya Muni, the Sage of the Shakyatribe; Shaky a Prabhu, the Shakya Lord; Shakya SinJta, the Shakya Lion (or majestic one); Prabhu Gautama, the distinguished one of the Gautama family; Bkagavat, the worshipful ...