Note 76 — LECTURE VII. Changes in Buddhism and its disappearance from India.

No doubt there are places in the South of India where there is evidence of some violent persecution. I may instance among the places I visited Tanjore and Madura. When I concluded the reading of a paper on this subject at the meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society on February 15, 1886, the then President, Colonel Yule, justly remarked that the members of two religious communions who hold very similar doctrines, often on that account hate and oppose each other all the more; but my point was that the ultra-tolerance which was of the very essence of both Brāhmanism and Buddhism must have prevented actual persecution, except under special circumstances. Brāhmanism was much more likely to have adopted Buddhism as part of its system, than to have persecuted and expelled it. In point of fact, the Brāhmans, as is well known, are ready to regard any great teacher as one of Vishṇu’s incarnations, and in this way are even willing to pay homage to the Head of Christianity.