changeless state called by such names as union with Brahman, nirvana and
many others.


3. _The Buddha_

As observed above, the Brahmans claim to direct the religious life and
thought of India and apart from Mohammedanism may be said to have
achieved their ambition, though at the price of tolerating much that the
majority would wish to suppress. But in earlier ages their influence was
less extensive and there were other currents of religious activity, some
hostile and some simply independent. The most formidable of these found
expression in Jainism and Buddhism both of which arose in Bihar in the
sixth century[8] B.C. This century was a time of intellectual ferment in
many countries. In China it produced Lao-tz[u] and Confucius: in Greece,
Parmenides, Empedocles, and the sophists were only a little later. In
all these regions we have the same phenomenon of restless, wandering
teachers, ready to give advice on politics, religion or philosophy, to
any one who would hear them.

At that time the influence of the Brahmans had hardly permeated Bihar,
though predominant to the west of it, and speculation there followed
lines different from those laid down in the Upanishads, but of some
antiquity, for we know that there were Buddhas before Gotama and that
Mahâvîra, the founder of Jainism, reformed the doctrine of an older
teacher called Parśva.

In Gotama's youth Bihar was full of wandering philosophers who appear to
have been atheistic and disposed to uphold the boldest paradoxes,
intellectual and moral. There must however have been constructive