File:Buddha and the gospel of Buddhism (1916) (14595172979).jpg

Identifier: buddhagospelofbu01coom (find matches)
Title: Buddha and the gospel of Buddhism
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish, 1877-1947
Subjects: Buddha and Buddhism
Publisher: New York, G. P. Putnam's sons
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
aw, above a bell-shapedbase of Persian character, such as appears elsewhere incontemporary architecture. The whole is of extra-ordinarily perfect workmanship only paralleled in finish bythe accurate fitting of some of the Asokan masonry, andthe burnished surfaces of some of the rock-cells dedicatedby Asoka for the use of the Ajivikas: and we must notforget the engineering skill implied in the transport anderection, often hundreds of miles from the present quarries,of monolithic pillars weighing as much as fifty tons.Asokas own capital at Pataliputra,1 modern Patna, isdescribed as follows by the Chinese pilgrim Fa Hien,eight centuries later: The royal palace and halls in the midst of the city,which exist now as of old, were all made by spirits whichhe employed, and which piled up the stones, reared thewalls and gates, and executed the elegant carving andinlaid sculpture work in a way which no human hands ofthis world could accomplish. 1 Excavations on this site are now in progress. 186
Text Appearing After Image:
186 CAPITAL OF ASOKA COLUMN Sarnath, 3rd century B.C. PART III : CONTEMPORARYSYSTEMS /. THE VEDANTA THE system of philosophy which is above all thephilosophy of India is the Vedanta, the com-pletion or * goal of the Vedas: and by this termVedanta is to be understood the interpretation of the Upani-shads,and of the Vedanta Sutras, according to Sankaracaryain the ninth century a.d. and by Ramanuja in the eleventh.It will be seen that these synthetic interpretations are longpost-Buddhist; but that is not the case with the mostimportant of the actual Upanishads, viz. the Brihad-aranyaka and the Chandogya, which are undoubtedly pre-Buddhist. These are likewise the most important of theVedanta scriptures, and they must be the more referredto here because some writers have considered that it isthe ideas of the Upanishads which by a kind of degenera-tion have developed into Buddhism on one side and theSamkhya system on the other. Just as the Old Testament is superseded by the New, sothe Upani

Note About Images