A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

466 THE SAGES OF INDIA.his great work, his grand character.But the work had onegreat defect, and for that we are suffering even to-day.blame attaches to the Lord. He is pure and glorious, butunfortunately <^uch high ideals could not be well assimilated by the different uncivilised and uncultured races of mankind who nocked within the fold of the Aryans. Theseraces, with varieties of superstition and hideoup worshiprushed within the fold of the Aryan and for a time appeared as if they had become civilised, but before a century "hadpassed, they brought out their snakes, their ghosts, and allthe other things their ancestors used to worship, and thusthe whole of India became one degraded mass of superstition. The earlier Buddhists in their rage against the killing of animal had denounced the- sacrifices of the Vedas ;and these sacrifices were used to be held in every house.There was a fire burning, and that was all the paraphernaliaof worship. These sacrifices were obliterated ,and in theirplace came gorgeous temples, gorgeous ceremonies, andgorgeous priests, and all that you see in India in moderntimes. I smile when I read books written by somemodern people who ought to have known better thatBuddha was the destroyer of Brahminical idolatry.Little do they know that Buddhism created Brahminismand idolatry in India. There was a book written abouta year or two ago by a Russian gentleman who claimed to have found out a very curious life of JesusChrist, and in one part of book he the" says that Christwent to the Temple of Juggernath to study with theBrahmins, but became disgusted with their exclusivenessand their idols, and so he went to the Lamas ofThibet instead, became perfect, and went home. To anyman who knows anything about Indian History that veryHne that the whole proves thing was a fraud, because theNo