A third
important condition was the organization of the Buddhists into
monastic communities for the stricter professors, while the laity were
permitted a wide indulgence in practice and were allowed to hope for
accommodation in some of the temporary abodes of bliss. With a few
hundred thousand years of immediate paradise in sight, the average man
could be content to shut his eyes to what might follow.
[104]
Note 11 (P. 69).
In ancient times it was the fashion, even among the Greeks themselves,
to derive all Greek wisdom from Eastern sources; not long ago it was
as generally denied that Greek philosophy had any connection, with
Oriental speculation; it seems probable, however, that the truth lies
between these extremes.
The Ionian intellectual movement does not stand alone. It is only one
of several sporadic indications of the working of some powerful mental
ferment over the whole of the area comprised between the Aegean and
Northern Hindostan during the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries
before our era. In these three hundred years, prophetism attained its
apogee among the Semites of Palestine; Zoroasterism grew and became
the creed of a conquering race, the Iranic Aryans; Buddhism rose and
spread with marvellous rapidity among the Aryans of Hindostan; while
scientific naturalism took its rise among the Aryans of Ionia.
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