They made constant and marvellous additions to the primitive doctrine,
giving it a momentum which gathered force as the centuries went on; and,
as propaganda, it moved against the sun.
This development theory ran along the line of _personification_. Not
being satisfied with "the wheel of the law," it personified both the hub
and the spokes. It began with the spirit of kindness out of which all
human virtues rise, and by the power of which the Buddhist organization
will conquer all sin and unbelief and become victorious throughout the
world. This personification is called the Maitreya Buddha, the
unconquerable one, or the future Buddha of benevolence, the Buddha who
is yet to come. Here was a tremendous and revolutionary movement in the
new faith, the beginning of a long process. It was as though the
Christians had taken the particular attributes, justice, mercy, etc., of
God and, after personifying each one, deified it, thus multiplying gods.
What was the soil for the new sowing, and what was the harvest to be
reaped in due time?
With many thousands of India Buddhists whose minds were already steeped
in Brahministic philosophy and mythology, who were more given to
speculation and dreaming than to self-control and moral culture, and who
mourned for the dead gods of Hinduism, the soil was already prepared for
a growth wholly abnormal to true Buddhism, but altogether in keeping
with the older Brahministic philosophies from which these dreamers had
been but partially converted to Buddhism.
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