Hinduism and Buddhism - an Historical Sketch

2. Origin and Growth of Hinduism The earliest product of Indian literature the Rig Veda contains the songs of the Aryan invaders who were beginning 1 Probably the Christian doctrine of the atonement or salvation by the death of a deity is an exception. [...] In the reliefs of Asoka's time the image of the Buddha never appears and as in the earliest Christian art the intention of the sculptors is to illustrate an edifying narrative rather than to provide an object of worship. [...] He was perhaps the first eminent exponent of Mahayanist metaphysics but the train of thought was not new : it was the result of applying to the external world the same destructive logic which Gotama applied to the soul and the result had considerable analogies to Sankara's version of the Vedanta. [...] the Vyfihas of the Pincartitra s the five Jinas of the Mahayanists and the five Sade. [...] But whereas the pantheism of the Smartas grew out of the feeling that the many gods of tradition must all be one the pantheism of the Vishnuites was not evolved out of pre-buddhist Brahmanism and is due to the conviction that the one God must be everything.