| He says,
"incorporated as many of the Tantrik Buddhist divinities as they could possibly do
without jeopardizing their reputation for orthodoxy. But there were still divinities, to
which even with their wonderful power of adaptation, they could not venture to give a
place in thePantheon, and one of these is Dharma. Orginally Dharma was the second person
in the Buddhist Trinity, but the term came to be applied to the worship of stupas, the
visible emblem of Buddhism to the ignorant multitude. "Dharma worship remained confined to the lowest classes of the people the
dirtiest, meanest and most illiterate classes. All the lowest forms of worship rejected by
the Brahmans gradually rallied round Dharma, and his priests throughout Bengal enjoy a
certain consideration which often excites the envy of higher-placed rivals the Brahmans,
who, though hating them with a genuine hatred, yet covet their earnings wherever these are
considerable; and there are instances in which the township of Dharma has passed into
Brahman hands, and has been, by them, trans- formed into a manifestation either of Siva or
of Vishnu."
After recapitulating the arguments by which he identifies
Dharma worship as a survival of Buddhism, the Pandit goes on to say: "The Dharma
worshippers are fully aware that Dharma is not an inferior deity, he is higher than
Vishnu, higher than Siva, higher than Brahma and even higher than Parvati. His position
is, indeed, as exalted as that of Brahma in Hindu philosophy. |
