There are other general characteristics of Indian religion which will be best made clear by more detailed treatment in succeeding chapters.  Such are, firstly, a special theory of sacrifice or ritual which, though totally rejected by Buddhism, has survived to modern times.  Secondly, a belief in the efficacy of self-mortification as a means of obtaining super-human powers or final salvation.  Thirdly, an even more deeply rooted conviction that salvation can be obtained by knowledge.  Fourthly, there is the doctrine that faith or devotion to a particular deity is the best way to salvation, but this teaching, though it seems natural to our minds, does not make its appearance in India until relatively late.  It is not so peculiarly Indian as the other ideas mentioned, but even at the outset it is well to insist on its prevalence during the last two thousand years because a very false impression may be produced by ignoring it.

There also runs through Indian religion a persistent though inconspicuous current of non-theistic thought.  It does not deny the existence of spirits but it treats them as being, like men, subject to natural laws, though able, like men, to influence events.  The ultimate truth for it is not pantheism but fixed natural laws of which no explanation is offered.  The religion of the Jains and the Sankhya philosophy belong to this current.  So did the teaching of several ancient sects, such as the Ajivikas, and strictly speaking Buddhism itself.  For the Buddha is not an Avatara or a messenger but a superman whose exceptional intelligence sees that the Wheel of Causation and the Four Truths are part of the very nature of things.  It is strange too that asceticism, sacrifices and modern tantric rites which seem to us concerned with the relations between man and God are in India penetrated by a non-theistic theory, namely that there are certain laws which can be studied and applied, much like electricity, and that then spirits can be coerced to grant what the ascetic or sacrificer desires.  At the same time such views are more often implied than formulated.  The Dharma is spoken of as the teaching of the Buddha rather than as Cosmic Order like the Tao of the Chinese and though tantric theory assumes the existence of certain forces which can be used scientifically, the general impression produced by tantric works is that they expound an intricate mythology and ritual.

CHAPTER IV

VEDIC DEITIES AND SACRIFICES

1

Our knowledge of early Indian religion is derived almost entirely from literature.  After the rise of Buddhism this is supplemented to some extent by buildings, statues and inscriptions, but unlike Egypt and Babylonia, pre-Buddhist India has yielded no temples, images or other religious antiquities, nor is it probable that such will be discovered.  Certainly the material for study is not scanty.  The theological literature