every century has produced works accepted by some sect as infallible scripture.  For most Vishnuites the Bhagavad-gita is the beginning of sacred literature and the Narayaniya[66] is also held in high esteem:  the philosophy of each sect is usually determined by a commentary on the Brahma Sutras:  the Bhagavata Purana (perhaps in a vernacular paraphrase) and the Ramayana of Tulsi Das are probably the favourite reading of the laity and for devotional purposes may be supplemented by a collection of hymns such as the Namghosha, copies of which actually receive homage in Assam.  The average man—­even the average priest—­regards all these as sacred works without troubling himself with distinctions as to sruti and smriti, and the Vedas and Upanishads are hardly within his horizon.

In respect of sacred literature Buddhism is more conservative than Hinduism, or to put it another way, has been less productive in the last fifteen hundred years.  The Hinayanists are like those Protestant sects which still profess not to go beyond the Bible.  The monks read the Abhidhamma and the laity the Suttas, though perhaps both are disposed to use extracts and compendiums rather than the full ancient texts.  Among the Mahayanists the ancient Vinaya and Nikayas exist only as literary curiosities.  The former is superseded by modern manuals, the latter by Mahayanist Sutras such as the Lotus and the Happy Land, which are however of respectable antiquity.  As in India, each sect selects rather arbitrarily a few books for its own use, without condemning others but also without according to them the formal recognition received by the Old and New Testaments among Christians.

No Asiatic country possesses so large a portion of the critical spirit as China.  The educated Chinese, however much they may venerate their classics, think of them as we think of the masterpieces of Greek literature, aS texts which may contain wrong readings, interpolations and lacunae, which owe whatever authority they possess to the labours of the scholars who collected, arranged and corrected them.  This attitude is to some extent the result of the attempt made by the First Emperor about 200 B.C. to destroy the classical literature and to its subsequent laborious restoration.  At a time when the Indians regarded the Veda as a verbal revelation, certain and divine in every syllable, the Chinese were painfully recovering and re-piecing their ancient chronicles and poems from imperfect manuscripts and fallible memories.  The process obliged them to enquire at every step whether the texts which they examined were genuine and complete:  to admit that they might be defective or paraphrases of a difficult original.  Hence the Chinese have sound principles of criticism unknown to the Hindus and in discussing the date of an ancient work or the probability of an alleged historical event they generally use arguments which a European scholar can accept.

Chinese literature has a strong ethical and political flavour which tempered the extravagance of imported Indian ideas.  Most Chinese systems assert more or less plainly that right conduct is conduct in harmony with the laws of the State and the Universe.