A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

468 THE SAGES OF INDIA.became Buddhists, and assimilated with us, akd broughttheir national customs, and the whole of gar nationallife became a huge page of the most horriole and themostbestial Customs. That was the inheritance whichthat boy got from the Buddhists, and since that time tothis, the whole world in India is a re-conquestof thisBuddhistic degradation by the Yedanta. It is still goingon, not yejt finished. Sankara came, a great philosopher,,and showed that the real essence of Buddhism and that ofthe Vedanta are not very different, but that the disciples did not understand the master, and (have degradedthemselves, denied the existence of the soul and of God,,and have become Atheists. That was what Sankarashowed, and all the Buddhists began to come iirtotheold religion^ But then they had become laden withall these forms ;wEat could be done ?Then came the brilliant Ramanuja Sankara with hisgreat intellect, I am afraid, had not as great a heart.Ramanuja s heart was greater. He felt for the downtrodden, he sympathised with them. He took up theceremonies, the accretions that had gathered, made thempure so far as they could be, and instituted new ceremonies, new methods of worship, for the people whoabsolutelyrequired these. At the same time, he openedthe door to the highest spiritual worship, from theBrahmin to the Pariah. That was Ramanuja s work.That work rolled on, invaded the north, was taken up bysome great leaders there that was much later, duringthe Mohammedan rule and the brightest of these pro.phets of modern times in the north was Chaitanya, andyou may mark one characteristic since the time ofRamanuja, opening the door of spirituality to everyone.That has been the watchword of all the prophets