Abstract

Few people would care to deny, whether within India or without, that Buddha is the greatest Indian of all times. Whether from the standpoint of the purity of his life, the daring originality and novelty of his thought, or the extent of his influence in shaping the culture of the world, it would be hard to beat the record of Buddha. Even making every allowance for the common idea that no man is a prophet in his own land, it is difficult to believe that for the last thousand years Buddha has been practically an exile from the land of his birth. It is nothing short of an irony of history, and nothing short of a tragedy for India, that the great unifying force that he represented in his time and does represent even to-day has been allowed to run waste and the great moral stamina that he sought to supply failed in its historic mission