The fact is that anything coming from India greatly savors of philosophy. In ancient India everybody of the higher castes seems to have indulged in intellectual and speculative exercises. Being rich in natural resources and thus the struggle for existence being reduced to a minimum, the Brahmans and the Kṣatriyas gathered themselves under most luxuriously growing trees, or retired to the mountain-grottoes undisturbed by the hurly-burly of the world, and there they devoted all their leisure hours to metaphysical speculations and discussions. Buddhism, as a product of these people, is naturally deeply imbued with intellectualism. Further, in India there was no distinction between religion and philosophy. Every philosophical system was at the same time a religion, and _vice versa_. Philosophy with the Hindus was not an idle display of logical subtlety which generally ends in entangling itself in the meshes of sophistry. Their aim of philosophising was to have an intellectual insight into the significance of existence and the destiny of humanity. They did not believe in anything blindly nor accept anything on mere tradition. Buddha most characteristically echoes this sentiment when he says, “Follow my teachings not as taught by a Buddha, but as {57} being in accord with truth.” This spirit of self-reliance and self-salvation later became singularly Buddhistic. Even when Buddha was still merely an enthusiastic aspirant for Nirvâna, he seems to have been strongly possessed of this spirit, for he most emphatically declared the following famous passage, in response to the pathetic persuasion of his father’s ministers, who wanted him to come home with them: “The doubt whether there exists anything or not, is not to be settled for me by another’s words. Arriving at the truth either by mortification or by tranquilisation, I will grasp myself whatever is ascertainable about it. It is not mine to receive a view which is full of conflicts, uncertainties, and contradictions. What enlightened men would go by other’s faith? The multitudes are like the blind led in the darkness by the blind.”[18] To say simply, “Love your enemy,” was not satisfactory to the Hindu mind, it wanted to see the reason why. And as soon as the people were convinced intellectually, they went even so far as to defend the faith with their lives. It was not an uncommon event that before a party of Hindu philosophers entered into a discussion they made an agreement that the penalty of defeats should be the sacrifice of the life. They were, above all, a people of intellect, though of course not lacking in religious sentiment.