But the leading Sanscrit scholar of the world, Dr. Rajendra Lala Mitra, has completely dissipated this idea. In his work, "Nepalese Buddhist Literature," p. 178, he shows conclusively that it is the Buddhism of the innovating school, that of the "Great Vehicle," which preaches atheism. About the epoch of Christ, Kanerkos or Kanishka, a king who conquered India, introduced this innovating teaching. Hweng Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, who visited India in the seventh century, confirms this. There was in India at this date amongst the followers of Siva, a school who held that Nothingness was God, and Nothingness the future of man. They were called the S'unyavâdis, the proclaimers of Nothingness. Two priests, Parsvika and Vasabandhu, were with Kanerkos, and they persuaded this monarch to force this Pyrrhonism on the Buddhists. A mighty conflict was the consequence. The old Buddhists remonstrated. They said that Buddha knew nothing of all this. They called the "Great Vehicle" Sunyapushpa (the Carriage that drives to Nowhere). But Parsvika packed a convocation like Constantine, and forced the new teaching down their throats. ("Hweng Thsang, Hist." p. 114., _et. seq._ "Memoirs," pp. 174, 220.) Rajendra Lala Mitra says that the Buddhist books of the "Great Vehicle" are in a servile manner copied from Brahmin treatises. Let us examine this "Great Vehicle," as writers like Sir Monier Williams tells us that it was this school that introduced the ideas of God and immortality into Buddhism, which until then was pure atheism. Its main Bible is a collection of writings called the "Rakshâ Bhagavatî." (Rajendra Lala Mitra, p. 179.) Bryan Hodgson confirms this. ("Literature of Nepal," p. 16.) The work itself is an avowed attack on the Hinayâna or "Little Vehicle," which is "refuted repeatedly," says the learned Hindoo. (p. 178.) Let us now see what sort of god and what sort of immortality the "Rakshâ Bhagavatî" in its title of chapters proclaimed. Chap. I. The subject of Nothingness (Sunyata) expounded. Chap. II. Relation of the soul to form colour and vacuity. Chap. IV. Relation of form to vacuity. Chap. VII. How a Bodhisattwa merges all natural attributes into vacuity. Chap. XII. The doctrine of Mahâyâna and its advantages, derived principally, if not entirely, from its recognition of the greatness of S'unyavâda (Nihilistic doctrine of the Brahmin sect of S'unyavâdis). Chap. XIII. To the Bodhisattwa there is nothing eternal, nothing transient, nothing painful, nothing pleasant. All qualities are unreal as a dream. Chap. XIV.-XVI. The principle of the Prajnâ Paramitâ imparted by Buddha to Indra. The end sought is the attainment of vacuity. Chap. XXXV. All objects attainable by the study of Nihilism. ("Nepalese Buddhist Literature," p. 180.) Hodgson gives a bit of what he calls this "pure Pyrrhonism" from the same book. Buddha is made to talk thus:--