ABSTRACT
Buddhism, a Western term for the vast erection of thought and culture which has accumulated about the traditional teaching of Gautama the Buddha, stems none the less from the actual teaching of the All-Enlightened One. But as always men of less attainment took portions of the Teaching and, as it were encapsuled them in carefully defined doctrine and form, each according to some national conditioning, and there arose, often with alarming speed, innumerable schools and sects. Man being what he still remains, a warlike animal, carried intolerance of differing views to the edge of war, and doctrine right or wrong was argued on the battlefield. But just as each of the schools of Buddhism developed from some aspect of the Teaching of the Buddha, so the Buddha's Teaching was not born from a spiritual vacuum, but was an expression of some portion of that Gupta Vidya, 'the accumulated Wisdom of the ages', which antedates all known religions and will outlive them all. Where then does Buddhism stand in relation to this Wisdom, and who was the Buddha, whom H. G. Wells described as 'the greatest man that ever lived'?
