sions and clear the way for the growth of Buddhist study from historical standpoint and on scientific senses. These current theories, presented India's prevailing standpoints towards the origin of Buddhism, refer mainly to the Indian general faith, their attitude towards Buddhism, and the scholastic interpretations of Buddhism.
The Indian general faith means that almost from all circles of life of Indian people has a strong faith of belief in Hinduism rather than Buddhism at the present stage of the Indian society even though Buddhism has given deeply an influence to Hinduism either theoretically or practically. It's a common sense of Indian that Hinduism (actually a newly born religion in the Indian soil), having converted most of Indians to its own faith, monopolizes not only the India's ideology, but also the India's way of life and thinking either in the political or economic or scientific fields. However, this kind of tendency --- the fundamentalist way of thinking --- set the Indians apart from the people of the world even today in the 21st century.
The Indian attitude towards Buddhism means that in the mind of the ordinary Indian people, they do concede that Buddhism merged into Hinduism, that the Buddha was a great Hindu reformer and that the Buddha was a great Hindu master. This last is important because it leads us, from beginning to end, to examine carefully and to think differently that Buddhism, as a separate and independent world religion cannot be studied beyond the historical and scientific perspectives. We may see that the people of India today are so sensitive and admired of their most beloved religion, their Vedic culture, and their mythological doctrines when we happened to meet them and have a further discussion with them.
The scholastic interpretation means that some Vedic and Brahmanical minded Indian scholars (modern Indian historians, national leaders and ideologists) have described: Buddhism as an off-shoot of the more ancient faith of Hindus, perhaps a schism or heresy. A few educated Hindus --- have specialized in Buddhist studies or studied something of Buddhism or some book on Buddhism --- do concede that Buddhism was deeply influenced by the Vedic thought in its origin and it was a heresy of Brahmanism. Archaeologically, at least, we cannot treat Buddhism merely as a heresy against a prevailing Brahmanical orthodoxy, but, on the contrary, Buddhism should be considered as a historical and independent practice --- the way of life ---and that has nothing to do with the so called the more ancient faith of Hindus.
As we see from the above, the current theory on the origin of Buddhism tells us that the Vedic and Brahmanical standpoint of tendency has possessed and monopolized not only the field of Indian ideology, but also the field of social and historical studies of Buddhist relation with Brahmanism. The story of the origin of Buddhism, told in one sentence, is a matter of street-talk for every grown-up Hindu irrespective of his or her knowledge of ancient Indian religious history and archaeology. In order to reveal and clarify the true features of Buddhism, we may figure most notable question of how Buddhism related itself with the more ancient faith --- the orthodox ---- Brahmanism of its time.

III. Buddhist relation with Brahmanism
We shall refer to the view of the most eminent Indian scholar, Dr. S. Radhakrishan, whose viewpoint might be considered as a prevailing Indian standpoint towards Buddhist relation with Brahmanism. Dr. S. Radhakrishan's most mature opinion on this point is summarized: the Buddha did not feel that he was announcing a new religion; he was born, grew up, and died a Hindu; he was restating with a new emphasis the ancient ideals of the Indo-Aryan civilization. The ideological tendency of the Indian scholar towards Buddhism refers mainly to the traditional interpretation, the materialistic interpretation, and the fundamentalist interpretation of Buddhism related with Brahmanism.

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