________________
THE CULT OF ASCETICISM & RENUNCIATION
empire.” In many a classical treatise on the Roman law, particularly the Justinian Code, we read of measures to enforce the private and public obligations of citizenship ; but the laws of a decrepit government were too feeble a dam to resist the fierce current of superstition so bountifully fed with the consternation caused by an insurmountable social chaos.
Exactly similar causes were in operation also in India. As an admirer of the spiritual essence of Indo-Aryan culture, Havell can be trusted to make a proper appreciation of monasticism. Nevertheless, he writes : “Monastic life was held in so high esteem and offered so many attractions to the Kshatriya youths, that the fighting strength of Aryawarta was becoming dangerously weakened, and the resources of the Stats needed for national defence were absorbed by the thousands of monasteries, filled with the wearers of the yellow robe.” Again, “The conquest of Sindh by the Arabs was made easy by the fact that thousands of the male population had adopted the yellow robe for the sake of the easy life of the monastery. The monastic system continued to absorb a large proportion of the flower of Indian manhood even after the development of Brahman philosophy".
All the persecutions and repressions of the Hindu kings proved impotent to stem the tide of Buddhist Nihilism. Pushyamitra, who overthrew the Buddhist Maurya dynasty and assumed the
259
