________________
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
313
from what follows that the Brahman was intended, for Megasthenes proceeds to say: "of the Sarmanai, the most highly venerated among them are the HyTobii,” that is, as he goes on to explain the term, “those who pass their lives in the woods (ortas ir muistics), and who live upon wild fruits and seeds, and are clothed in the barks of trees," in other words the Vánaprastha of the Brahmanical system; literally, the dweller in the woods, the man of the third order who, having fulfilled his course of householder, is enjoined by Manu to repair to the lonely wood to subsist upon green roots and fruit, and to wear a vesture of bark. Major Cunningham *, indeed, who is a courageous etymologist, derives Hylobii from the Sanskrit Alobhiya, “one who is without desire”, that is, the Bodhisattwa, who has suppressed all human passions; but Alobhiyu is not a genuine Sanskrit word, nor is there any authority for its application to a Bodhisattwa, and Megasthenes may be presumed to have understood his own language. His interpretation of Hylobii, the dwellers in the woods, is in such perfect conformity with the meaning of Vanaprastha, that we cannot doubt the identity of the two designations.
Nothing of any value, upon this subject at least, is derivable from classical writers in addition to the information furnished by Megasthenes; but when we come later down, or to the early ages of Christianity, various curious notices of Buddhism occur in the
* [The Bhilsa Topes, 185+. p. 64.
See Lassen, II, 700 ff.]
