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154 INDIA AS DESCRIBED, IN EARLY TEXTS girls from all social grades, they adopted with impunity all manner of pursuits, agriculture, trade, cattle-breeding, fighting as soldiers, government service and the rest, as a means of livelihood (sabbakammehi jūvitam kappeti).
The second classification of the Bräbmanas is interesting and important as presenting two sides of the picture in contrast, on one side, supreme worth, moral elevation, intellectual perfection and spiritual fervour, and on the other, worthlessness, moral degradation, dullness and worldly-mindedness.
So far as occupation of the Brāhmaṇas as a basis of social distinction was concerned, we find that the study of the Vedas with all the auxiliary sciences and arts, the teaching of the Vedas along with all sciences and arts useful to the State and to the people at large, and the office of a priest appertaining to the religious part of all social ceremonies constituted their monopoly. If the Khattiyas, Vessas, or even Suddas appeared as their rivals as teachers, it was only in the field of ethics and spirituality.
In speaking of the Brāhmaṇas, the early Jain and Buddhist books place them eithely the usual social environment or in the her tages. In the first connection, they are troduced either as those who were in the ser
Anguttara, ili, p. 2287.
