________________
208 INDIA AS DESCRIBED IN EARLY TEXTS or overcome them. No religion was acceptable to them if it could not assure them of the potency of its means to overcome their fears and to inspire confidence in order to obtain a fearlessy state. Secular Brahmanism employed all its means to prove its usefulnoss to them. When other contending faiths entered the field and endeavoured to win the people over to their side, they were required to fulfil the same task by such means as they could devise. The Buddhists adopted the solemn chanting of the Parittas as one of the means. The essence of the Parittas was saccakiriyā, or the effective expression of the wish by an open declaration of the truth. Through the Parittas they tried to get rid of the objectionable features of the Brahmanic rituals. The æsthetic aspect was improved and the matter was simplified. But in so doing they failed to anticipate how the parasite with its root stuck to the main tree would grow disproportionately in course of time.
The people were believers in the efficacy of pronouncement of benediction by the priests and other holy persons, in amulets, and the like. In order to oust the Brahmin vested interests from the field, the Jains and Buddhists had to introduce certain mangalas, claimed as more efficacious. With the Jains the eight mangalas were the eight auspicious symbols or emblemas: Sovatthiya (Svastika), Sirivacca (Śrīvatsa),
