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RELIGION
211 of blood and family prestige. They praised thoso Brahmins who married girls from their own class only, and in doing so they became ipso facto contributors to the social orthodoxy. The cow sacrifice was freely allowed in secular Brahmanism. The eating of beef was not as yet forbidden in society, oven among the Brahmins and hermits. The Buddha raised his strong voice against cow-killing, and for the matter of that, against beef-eating. Thus unintentionally he contributed to the social orthcdoxy in so far as it expressed itself in the form of prohibition of certain articles of food.
The Brahmins as a class of priests with vested interests were in favour of the monar-- chical form of government, and the Brahmanic influence was much stronger in monarchies than in oligarchies. In theory, the Jains and Buddhists were in deep sympathy with the democratic constitution. The Jaina religious Order which was evidently constituted with "Mahāvīrā as the gasi or leader and nine among hís prominent disciples as ganadharasa or sectional leaders, was modelled on the republican constitution of the nine Licchavior Mallaki clans, and the Buddhist religious Order, too, with its stronger internal cohesion and marked regimental discipline, may be shown to have been
ni Sutta-nipata, p. 50f., Brāhmanadhammaka Sutta.
Mrs. 8. Stevenson, The Heart of Jainism, p. 61.
