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CHAPTER V
EARLY BUDDHISM
EARLY Buddhism has to be distinguished from the later, which grew up together with the Brahminical systems long after Buddha had taught. We shall defer the consideration of the latter to the next Part dealing with the systems, and shall confine ourselves to the former, which is now variously styled as "Pāli Buddhism,' 'Canonical Buddhism, 'Southern Buddhism' and Theravāda (i.e. Sthavira-vāda, 'the doctrine of the elders'). The founder of this great creed was born about the middle of the sixth century B.C. His name was Siddhārtha and he belonged to the ancient family of Gotama or Gautama. The title of 'Buddha,' which means the 'awakened one,' came to be applied to him afterwards, as a sign of the enlightenment which he had succeeded in acquiring and by which he woke to a sense of fact from the dream of life. As the details of his life are well known, they need not be recounted here. It is enough to say that he was born in an aristocratic family at or near Kapilavastu on the lower slopes of the Himalayas and was a young man of about thirty years when he renounced the world and left the palace for the forest in quest of truth. The immediate cause of the renunciation was the thought of suffering which he saw afflicted mankind as a whole. In conformity with the spirit of the times in which asceticism was the rule of serious life, Buddha betook himself at first to severe penance; but, not meeting with success in that direction, he began a fresh course of self-discipline characterized by less rigour. In this second endeavour, truth at last flashed upon him in regard to the nature of suffering and the means of eradicating it; and, true lover of mankind that he was, he did not spend the rest of his life in the forest in a mood of selfsufficiency, but quickly returned to the abodes of men and
It is recorded of one Ajita Keśa-kambalin, an ascetic teacher of the period, that he used to wear a garment of human hair-'the worst of all garments, being cold in winter and warm in summer.'
