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Dalsukh Malvania
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discipline lose their former names and families and are denominated as devotees, disciples of the Sakya 18
Further these words of the Buddha are worth considering: "There is not. In the highest perfection of knowledge and virtue any talk of birth (iativada or of family Gotlavada or a pride....... Those who are in the bonds of consia derations of birth or of family are far from the highest perfection of knowledge and virtue. After abandoing the bonds of considerations of birth.. there is realization of the highest perfection of knowledge and virtue. 10
Buddha specifically advised the householders who followed bim: "Let the householder who approves of this Dhamma not give himself to intoxicating drioks, let bim not cause others to drink, nor approve of those that drink knowing it to end in madness. For through intoxication the stupid commit sias and made other people intoxicated, let him avoid this seat of sin, this madness, this folly, delightful to the stupid."20
Moreover it also should be noted here that the Buddha bas not included this vice is that of violence, because he has separated this vice from that of violence while enumerating ten precepts to be followed by his followers.
But this does not mean that after taking the vows all the monks could avoid the drioks. In the Jataka (81) there is a story of a the Sagata who was a sthavira, that is an elder monk. He was powerful enough to subdue a poisonous serpent with his miraculous power but when he was offered the rarc type of wine he and his other pupils could not resist the drink. This shows that it was difficult even for the Buddha bimself to control all of his own pupils as regards the drinks,
Here it may be interesting to quote the Jātaka verse-When the effects of the wine were removed the asectics realized their foolishness and said, *We drank, we danced, we song, we wept. It was well that, when we drank the drink that steals away the senses, we were not transformed to apes".
In the times after Lord Mahavira and the Buddha the Jaina monks gave more attention to the prohibltion. This is evident from Malacara and such other works, wherein we find the liquor as one of the item of the great sins, because it is the cause of non-restraint (p. 284, gātba 156). Acarya Haribhadra has written a short treatise entitled Madyapānadūş&ņa. şarka wherein an example of an ascetic is given to show that how he believing less sin in the drink lost all his powers and after death took up the lower birth.
18. faylas, Trann IX,1.7. 19. 790 BFTE ER ! 20. Suttanipata, Dhammilla satta 23-24.
