________________
144
BUDDHIST INDIA
appearance of the Order, the Suttas containing their ideas have vanished also. For during a long period they existed only in the memories of the members of the Order; and even after writing was applied to the preservation of such literary works, it was only the members of the Order or lay adherents of the school who would copy them. There are many references in Jain and Buddhist books to this Order, and to the opinions they professed. And it will be possible, when these have been fully compared and summarised, to arrive at a more or less complete and accurate view of their tenets.
The names of other orders, of which we know little more than the names, have been preserved in the Anguttara. And the existence of at least two or three others can be inferred from incidental references. There is still in existence a Vaikhānasa Sūtra, of about the third century A.D., which purports to contain the rules of an Order founded by one Vikhanas. It has just been mentioned that a certain Vekhanassa, a Wanderer, called on the Buddha. It is not improbable that he belonged to that Order. In a note on Pāņini, iv. 3. 110, there are mentioned two brahmin orders, the Karmandinas and the Pārāsāriņas. Now in the Majjhima (3. 298) the opinions of a certain Pārasăriya, a brahmin teacher, are discussed by the Buddha. It is very probable that he was either the founder or an adherent of the second of these schools. In any case the Order still existed at the time when the note 1 Collected in Dialogues of the Buddha, 1. pp. 71, 221. 2 Ibid. p. 220.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
