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RELIGION-THE BRAHMIN POSITION 245
different from those we find in India. The Indian way of looking at the whole conception is much more akin to the way Diogenes thought when he lived, like a dog, in his tub-kennel. The Greek word cynic is indeed exactly analogous to the Indian expression kukkura-vatiko, one who behaves like a dog," as applied (quite courteously) to the sophist, the naked ascetic, Seniya.' There is no question here of penance for sin, or of an appeal to the mercy of an offended deity. It is the boast of superiority advanced by the man able, through strength of will, to keep his body under, and not only to despise comfort, but to welcome pain. By this it is not, of course, intended to imply that the Christian did not advance a similar claim. He did. But it was, in his case, overshadowed by other considerations which are absent in India.
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Both in the East and the West the claim was often accepted. We hear a good deal in India of the reverence paid to the man who (to quote the words of a Buddhist poet),
"Bescorched, befrozen, lone in fearsome woods, Naked, without a fire, afire within,
Struggled in awful silence toward the goal!" 2
Simeon, by the mere strength of popular acclaim, became a saint, even almost before he died. Diogenes, and his parallel in India, Mahāvīra, founded important schools which have left their mark on history. And ought we, after all, to be surprised that those who despise earthly comfort, and subject them1 M. 1. 387. 2 M. 1. 79 Jāt. 1. 399,
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
