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selves to voluntary torture, should be looked upon, with a kind of fearsome awe, as more holy, as better, than other men? There was some justice in the view. And until experience had shown the other side of the question-the attendant disadvantages, and the inadequate results of strength of will when applied to physical ends--it was inevitable that the self-mastery quite evident in such practices should appeal strongly to the minds of the people.
We find this other side put forward in India from two directions, one mainly philosophic, the other mainly ethical. The manner in which both these movements came about was perfectly natural, though it was much influenced by the custom already referred to as peculiar, at that period of the world's history, to India.' Students are often represented as begging, just as students did in Europe in the Middle Ages.' And we hear of sophists, just as we do in the history of Greek thought. But the peculiarity was that, before the rise of Buddhism, it was a prevalent habit for wandering teachers alsoand not only students to beg. Such wandering teachers, who were not necessarily ascetics except in so far as they were celibates, are always represented as being held in high esteem by the people. In the monarchies the royal family, in the clans the community, put up (as we have seen above) public halls where such Wanderers (Paribbājakā) could lodge, and where conversational discussions, open to everyone, were held on philosophic and religious
BUDDHIST INDIA
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See above, Chapter VIII.
2
Sat. Br. xi. 3. 3. 5; and often later in the law-books.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
