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247
questions.'
The career of such a wandering teacher seems to have been open to anyone, and even to women. And the most perfect freedom, both of thought and of expression, was permitted to them -a freedom probably unequalled in the history of the world.
RELIGION-THE BRAHMIN POSITION
This curious state of things would only have been possible among people of a very fair degree both of average general intelligence and of gentle manners. And just as the Strolling Students in pre-Reformation times throughout Western Europe were both a sign of the coming change, and also helped largely to bring it about, so the conditions which made it possible for the Wanderers in Northern India to live as they did, in pursuit of what they thought to be truth, were the precursors of that movement of thought we now call Buddhism, which the Wanderers also so largely helped to bring about.
The early history of the Wanderers has yet to be written. We hear of a similar custom as already followed in one isolated case by a sacrificing priest. Uddālaka Aruņi, of the Gotama family, of whom so many other legends have been preserved, is said to have wandered about the country offering a gold coin, as a lure for the timid, to anyone who, in a disputation on spiritual matters, could prove him wrong.' When defeated he becomes the pupil of his conqueror.
We may point out, in passing, that these "spiritual matters are very characteristic of the Brāhmaṇas.
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'Rh. D. Dialogues of the Buddha, I. 244; and above, p. 141. 2 Sat. Br. xi. 4. I.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
