________________
292
BUDDHIST INDIA
of ascetic recluses often mentioned in the Buddhist canonical books. The remainder are so many tracts, short proclamations on stone, published with the view of propagating the Dhamma, or of explaining the methods adopted by the Emperor to that end.
The word “ Dhamma" has given, and will always give, great trouble to the translators. It connotes, or involves, so much. Etymologically it is identical with the Latin word forma; and the way in which it came to be used as it was in India, in Asoka's time, is well illustrated by the history of our own colloquialism “good form." Dhamma has been rendered Law. But it never has any one of the various senses attached to the word “law” in English. It means rather, when used in this connection, that which it is “ good form” to do in accord with established custom. So it never ineans exactly religiori, but rather, when used in that connection, what it behoves a man of right feeling to do-or, on the other hand, what a man of sense will naturally hold. It lies quite apart from all questions either of ritual or of theology.'
On such Dhamma the brahmins, as such, did not then even pose as authorities. But it was the main subject of thought and discussion among the Wanderers, and to them the people looked up as teachers of the Dhamma. And while, on the one hand, the Dhamma was common property to them all, was Indian rather than Buddhist, yet, on the other hand,
1 Dhammas, in the plural, meant phenomena, or forms of consciousness considered as such. See Mrs. Rhys-Davids's Buddhist Psychology', pp. xxxii.-xl.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
