The relationship between Buddhism and Brahmanism
     Buddhism did not arise in a cultural and religious vacuum and if we are to understand the Buddhism of the Nikayas some account will have to be taken of its
contemporaries. This is, however, not always the easy task it might appear, given the often scanty nature of the evidence of many of the contemporary sects that have come down to us and in this final chapter I will restrict my remarks to an attempt at highlighting some aspects of the relationship that the Buddhism of the Nikayas exhibits with one of these, that of the Brahmanic tradition.
     It has often been said that of all Indian sects Buddhism is the most egalitarian in that it is critical of the caste system yet such a claim is extremely questionable, if
only for the fact that during the principal Buddhist period the notion of caste would seem to have been largely unknown. Considerable confusion has often
surrounded discussions of caste in western sources, so much so that it has become necessary, when dealing with this subject, to preface ones remarks with a few
words aimed at supplying precision to the terminology to be employed; whilst this is obviously tedious, even trite, to some, it is nonetheless necessary if others are
not to retreat into their former, and possibly erroneous, understanding of such terms. The word for caste is jati which, literally, means birth and a collection of
individuals may be said to form a caste when three conditions are satisfied: 1. commensality, 2. endogamy, 3. craft exclusiveness. The basis of the caste is the
extended family, or somewhat larger tribal unit, that practices commensality. Indeed the importance of this condition may be seen from the fact that, strictly speaking, the father of a dvija caste should not eat with his son until the boy has been ritually incorporated into the caste with the investiture of the sacred thread during the upanayana ceremony, and never with his daughter, at least so long as she remains unmarried, since she becomes a member of the caste only through marriage, when she becomes a member of her husbands caste. Each extended family looks back in theory to a mythical ancestor, often a Vedic rsi (rishi), as its gotra and whilst groups of families with the same gotra may eat together they cannot intermarry. Groups with the same gotra therefore form exogamous subgroups within an endogamous caste. In time, and for reasons largely unknown, such castes became craft exclusive.
     Quite independent of the social division of caste is the much earlier division of society in terms of class, or varna (Pali vanna), which may mean many things but
probably in this context colour. According to Dumezil and others it is possible to identify in Indo European society as a whole three quite separate social functions
those of (1) the aristocrat/ priest, (2) the noble/warrior, and (3) those serving these. To each of these three functions a colour was attributed white, red and black,
respectively   and this is equally true of the Indo Aryan branch of the family that eventually migrated to the Indian sub continent. The Rig Veda attests the first two of
these functions and sometimes mentions the third but whilst it is probable that fulfillment of each function tended to become hereditary there is nonetheless ample
evidence to show that in principle anyone might perform any of the three functions. That each of the functions was assigned a separate colour is probably due to the
colour of dress worn rather than to any distinction on racial grounds for whatever the racial elements constituting the Indo Aryan community the term Indo Aryan,
like Indo European, being merely a linguistic label  it is clear that all three functions were thought to belong to a racial unity styled Aryan and distinct from the
indigenous peoples encountered both on arrival in and also on their later expansion into the Indian subcontinent.
      Whilst these functions find mention in the Rig Veda it is only in the later literature of the Brahmanic period when earlier tribal and semi nomadic ways of life
demanding flexibility of function start to give way to an increasingly urban form of society that these functions begin to harden into the varnas as we now know them,
whereupon they come to be referred to as the varna of the brahmin, kshatriya, respectively, with the addition of a  fourth, sudra varna in which to accommodate the
indigenous non Aryan groups with whom it had become necessary to come to terms. So the theory goes, but there is evidence in the Nikayas, as we shall see, that
would make it questionable to what extent such stratification of society continued to reflect the racial division of Aryan and non Aryan, especially in  the case of the
Brahmin who, despite his claims to an Aryan pedigree, seems often to have had non Aryan origins. Be this as it may, when the caste system, as defined above, came
into being it was these four varnas that provided a convenient structure in which to accommodate the proliferation of castes, such that a given caste might, at different
times, be accorded either brahmin, kshatriya, or Milan status as dictated by economic or political expediency, with the result that India now knows of some eighteen
thousand Brahmin castes between which there is, technically, no commensality or intermarriage. Thus whilst we may, correctly, speak of a given caste as a brahmin
caste, meaning that that caste is, at the time in question, accorded brahmin status, we cannot speak of the Brahmin caste; and with this distinction in mind we may
now turn our attention to the situation pertaining during the period covered by the Nikayas.
     On occasion we find mention of five clans (or families) of low standing: candales, nesadas (hunters), vepas (bamboo workers), rathakaras (chariot
makers) and pukkusas (refuse sweepers; see e.g. M iii 169; A i 107) and since the context is often that of the undesirability of rebirth into such clans, it may be
that there was, already during the Nikaya period, a tendency for certain despised occupations to become hereditary and even exclusive to certain clans. But we
should, at the same time, note that these despised groups are often contrasted with clans of high standing (uccakulani) said to be wealthy khattiyas, brahmins and
householders (e.g. A ii 85f) and seemingly representing a continuation of the three functions of Vedic society and the implication is that the despised groups were of
a  non Aryan origin, as further suggested by the inclusion of the caddalas, originally the progeny of Brahmin. Thus whilst it may be that we have in these  despised
groups the rudiments of the later caste, it would seem that during the Nikaya period the distinction between clans of high and low standing represented  merely a
continuation of the Vedic division of society in terms of those who were Aryan and non Aryan. If this be so then we should not be misled by the fact that
certain despised and non Aryan occupations had become hereditary into thinking that such were necessarily the case at the Aryan level of society too. Indeed at this
level it would seem that during the Buddhas day the flexibility of the Vedic period, in which anyone could in principle perform any of the three functions, persisted
and that profession remained a matter of choice up until the Bhagavad Gita. (Even the Chinese traveler Hsuan Tsang, who visited India in the seventh century A.D.,
makes no mention of an caste system, although this might point to nothing more than a lack of interest on his part.) Moreover, that the Brahmin, in the early law
books, is able to take food from any Aryan clearly an important consideration where the practice of gathering alms is concerned  suggests that the strictures of
commensality were as yet unknown; whilst the Nikayas record, as we shall see, that the Brahmin commonly took as his wife a woman of a different varna, which
entails that the varnas were not endogamous.
     Thus we may say that if any form of the caste system were known during the Nikaya period and it is doubtful that it was this was in all probability restricted to
certain non Aryan groups practicing despised occupations and that at the Aryan level of society none of the three defining characteristics of the caste were satisfied.
Even if we do have in these despised groups what may be seen as photo castes, we nowhere find the Buddha championing their cause. Rather, he seems to regard
their lot as yet a further example of dukkha, and a dukkha dependent upon a lack of merit. The existence of low clans is just another fact. If the existence of the
caste in the Nikaya period is somewhat dubious this is not the case with the varnas, whose existence is well attested in the tests where they are always enumerated
in  the following order: khattiya, Brahmin, versa, sudda (e.g. D i 91; S iv 219). Whilst it is perhaps an all too easy move to equate the Brahmin with the first
function of Vedic society, such a temptation should be resisted since in the Nikayas many Brahmins are lay householders and some even farmers (e.g. S i 172).
Moreover, it would seem that in the Vedic period anyone might perform the priestly function, whilst in any case the Brahmin priest had been only one such office, in
charge of the southern fire and responsible for avoiding sacrificial mishaps through utterance of his Atharva Veda mantras. Indeed, it may well be that such Brahmins
came originally from an indigenous stratum, only later arrogating themselves into a position of importance both by their claim to embody the sacred power that
ensured the success of the sacrifice and also by their making that sacrifice ever more complex and mysterious. In the process they began to have their office be seen
as a hereditary one of divine origin (M a 84, 148): Brahmins speak thus: Brahmins alone are the best varna; other vamas are inferior Brahmins alone are the white (or fair) varna; other varnas ere black (or dark). Brahmins alone are pure; not non Brahmins. Brahmins are own sons of Brahma, born from his mouth, born of Brahma, created 67 Brahma, heirs to Brahma. The Buddhists reacted against such claims on the part of priestly Brahmins in a variety of ways. In the Assalayana Sutta the Buddha responds by arguing that Brahmin women, just like other women, are seen to conceive and give birth and that Brahmins are, like other men, barn of women (M ii 148). This would explain the otherwise curious remark that Brahma is a term for mother and father (A i 132, ii 70), meaning that those who claim to be born of Brahma claim nothing more than to be born of human parents. Three things are necessary for conception to take place that it be the mothers season, that there be coitus of the parents and that the gandhabba be present  and since one can never know the varna of the approaching gandhabba one can never know whether one be a (true) khattiya, brahrnin, vessa or sudda (M a 157).
     In the Ambattha Sutta some evidence is found of the possible indigenous origins of certain brahmins for the brahmin Ambattha is forced to admit that his lineage
can be traced back to the black baby born of a slave girl of the Sakyas (D i 93f). Besides stressing the black and thus indigenous  origins of Ambattha, in contrast
to  the brahmins sole claim to being the white varna, this same suits shows that in matters of purity of descent the brahmins were far more lax than the khattivas. For
the brahmins would accept as their own, and accord full brahmin status to, the offspring of a khattiya/brahmin marriage, whereas this the khattiyas would never do
due to impurity of descent on the brahmin side (D i 97). Indeed the khattiyas are praised by the Buddha on the grounds that they resorted to marrying their own
sisters rather than injure the purity of the line (D i 92), implying that the Buddha, far from being critical of the vision divisions of society, upheld them and, moreover,
charged the brahmin with laxity in this regard, just as it is Brahma Sanankumara, no less, who is found proclaiming that it is the khattiya who is best amongst those
people who value descent (gotra) at D 199 and Mi358.
     The second way in which the Buddhists reacted against such claims of the brahmins was on the grounds that the varnas were not hereditary but dependent upon
conduct and thus to some extent a matter of choice. It is not by birth that one is despicable (vasalo) any more than it is by birth that one is a brahmin; rather this
comes about by what one does (Sn 142). This same sentiment finds expression elsewhere (e.g. Sn 650) and also at (S i 98) where it is said that a king at war would
engage any man skilled in warfare irrespective of his varna and in such passages we may take it that the Buddha was not so much proposing an innovation but rather
appealing to the earlier tradition that had gone before in which the adoption of a given profession, or function, had been dependent upon ability rather than birth. This
brings us to the third criticism of the brahmins claim since in this same sutta the Buddha goes on to show that a man is a source of merit if spiritually skilled, whatever
his Varna. For originally the term brahmin (brahman) had meant simply one possessing Brahman, Brahman being in this connection a somewhat ill defined sacredness or mystical insight, the source of divine power that bestowed sacrificial efficacy to the mantras that he intoned. It was through their seeing and hearing this Brahman that the Vedic rishi had been able to encapsulate it in the Vedic hymns that they intoned; whilst the brahmin priests of the southern fire came into possession
of Brahman through the performance of ascetic practices prior to the sacrifice itself. Possession of Brahman was the result of conduct, not of birth as the priestly
brahmin contemporaries of the Buddha claimed. If the officiating brahmin is not in possession of Brahman, not in contact with the source of divine power, his
sacrifice will be sterile and his mantras merely empty sounds. But just so, Ambatha, those ancient Isis of the brahman, the authors of the mantras, the nations of the
mantras, whose ancient form of words so chanted, uttered or composed the brahmins of today chant over again and rehearse, intoning or reciting exactly as has
been atoned  to wit, Atthaka, Vamaka, Vamadeva, Vessamitta, Yamatkggi, Angirasa, Bharadvaja, Vasettha, Kassapa and Bhagu  though you can say: I, and my
teacher, know by heart these verses, that you should on that account be; sir, or have attained the state of as such a condition does not exist now what think you,
Ambatha? What have you heard when brahmins, old and well stricken in years, teachers of yours or their teachers, were talking together did those ancient Isis,
whose mantras you so chant over and repeat, parade about well groomed, perfumed, trimmed as to their hair and beard, adorned with garlands and gems, clad in
white garments, in full possession and enjoyment of the five pleasures of sense, as you, and your teacher, do now? Or did they live, as their food, on boiled rice of
the best sorts, from which all the black specks had been sought out and removed, and flavored with sauces and curries of various kinds, as you, and your teacher,
do now? Or were they waited upon by women with fringes and furbelows round their loins, as you, and your teacher, do now? Or did they go about driving chariots drawn by mares with plaited manes and tails, using long wands and goads the while, as you, and your teacher, do now? Or did they have themselves guarded in fortified towns with moats dug out round them and crossbars let down before the gates, by men girt with long swords, as you, and your teacher, do now? (D i 104f, after the abbreviation of Rhys Davids at Dial i 129f). It will be noted that in his criticism of the priestly brahmin the Buddha, far from being critical of the early ideal of the brahmin as possessor of Brahman, instead uses this against his contemporary counterpart who is found lacking in several respects: a He merely repeats the words of the former rsis, without himself knowing Brahman. With this tight be compared the formulation of the Dhamma in sound, as the drum of the Deathless compared with its subsequent formulation in expositional satins, as discussed earlier.
     He lives a life of great luxury, driving about in chariots. Compare how one day Ananda saw the brahman driving out of Savatthi in his chariot, drawn by pure white mares; white were the steeds harnessed thereto and white the trappings, white the chariot. White were the fittings, white the reins, the goad, the canopy, his turban, his clothes and sandals, and by a white goad was he fanned (S v 4). c He lives in fortified towns, an anathema to the khattiya who, more than anyone, preserved the old nomadic ideal of the Indo Aryans and whose deity Indra was known as Purarhdara, who went on before them shattering the fortified cities (pura) of the indigenous peoples whose habits the Brahmins have now begun to adopt. The Buddhists and other so called heterodox movements   on the other hand, perpetuated the nomadic ideal of the Vedic period by going forth into the homeless life, for the household life is confined and dusty; going forth is in the open (M i 179). The most conclusive evidence that priestly brahmins such as Ambattha are not in possession of Brahman can be seen from their puthujjana like addiction to sensual pleasures, and even though a brahmin may be old, eighty, ninety, a hundred years old, yet, if he still takes pleasure in sense desires and dwells amongst them, if he burns with the burning of sense desires, is preyed on by the imagination of them, is eager in the quest for sense desires   then such a one is reckoned a fool (A i 68)  For by the Nikaya period such brahmins had, in addition, become greedy for money and greedy about women (D ii 245) whereas (Sri 284 306; so Woven Cadences, pp. 44 46): Rishis of old, austere, restrained of Self, devoid of five pleasures, fared to goal of soul. Then Brahmans had no cows nor gold nor corn; lore was rich wealth, they guarded godly store (brahman major, Brahman was the hidden treasure that they guarded). .Meet alms they deemed the common door step fare, In faith prepared, for earnest seekers set. And rich of realm and province honored them with couches, multi colored cloths, and demesnes. Inviolable were the Brahmans then, Invincible, by Dharma warded well . . . They went not with another taste (varaa) nor bought their wives; but wed thro love, in concord dwelt. Save near the time of season abstinence, Brahmans elsewise never had intercourse. They praised Brahma faring (Brahmacariya). Then came a change; here now, there now, they looked on kingly splendor; then on women’s charms; On well made chariots yoked with thoroughbreds, gaily caparisoned; on homesteads too, Houses petitioned, quartered, cubicled; Droves of fat oxen; throngs of women fair: And the gross wealth of men they coveted. Intoning hymns they came: This is abundance, this great opulence; Make sacrifice for thou much substance host! Make sacrifice for thou great riches halt! There at the royal lord . . . to the Brahmans riches gave: cows, beds, and doilies, fair women, shapely carriages Harnessed with steeds; Homes well partitioned, roomy, amiable, with divers treasures filled; he gave them wealth. Wealth won, they set them hearts on hoarding wealth: Greed gratified, then caving waxed the more indeed there were, in the Buddhas day, five qualities to be found more often in dogs than in Brahmins (A iii 221f). In former times mahouts approached only a brahmavi (female Brahmin), never a non brahman; now they go to the bahtthini and non brihtthini alike today dogs go to dogs only, never to other creatures. kilotons, Brahmins approached a brahman only in season, never at other times; now they go m a brahman both in and out of season   today dogs go to dogs only in season, never at other times.
     In form, times Brahmins neither bought nor sold a brahman but, consorting just where affection was mutual, fostered concord; now they do any of these things
today dogs neither buy nor sell dogs but consort just where affection is mutual and foster concord. In former times Brahmins hoarded neither treasure, grain, silver
nor gold; now they do these things   today dogs hoard neither treasure, grain, silver nor gold. In former times Brahmins sought food for the evening meal in the
evening, for the morning meal m the morning; now after cramming them bellies to the uttermost, they take away the remainder  today dogs seek food for the evening
meal in the evening, for the morning meal in the morning. Again and again we find the Brahmin being censured for his excessive indulgence in sense desires and
possessions and also for his lack of concern for the purity of the Aryan blood, which it seems was a foremost concern amongst ksatriyans. Some Brahmins,
however, took to the ascetic life and in so doing seem to have gone to the other extreme, mortifying themselves to an extent equaled only by the sensual excesses of
their home loving counterparts (e.g. A i 295f). Thus when, in the first Sermon, the Buddha announced that there were two dead ends: (1) addiction to attractive
pleasures of the senses that is low, of the villager, of the puthujjana, unariyan and not connected with the goal; and (2) addiction to self torment that is dukkhas
unariyan and not connected with the goal (Vin i 10) it is quite probable that he had in mind the twin extremes, the twin depths to which Brahmanism had sunk; whilst
in positing a middle course that makes for vision, that makes for knowledge and that conduces to awakening, to Nibbana, he was doing no more than proclaiming his
rediscovery of the ancient path from which the brahmins had long since strayed (S iv 117f). Foremost in virtue were the men of old, Those Brahmins who
remembered ancient rules. In them well guarded were the doors of sense. They had achieved the mastery of wrath. In meditation and the Dhamma they took delight,
those maintain, who remembered ancient rules. But these backsliders with their 'let us recite', drunk with the pride of birth, walk wrongfully. Overcome by wrath,
exceeding violent, they come to less amongst weak and strong alike. Vain is the penance of the uncontrolled, empty as treasure gotten m a dream. Such ways as
fasting, crouching on the ground, bathing at dawn, reciting of  the three (Vedas), wearing rough hides, and matted hair and filth and engaging in empty rites and
penances, hypocrisy and cheating and the rod, washings, ablutions, rinsing of the mouth,  These were the caste marks of the Brahman folk, Things done and
practiced for some trifling gain.
     A heart well tamed, made pure and undefiled, considerate for every living thing,  That is the path to attainment of Brahman. Thus the Buddha is critical of the two
dead ends in which he takes the Brahmins to be  excessive indulgence in the pleasures of the senses and excessive asceticism both of which diverge from the old
Vedic ideal of the G5i of few wants, the true brahmin of wham the Buddha quite clearly approves, so much so that he proclaims his arahants to be the true brahmin
(D i 167; Ud 3, 4, 6, 29; Sn 612 656; Dhp 383 423, etc.). Whereas the Brahmin had made a mere rite (S i 182f) or, at the other extreme, an ascetic practice (Ud
6) of going dawn to the river to bathe, hoping thereby to wash away his evil deeds, the true means to this was the inner washing of the tenfold path (A v 216f), of the
sotipannas (S v 391) and arahantship (M i 38f; 8 i 169, 182f; Ud 6, etc.).
     This true Brahmin understands as it really is the Four Truths of dukkha and the escape from the worlds attraction and danger (A i 260). He is, in short, the
savaka and most often the arahant and we must be careful to distinguish this true brahmin from his pleasure seeking and ascetic counterparts. The true tevijja (Three
Veda) brahmin is not the indigenous opportunist like Ambatha ( steeped in sensual pleasure and luxury, and vacuously reciting the Vedas without understanding their
true meaning   and moreover, for a fee (D i 8, iii 64)   but the arahant who possesses the tevijja, the three Vedas or knowledge  of (a) his former fives; (b) the
rebirths of others through witnessing their arising in heaven and hell and so on; and (c) the certainty of his own release (A i 165 = It 100f): He who knows his former
dwellings and who ....both heaven and the states of loss, who has reached the destruction of birth  that sage who has mastered the superknowledges  him I call a
tevijja brahmin on account of these three knowledges; him do I call tevijja, not that other) with his constant mutterings. It is precisely these three qualities that the (so
called) Brahmin contemporaries of the Buddha lacked due to their having renounced those states that make one a brahmin and adopting instead those states that
make one a non Brahmin (D i 245f). To employ them to intercede on ones behalf and invoke the devas participation in the sacrifice would be as successful as to
have them stand on one bank of the Aciravati river and invoke the further bank by calling upon it to come over (D i 244f). This they readily admit themselves when,
having gone forth and attained arahantship, they confess (M ii 173): Indeed we were nearly lost, indeed we were nearly lost, for while we were not (true) recluses,
we claimed that we were, saying, "We are recluses; while others were not (true) brahmans, we believed that we were, saying, "we are Brahmins"; while we were not (true) arahants, we claimed that we were, saying, "we are arahants". But now we really are recluses, now we really are Brahmins, now we really are arahants. By having, as arahants, become true brahamins they had come into possession of Brahman  they were brahmabhuta “become Brahma” (M i 341 = ii 160; ep It 57; So 561).
     Moreover, just as Brahmins had, unjustifiably, claimed to be own sons of Brahma, born from his mouth, born of Brahma, created by Brahma, heirs to Brahma (M ii 84, 148), so did  they, as savakas, through being born of the ariyan birth (M if 103) now come to bean own son of the Lord (on occasion called Brahma  e.g. A i 207; ep AA 6 322f), born from his mouth, Dhamma born, Dhamma created, an heir to the Dhamma (e.g. S ii 221). Just as the brahmin s claim was intended to
remove him from the purely mundane sphere and accord him a divine origin, so too was the true Brahmin, as savaka, no longer of the world but one with his being
rooted in the Deathless. Indeed, since it had been only the Brahmins possession of Brahman, the divine power, which he mediated in order to ensure the efficacy of
the sacrifice, so now was it only the savaka, who, through his participation on the super mundane plane, could mediate this power in the practice of almsgiving into
which that sacrifice had been transformed. For just as the brahmin had been worthy of alms only through his being srotriya (versed in the Veda), so now was it
only the savaka who as sutavant, or indeed as Sotapanna, was so worthy. In a recent study  of the Buddhist adaptation of the sacrifice, Roy Clayton Amore has
shown that the Buddhists consciously substituted the practice of making merit for the Brahmanic sacrifice and that in many suttas Brahmanic sacrificial terms were
employed but given a new meaning. At the same time it was claimed that Buddhist wanderers were worthy of the same hospitality originally due to wandering, Veda
knowing (srotriya) Brahmins. In particular, Amore demonstrates that the stock epithet of the savakasangha that it is worthy of sacrifice, worthy of hospitality, worthy
of offerings, worthy of arahant, the unsurpassed merit field for the world   is in fact composed of attributes formerly applicable to the brahmin and especially to the
brahmin guest (atithi). With respect to the brahmin guest, Gonda notes that according to AV 15, 13, 1 the man who receives a Brahman in his house "secures those
pure (holy: punyah) lokah which are on the earth". This is a particularly interesting observation for, as Gonda shows elsewhere in the same work, the term loka
seems to have originally been used to denote a clearing in the jungle, the place where the celestial powers broke through into the mundane. This penetration was also
thought represented by the place where the sacrifice was performed: for that indeed is "heavenly world"); that means that the sacrificial place is to direct
communication with the world of the divine. It is, according to SB 6 6.39 (the place where Agni is the sacrificial fire) is kindled ns the navel of the earth) end VS 23,
60f; 58 13; 5 2 20F the navel of this world (esye bhuvavasya nabhih), the centre m which a break through from the celestial and the mundane plane is manifest, that
very plane which with respect to the earth and the sacrificer is the source of real life because a is the mystic point of contact with the high power. Here the sacrifice,
is safeguarded against danger (SB I 1 2 23: the navel means the canoe, and the carne is safe from danger). However the centre (madhyam), the navel, the soul, is the
place in which the axis mundi, the cosmic axis, the central pillar or Frame which putting the cosmic levels in communication, finds heaven and earth and sustains the
components of the universe  reaches the earth, constituting a means of communicating with or traveling to heaven as well as a canal through which the heavenly
blessings may penetrate into the abodes of men. Agni, as the sacrificial fire, was, moreover, seen as tile earthly counterpart of his heavenly aspect, the sun   the door
to the Deathless, or amata (BU V 15 1 =Isa U 15; cp Mann U VI 35) and connected with the sun by means of the deva yarn, the channel or canal along which Agni
brought the devas, the divine power, down to ensure the efficacy of the sacrifice and along which Agni also transported to the fathers the sacrificial offerings that had
been consumed in his flames. Thus it is not surprising that the increasing importance assumed by the Brahmin as the representation of divine power amidst the
mundane led to the tendency of identifying the Brahmin with Agni and all the more so where the sacrificial act consisted in feeding the worthy Brahmin who, like
agent must consume the sacrificial offering in order to send it on its way.
     Thus just as at RV 173 1 Agni (who is himself styled artisans, or worthy RV I 127 6; 113 3) is likened to a guest in the house of the sacri6cer, so does Katha U 11 7 state that the Brahmin guest (atithir) enters the house like fire (vaisvanarah = Agni). Thus we may say that in the Vedic period Agni, as sacrificial fire, had been understood to be in contact with, by way of the deva yarn, his celestial aspect as the sun, itself the door to the Deathless and rile source of divine power. The sacrificial fire was thus the point of communication between the mundane and supermundane planes  indeed the sacrificial fire was in a sense that supermundane plane on earth. In the Buddhas day, however, the brahmins maintained that they themselves represented this point of contact and were likened to Agni, the one worthy (actions) of the sacrifice. The Buddhists, on the other hand, claimed that the Brahmins of their day had, as was obvious from their behavior, lost contact with this source of divine energy and no longer were in possession of Brahman. Rather it was the Buddhists themselves who were now alone in contact with these powers, with the supermundane plane; it was now the supermundane savakasangha that alone represented the point of communication between the supermundane and mundane planes and that was alone worthy (arahant) of the sacrifice. Only food placed in the mouth of the savakasangha, the new sacrificial fire or Agni, would bear the desired results including its transmission to the petas. In this connection it is of interest to note, in passing, how the Nikayas record the curious belief that food presented to the Buddha but not eaten by him could be digested only by the Tathagata or by one of his savakas. For this reason the Buddha advises Pharadvaja to pour that food where there is little green grass or where there Is water with no creatures in it, whereupon it seethes and hisses and sends forth steam and smoke as might a ploughshare, heated all day, when plunged into water (Sn p 15; cp Ud 82 where the remains of Cundas truffles have to be buried for the same reason and also M i l2 where it is said that the food of one savaka may be eaten by another savaka or else is to be disposed of in the same manner employed by Bharadvaja). The fact that such food becomes full of heat suggests that the association of the savakasangha with Agni was also present in the Buddhist mind and is also reminiscent of the belief at the Vedic sacrifice that all left overs had to be burnt since they now possessed divine essence (cp KS i 211 n 3 for a similar explanation). This suggests that the savakasangha and particularly the Buddha   were looked upon as Agni in both his aspects as fire and the sun. Proof of the former, in addition to the above, may be found in the fact that just as at the Buddhas Parinibbana the body of, he Buddha resisted efforts to set it alight until Mahakassapa arrived, whereupon it burst into flame of its own accord (D ii 163f), so too did the venerable Bakkula at his parinibbana, not wishing his body to be a burden to any other monk, enter into the element of heat (tejodhatu), whereupon a flame sprang from his body and his skin, flesh and blood burnt like ghee and were destroyed (MA iv 196 quoted MLS iii 174 n 2). As to the association of the Buddha and the savakasangha with the sun we may recall the high degree of solar symbolism that continually surrounds the Buddha and his savakas. The Buddha is the radiance maker (S i 210) and is, at birth, likened to the sun in a cloudless autumnal sky (Sn 687); he is continually called Adiccabandhu, linked with or related to the sun, Aditya (e.g. S i 186, 192; A ii 54; Sn 54; Vin ii 296, etc.). Similarly, his savaka is often said to be brilliant like the sun (Ud 3; It 51); and we have already had cause to note both that the arising of the Dhammacalckhu is likened to the autumnal sun rising into the heavens, shining, burning and flashing forth in all directions (A i 242) and that the savakasangha, in contrast with the puthujjana, is on the solar path  of no return.
     Moreover, we may speculate, given that the ariyan eightfold path is the path leading to the Deathless (amatagamimaggo S v 8), that that path was itself at times
seen in terms of the deva yana such that we arrive at the diagram in Fig. 3 which may be compared with that given earlier in illustration of the true analysis of the
Buddhist world. Thus the savakasangha like the sacrifice before it, can be seen as the navel, the centre that is safe from danger. Thus it was, no doubt, that upon
sight of the Deathless  people chose to go for refuge, that is, for this protection now afforded by the Buddha. Similarly, we may compare the practice, in more
modern times, prevalent amongst Sinhalese Buddhists, of placing in the Sangha any son having an inauspicious horoscope since it is thought the Sangha affords
special protection in this direction. Moreover, we can also see how the savakasangha could claim to be in contact with the divine powers a point surely enforced by
the numerous passages recording either visits of devas to the Buddha or, conversely, visits of the Buddha and his chief savaka to the worlds of the devas. But most
interesting perhaps is the fact that the Deathless  was in the Vedic sources often spoken of as the cosmic waters, which makes one wonder whether this was not why
Narada had claimed that although he had seen nibbana it was nonetheless for the present like the water at the bottom of a well which he could see but not yet touch.
From the foregoing it will be clear that by the period covered by the Nikayas a group of individuals, from the Buddhist point of view of dubious ancestry, had
placed  themselves into a position of religious power and wealth on the basis that they alone embodied the sacred power of Brahman. The Buddhists, feeling that
their unariyan behavior disqualified them from this, openly criticized what they took to be a band of indigenous opportunists, but in this they were motivated by no
egalitarian ethic on behalf of the despised clans. Indeed it was rather the other way round for the evidence of the Nikayas suggests that it was the altogether more
conservative cause of the ksatriyans that the Buddhists favored. The ksatriyans were so intent on preserving the purity of Aryan blood that they took to incest
whereas the brahmins would go with any varna or indeed a woman of the despised chars (A iii 228), accepting, unlike the ksatriyans, any offspring. It was no doubt
for this reason that they considered the brahmin low born, to the extent that Pasenadi, king of Kosala, would not allow the brahmin Pokkharasadi to enter his
presence and would only speak to him from behind a curtain ,D i 103; cp Dial i 128 n 2). They also saw in the brahmin of their day a degeneration of the former
ideals of Vedic society which they cherished and it was these the Buddhists claimed they were preserving. The Buddhists criticism of the Brahmin was a spiritual
rather than asocial criticism and in claiming that the arahant was the true Brahmin, on a par with those of olden times, they were advocating a reform, a return to the
conservatism of the past, rather than an innovation. Indeed, as Amore shows in transforming the animal sacrifice of the brahmin and support for the wandering
brahmin into support for the savakasangha, they did not have to convince the donor of the benefit of the practice itself. All they were doing was adopting, and
adapting, an already weft established institution in which brahmin families   fox it is almost totally amongst brahmin families that the texts suggest the Buddhists sought
their sustenance as indeed ii was nearly always Brahmins to whom the Dhammacakkhu was given believed themselves to be acquiring merit. The Buddhists had
merely to convince such individuals that although the spiritually inept Brahmin was unable to guarantee the suktah svargath lokah would be theirs after death, this
doubt was not applicable in the case of his savakas, the true Brahmins  who could alone guarantee the suktah svarga lokah. No attempt is made to educate the
masses religiously  they are allowed to retain their old aspirations for their old goal; only the means to that goal is changed. In short they spoke the language of the
people and it is no doubt for this reason that they triumphed where their contemporary rivals to Brahmanism failed. They did not reject the institution of the yarns but
rather restored to Aryan society the earlier conservatism it was in danger of losing, and as Celestin Bougle has it if they worked at replacing the roof.
The very disease that had ruinously infected the old roof very soon also attacked the new. The decline so frequently predicted by the Buddha took place and
even sooner, perhaps, than he had anticipated, whereupon most of the criticisms that had been leveled against the Brahmin now came to be equally applicable to the
puthujjana monk. It was the monk wearing robes made of rags taken from rubbish heaps and cemeteries, eating only what was received into his begging bowl and
living in the open air at the roots of trees, not going under a roof except during the compulsory residence of the rainy season (M ii 6 9), that was the true Brahmin
leading the life of simplicity associated with the rsis of old. However, he was soon to be replaced by the monk who, longing for fine robes, fine alms food and fine
accommodation, and would abandon such practices in favor of dwelling in the village or city. He would even take to living with none and, as a consequence, lose all
desire for the Brahmacariya and return to the lay life; or he would live in company with monastery attendants and novices, when he would live and feast upon the
plenty of hoarded stocks (a practice impossible for the arahant   D iii 235) and mark out his lands and crops. Such were the Buddhas fears for the future (A iii
108), at which time the monks would give up tire earlier practice of sleeping on straw and became delicate, soft and tender in hands and feet, lying till sunrise on
soft couches and pillows of down; end these monks would fall prey to Mara (S ii 267f). That is to say, the savaka monk was soon to give way to the puthujjana
monk and, moreover, to one frequently of bad behavior, since as non savaka he lacked possession of that dear to the Aryans. Such monks were, given the Buddhas
criteria above, no better than the brahmins before them. The true brahman was to be followed by a monk as spiritually sterile as his former brahmin counterpart, no
more knowing the supermundane than the brahmin had known Brahman. Having lost contact with the Dhamma as the sound of the Deathless he turned increasingly
to the Dhamma as formulated in the suits and just as the brahmin had vacuously chanted the mantras of old without understanding their true meaning, so did the
puthujjana monk misunderstand the collected utterances, addressed originally to savakas, coming to believe, like Savittha (S ii 115), that anyone who could see as
it really was that the cessation of becoming was nibbana must be an arahant. That is, he came to believe that right view lay at the end of the path rather than at its
beginning and in his search for the means of acquiring this right view  he resorted, in time, to the scholastic analysis of the Abhidhamma as had the brahmin, in his
search for a substitute for the lost Soma, resorted to an intricate analysis of the sacrifice in such texts as the Brahmanas. For the interesting question as to why the
Buddhists collected the remembered utterances of the Buddha has not, to my knowledge, ever been raised, yet we may say that one already on the path would have
had little use for such utterances whilst, since such teachings were originally intended to suit the particular need of a given individual, they could have had little benefit
if given a general application. Perhaps, as puthujjanas unaware of this, they set about what became a major industry supposing that though through Anandas cosmic
blunder they had lost the Buddha they need not lose his teachings which might afford some clue as to how that goal was to be attained.
     Once those who had formerly supported the brahmin had been convinced that the yellow robed monk was more merit worthy than the brahmin it was possible
for an increasingly large number of puthujjana monks to rise to power, living o the country’s alms food on the grounds that they were the true brahmin. In so doing,
the puthujjana monk became like his earlier brahmin counterpart in the sense that he came to possess some of the arrogance associated with that brahmin, as may be
seen from the claim that there were twenty two reasons why the layman, even if a savaka, should rise from his seat in token of respect for, and revere, any member
of the order of monks even if he be but a puthujjana novice (Min 161). When there were in the world no longer my lay savakas the division of the Buddhist world
in terms of the savaka and the puthujjana gave way to one in terms of monk and layman which has pertained to this day as evidenced, for instance, by Ling quoted
earlier. It is not generally realized, however, that since the Buddhists justified their entitlement to alms on the grounds that they alone, as supermundane, were in
contact with the Deathless and thus alone were capable of guaranteeing that gifts given to them would bear the desired fruit, it follows that when the savakasangha
finally disappeared from this world, so with it went this source of unsurpassed merit. For the Buddha recalls that although he had once, in a former birth as the
brahmin Velama, given vast alms, such gifts came to little since there was no one worthy to receive the gifts, there was none to sanctify those gifts. For though the
Brahmin Velama gave those very rich gifts, greater would have been the fruit thereof had he fed one person of right view  and greater still had he fed a sakadagamin,
an anagamin, an arahant, a Paccekabuddha, a Tathagata or the order of monks with the Buddha at its head (A iv 394f). This order of monks with the Buddha at its
head is to be seen as a designation of the order of monks during the Buddhas own lifetime as opposed to that following his Parinibbana (cp M iii 255 where this
distinction is made) and consisting, as we have seen, entirely of savakas. When the order of monks no longer contained any savakas, when it was an order purely of
pudhujjana monks, there would be once more, even in the order of monks, no one capable of sanctifying gifts made. The puthujjana monk could be no more a
source of merit than his brahmin predecessor since neither were in contact with the divine powers that had to be mediated if a gift were to bear the desired fruit thus
perhaps the modern Sinhalese practice of monks accepting alms on behalf of the ariyasangha reaching as far back as such great savakas as Sariputta and
Mahamoggalana. For only then might the Sinhalese, through a gift to the Sahgha, release their desire of generating sufficient merit that in future they might see the holy
king Buddha Maitriya, hear the preaching on the Four Aryan Truths and be established on the path.
     Thus we may say that when the savakasangha finally disappeared, so too did not only the supermundane path but also the lunar path it provided for those on the
side of merit seeking pleasurable rebirths. When these two paths disappeared is not known but we may surmise that if one savaka were incapable of establishing
another on the paths then with the odd exception of returning for a maximum of seven further births (and some amongst the devas where the life span is, by our
standards, tremendous) it cannot have been long after the Buddhas parinibbana; and whilst the Buddha estimated that the true Dhamma would last no longer than
five hundred years, it may rather have been a matter of a mere seventy years or so. The path, the ancient path through the woods that the Buddha had rediscovered
and which was really no path at all   was quickly reclaimed by the jungle (vana = Mara) and became so overgrown by the later scholasticism that one might never
suspect it were there: They shut the road through the woods seventy years ago. Weather and rain have undone it again, and now you would never know there once
was a road through the woods before they planted the trees. It is underneath the coppice and heath and the twin anemones. Only the keeper sees That (Brahma),
where the ring dove broods, and the badgers roll at ease, there was once a road through the woods. Yet if you enter the woods of a summer evening late, when
the night air cools on the trout ringed pools where the octet whistles his mate, (they fear not men in the woods, because they see so few.) you will hear the beat of a
horses feet, and the swish of a skirt in the dew, steadily cantering through the misty solitude,, As though they perfectly knew the old lost road through the woods .
. . But there is no road through the woods.