On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c5.79

c5.79

The statements regarding the religious condition of India point to an equally early period. Just as the three Vedas are the basis of the higher instruction, so the prevalent religion is that of the Path of Works with its ceremonies and sacrifices, among which several like the Vācapeyya (*vājapeya*) and the Rājasūya are specially and repeatedly mentioned. Side by side with these appear popular festivals, celebrated, when the Nakṣatra had been proclaimed, with general merry-makings and copious libations of Surā, as well as the worship of demons and trees, [20] all of which go back to the earliest times. Nor are the hermits in the woods and the wandering ascetics unknown. Most of the heroes take the *isipabbajjā*, *i. e.*, renounce the world according to the rule of the Ṛṣis, and live with their sacred fires in the hill-forests, whence they descend occasionally in order to procure salt and pungent condiments (*loṇambilasevanattha*). The wandering ascetics (*tāpasa*) appear to belong to different orders, as various distinctive marks are mentioned. But only those of one division, the Ājīvikas, are actually named, among whom the future Buddha himself was once born in a former Kalpa. These are, as Professor Kern has first pointed out, the ancient Vaiṣṇava devotees of Nārāyaṇa and particularly the Paramahaṁsas, who according to the lately recovered Vaikhānasa Dharmasūtra actually went naked and swallowed cowdung, as the Buddhists allege of these dangerous rivals.