Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s29.1.3

c9.s29.1.3

All others they suppose to partake largely of a noxious nature. Both this class and the other class of persons practise fortitude as well by undergoing active toil as by enduring suffering, so that they will remain motionless for a whole day in one fixed posture. Besides these there are divines and sorcerers and those who are conversant with the rites and customs relating to the dead, who go about villages and towns begging. Those who are more cultured than these, even they allow themselves to make use of popular ideas about hell which seem to make for godliness and purity of life. Women study philosophy with some of the Sarmanes, on the condition of observing sexual continence like the men. The name ‘forest-dwellers’ (Hylobioi) does create a doubt if Megasthenes had the *vānaprasthas* in mind; but the Buddhist monks also shunned cities and villages and dwelt in forests; and the term Sarmanes (*Śramaṇas*) as well as the social services described, such as healing the sick and preaching to the people seem more appropriate to the Buddhist monks than to Brahman ascetics; again women were admitted more readily into the order of *bhikkuṇis* than among Brahmanical ascetics. If this reasoning is correct, we have here one of the earliest accounts of the Buddhist order of monks, and it is to be noted that when Megasthenes wrote, they did not yet command as much esteem in Society as the Brāhmaṇas. Asoka’s labours for the cause of Buddhism lay still in the future;