The History of Indian Literature c8.197.4

c8.197.4

with which may be compared the light red, yellowish red (*kasháya*) garments of the Buddhists (see for instance Mṛichhakaṭ., pp. 112, 114, ed. Stenzler; M.-Bhár., xii. 566, 11898; Yájnav., i. 272), and the red (*rakta*) dress of the Sáṃkhyabhikshu in the Laghujátaka of Varáha-Mihira. Now, that these western non-Brahmanical Vrátyas, Vrátínas, were put precisely upon a par with the eastern non-Brahmanical, *i.e.*, Buddhistic, teachers, appears from an addition which is given by Láṭyáyana to the description of the Vrátyastomas as found in the Pañchaviṅśa-Bráhmaṇa. We are there told that the converted Vrátyas, *i.e.*, those who have entered into the Brahman community, must, in order to cut off all connection with their past, hand over their wealth to those of their companions who still abide by the old mode of life—thereby transferring to these their own former impurity—or else, to a "Brahmabandhu Mágadhadeśíya." This latter expression is only explicable if we assume that Buddhism, with its anti-Brahmanical tendencies, was at the time flourishing in Magadha; and the absence of any such allusion in the Pañchaviṅśa-Bráhmaṇa is significant as to the time which elapsed between this work and the Sútra of Láṭyáyana.∗