The History of Indian Literature c8.46.2

c8.46.2

This is shown by the use both of the root *budh* in the Bráhmaṇas, and of the word *buddha* itself in even the most recent of the Vedántic writings. The technical application of the word is as much the secondary one as it is in the case also of another word of the kind, *śramaṇa*, which was in later times appropriated by the Buddhists as peculiarly their own. Here not merely the corresponding use of the root *śram*, but also the word *śramaṇa* itself, as a title of honour, may be pointed out in several passages in the Bráhmaṇas. Though Megasthenes, in a passage quoted by Strabo, draws a distinct line between two sects of philosophers, the Βραχμᾶνες and the Σαρμάναι, yet we should hardly be justified in identifying the latter with the Buddhist mendicants, at least, not exclusively; for he expressly mentions the ὑλόβιοι—*i.e.*, the Brahmachárins and Vánaprasthas, the first and third of the stages into which a Brahman's life is distributed—as forming part of the Σαρμάναι. The distinction between the two sects probably consisted in this, that the Βραχμᾶνες were the "philosophers" by birth, also those who lived as householders (Gṛihasthas); the Σαρμάναι, on the contrary, those who gave themselves up to special mortifications, and who might belong also to other castes. The *Πράμναι*, mentioned by Strabo in another passage (see Lassen, *I. AK.* i.