The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c13.10

c13.10

The three priests who are considered specially holy in the epics, the *guru*, who has taught the king in his youth, the sacrificial priest and the house priest¹ appear, according to the Jâtakas, to be united in the person of the purohita. He is the teacher, the guru, or, as usually said in our text, the ácariya of the king and is mentioned as such by the latter. “Give it to the ácariya ”--with these words the king presents a costly carriage through his retinue to the purohita (II. 376). When the king, as narrated in the Sarabhaṅga Jâtaka, hears the purohita knock at the door with his nails, he asks, “Who is there,” and at the answer, “It is I, O king, the purohita,” opens the door and says, “Come in, my teacher” (ácariya, IV. 270). Also in the passage already mentioned of the Sarabhaṅga Jâtaka (V. 127), the king calls him several times ácariya. In answer to the purohita’s question whether he had a good sleep, he replies: “How could I sleep well, my teacher, when the weapons flashed to-day all over the palace.” The priest soothes his anxiety as he points to the birth of his son as the cause of this phenomenon. “What, however, my teacher, will happen to a boy born under such circumstances?” “Nothing, O great king, he will become the best archer in the whole of India." "Good, my teacher, then educate him well and when he is grown up, present him to me."