The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c14.150

c14.150

² "What separated Buddha above all things from most of his rivals was his rejection of penances in which these recognised the path of emancipation. We saw how according to tradition Buddha himself in the age in question, through which he lived as a boy, knew self-mortification in its severest form and perceived its worthlessness in himself. What drives earthly thoughts away from the sonl is not fasting and bodily penances but work for its own sake, above all, the struggle for knowledge and for this struggle one creates the force only out of an external life which is as far removed from sensuality as it is from self-denial or even self-created pain." Oldenberg, *Buddha*, p. 178.