The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c14.48

c14.48

As the four duties of a Brâhmaṇa the Śatapatha Brâhmaṇa mentions (XI. 5. 7, 1)²: Brahmanical parentage (brâhmaṇyam), suitable behaviour (pratirûpacharyâ), attainment of fame (yaśas) and teaching of men (lokapakti). We should not from the nature of our source expect that it should offer us any detailed illustration of this scheme, for this reason that the duties mentioned consist in part in the carrying out of things which lie beyond the range of vision of the Buddhistic narrator and of which he lacks any understanding. Thus, the Jâtakas contain no rules regarding sacrifice which together with study constitutes the duty of attainment of fame mentioned in the third passage; they only mention it, in order to exhibit its worthlessness and illustrate the swindling ways of the greedy Brâhmaṇas in filling their pockets. For the Brâhmaṇas to make profit out of the sacrificial ceremonies seems to have passed into a proverb current among the people. As a king at a sacrificial ceremony gives money to the Brâhmaṇas, so does the senápati willingly give his wife to his lord—thus runs a verse in the Ummadantî Jâtaka (V. 221). Also for the fulfilment of the first duty, namely, brâhmaṇya, I cannot give any illustration from the Jâtakas themselves, but we can infer from the polemic against the value attached to birth which we come across here, and indeed, generally, in the Jâtakas, that even in the eastern lands, great importance was attached, at least in some cases, to pure birth on the part of the Brâhmaṇas. What is meant here by a true Brâhmaṇa we learn, for example, from a passage of the Nidânakathâ (I. 2), where it is said of the first Bodhisattwa, that is, Buddha in his first existence as Brâhmaṇa Sumedha, “Of good family, on both sides, on the father’s side as well as on the mother’s of pure origin up to the seventh generation, faultless and irreproachable, so far as birth is concerned." They are the same words which appear elsewhere in the Pali canon¹ and in which in the Dîgha Nikâya (IV. 4) the Brâhmaṇas ask Soṇadaṇḍa to seek for his ancestor in the Samaṇa Gotama, while pointing out his Brahmanical origin. "Because you, O Soṇadaṇḍa, are of good family on both sides, therefore, you should not seek the Samaṇa Gotama but Samaṇa Gotama must seek you."