The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c14.60

c14.60

As the chief subject of the study of the Brāhmaṇas, the Vedas occur naturally in our sources. "In the three Vedas thoroughly proficient" (tiṇṇam vedānam pāragū or pāram gato, I. 38. 43. 166 etc.), "attained perfection in the three Vedas" (tīsu vedesu nipphattim patto, I. 285)—these are the invariable epithets of a true Brāhmaṇa. Instead of the three Vedas, the mantas are sometimes mentioned which the teacher makes his pupils learn (mante vācesi, I. 402; II. 100, 260). "Formerly, I was a Brāhmaṇa like you studying the Vedas" (mantajjhāyaka brāhmaṇa, I. 167) says the goat, which remembers its former birth, to the Brahmanical teacher. Also when it is said generally of a Brāhmaṇa, "he learnt the science" (sippam uggaṇhi, III. 18; uggahitasippa, III. 249; V. 193), what is meant by it is the Brahmanical science κατ' ἐξοχήν, the study of the Veda. Still the three Vedas were manifestly not the sole subject which the Brâhmaṇas were taught during their student days; in several places "all the sciences" (sabbasippáni, I. 463; II. 53; III. 219) are mentioned as what the Brâhmaṇa has to learn and by this are to be understood, over and above the three Vedas, eighteen branches of science. The purohita in the Sabbadâṭha Jâtaka is versed in the three Vedas and eighteen sciences (tiṇṇam vedánam aṭṭhárasannam sippánam páram gato, II. 243) and the udicca-bráhmana of the Bhîmasena Jâtaka learns from a world-renowned teacher in Takkasilâ the three Vedas and the eighteen branches of knowledge (tayo vede aṭṭhárasa vijjaṭṭhánáni, I. 356. So also I. 463). Particulars about these aṭṭhárasa vijjaṭṭhánáni we don't learn from the Jâtakas themselves; still it is not improbable that they coincide approximately with the eighteen divisions which are mentioned in the Brahmanical systems and into which the Hindus still divide their sciences.¹