The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c8.55

c8.55

Only this much appears to me to emerge clearly out of these theoretical discussions, that the castes in Buddha’s time and in the eastern lands were an important factor in the social life. The question, in my opinion, can never be of any influence which Buddha’s doctrine of the worthlessness of the castes may have had upon the existing condition of society, of any weakening of the class-oppositions through Buddhism. The conception of the non-existence of caste-distinctions which we notice everywhere in Buddhistic writings, may (at first sight) seem to suggest the thought that we are to see in this peculiarity of the Buddhistic doctrine, a reformatory act of Buddha and have to look upon Buddha as the destroyer of rigid limits fixed by orthodox practice. This view, however, is not at all correct.¹ The castes continued after the spread of the Buddhistic doctrine quite as well as before; the social organisation in India was not in the least altered by Buddha's appearance. We see that there is constant reference to the institution of castes and that not simply in the older portions of the Pali canon. Even the later portions, the commentaries on the Jâtikas bear witness to this, that in the caste-distinctions one has to see a real force, even long after Buddhism had acquired a firm footing and Buddha's doctrine of the worthlessness of castes had found universal acceptance as a means of acquiring emancipation.