The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c9.15

c9.15

¹ Cf. E. W. Hopkins, *The social and military position of the ruling caste in ancient India, as represented by the Sanskrit Epic.* In the "Journal of the American Oriental Society," Vol. 13, p. 179 sq., Hopkins speaks of the entrance of a king into the ascetic state as a change of caste. A change of caste, however, this action does not itself produce, especially, when, as is related of Viśvamitra, a king tries through austerities to reach the rank of a Brâhmaṇa. The priestly compilers of the epics wanted to see in the resignation of the kingdom and acceptance of the homeless condition, as they looked upon the last as a privilege of the Brâhmaṇas, an inadmissible change of caste.