The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c9.18

c9.18

and heads of families their wives and children in order to build a hut in the forests of the Himâlaya and to live on roots and fruits or to eke out an existence by begging alms. The thought of the transitoriness of earthly goods, of the unworthiness of human existence supplies generally the impulse to renounce the world. Similar narratives to those we find in the holy texts of the Buddhists about Buddha himself and his taking leave of his home,¹ we meet with even in the Jâtakas and are to some extent like these of great poetical beauty.