The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c9.2

c9.2

Before we attempt to analyse the structure of the social body and to look more closely to its separate parts, we must point to a circumstance which is of great importance for the whole condition of culture in the East and especially, for the position of the dominant classes and peoples with regard to the Brâhmaṇa, the circumstance, namely, that the Khattiya, no less than the Brâhmaṇa, nay, even the people belonging to the middle class, renounced the world and lived as hermits in the forest. And indeed, we meet with this view not as an exception, not as a chance occurrence, of which we can speak as we do of an unusual, extraordinary thing. No, the practice seems to be as common with the king, with the householder as it is with the pious Brâhmaṇa. We have, in my opinion, to see here the key to what is often called the social reform of Buddhism, what, however, in reality, is only a further development of prevailing conditions—I mean the admission of all to the Buddhistic fold irrespective of their caste.