Caste and Race in India c7.155

c7.155

Whatever might have been Buddha's own views and practice, it is indubitable that his immediate followers believed in the time-honoured restrictions of caste, and being most probably Kshatriyas themselves, utilized the opportunity, offered by Buddha's revolt, to establish Kshatriya pre-eminence among the four castes. The complete discomfiture of the Kshatriyas within the Brahmanic fold had made this course inevitable. Measuring their strength with the Brahmins and failing in the contest, they naturally turned their attention to the masses. In their appeal to the masses to recognize them as the real leaders of society, they must have availed themselves of the general opinion against the Brahmin and made an excellent use of the art of ridicule in drawing a ludicrous picture of the wide contrast between the Brahmin's professions and his practices.³ Use of a language, better understood than Sanskrit by the populace, immensely helped them in their cause. It is just because this must have been the probable genesis of Buddhism that the largest bulk of the immediate followers of Buddha were Kshatriyas and other well-to-do non-Brahmins who were dissatisfied with their low position within the Brahmanic fold.