Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c14.s4.4

c14.s4.4

Craft-guilds and merchant-guilds have been the most enduring of all corporations in the country. But Buddhist India witnessed the formation of a remarkable order of monks and nuns with definite, minute rules to meet every possible contingency. Renunciation was nothing new to the country in the days of Buddha. After the zest of life which is redolent in the Ṛigveda had given way to meditation, Brāhmaṇas expatiated on the nothingness of this world, the incalculable importance of the life after death, the necessity of release from bondage and, as a result, the desirability of renunciation and asceticism. The Upaniṣads reveal numbers of devout men who had retired into the forest to contemplate the divinity or practise austerities. The Buddha himself had forsaken home and hearth one solemn night and betaken himself to severities, which almost wore out his health, and to contemplation which at last brought the flash of the Truth. He forbade excesses of asceticism but founded an order of recluses for men as well as for women. The new element which he introduced was that of organisation. Brāhmaṇism has always fought