Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.501.2

c10.501.2

According to a Jain canon some of the causes of the renunciation of the world were poverty, sickness, sudden anger and insult.⁹ There might be some truth in the following abuse hurled by the householders at the monks : “those who become śramaṇas are the meanest workmen, men unable to support their families, low-caste men, wretches, idlers.”¹⁰ In order to discourage the influx of such people, it was said that a miserable man who becomes a monk in order to get food from others will be reborn as a boar greedy of wild rice.¹¹ A Buddhist text informs us that in the realm of Bimbisāra the Saṃgha enjoyed special protection from the king, on account of which at times prisoners, thieves, persons condemned to the punishment of whipping, debtors and runaway slaves took refuge in the Buddhist Order and got themselves ordained.¹ When these cases were brought to the notice of the Buddha, he laid down that such people should not be admitted into the Order. A passage of the *Dīgha Nikāya* also makes it clear that members of the lower orders sought an end of their misery by becoming Buddhist monks.