Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c19.5

v1.c19.5

There is nothing on record to show that there existed in the pre-Buddhist days any code of disciplinary rules governing the life of a *brahmacārin*. The earliest Dharmasūtras are those of Gautama, Baudhāyana and Āpastamba but their date cannot be put earlier than 600 B.C. even according to Prof. Kane.¹ There were sūtra-works of Saṅkha-Likhita and Paiṭhanasī from which quotations are given in the Dharmasūtras, but references to Ācāryas, the Vedas, the Sāmavidhāna Brāhmaṇa, Taittirīya and other Āraṇyakas, as sources of much of the materials of the Dharmasūtras prove only that in the seventh century B.C. there did not exist any code for brahmacārins though there were usages for their guidance. In this connection we may refer to the Vekhanassas² a brāhmanical order referred to in the Nikāyas. Both Gautama and Baudhāyana speak of a Vaikhānasa or Vikhānasa sūtra, and in fact base the chapter on the duties of a recluse on some such work, for which later on the term Vikhānasa became a synonym for vānaprastha.³