The Religions of India c19.130

c19.130

Buddha does not ignore the fact that fools will not desire salvation as explained by him: “What fools call pleasure the noble say is pain; this is a thing difficult to understand; the cessation of the existing body is regarded as pleasure by the noble, but those wise in this world hold the opposite opinion” (*Dvayatānup. sutta*, 38). ² But to him the truly wise is the truly pure: “Not by birth is one a Brahman, not by birth is one an outcast; by deeds is one a Brahman, by deeds is one an outcast” (*Vasala-sutta*); and not alone in virtue of *karma* of old, for: “The man who knows in this world the destruction of pain, who lays aside the burden and is liberated, him I call a Brahman; whosoever in this world has overcome good and evil, both ties, who is free from grief and defilement, and is pure, — him I call a Brahman; the ignorant say that one is a Brahman by birth, but one is a Brahman by penance, by religious life, by self-restraint, and by temperance” (*Vāsettha-sutta*).