The Religions of India c19.96.3

c19.96.3

The *Cullavagga* opens with the story of two notorious renegades, ‘makers of strife, quarrelsome, makers of dispute, given to idle talk, and raisers of legal questions in the congregation.’ Such were the infamous followers of Panduka and Lohitaka. Of a different sort, Epicurean or rather frivolous, were the adherents of Assaji and Punabbasu, who, according to another chapter of the *Cullavagga* (i. 13), ‘cut flowers, planted cuttings of flowers, used ointment and scents, danced, wore garlands, and revelled wickedly.’ A list of the amusements in which indulged these flighty monks includes ‘games played with six and ten pieces, tossing up, hopping over diagrams, dice, jackstraws,¹ ball, sketching, racing, marbles, wrestling,’ etc.; to which a like list (*Tevijja*, ii) adds chess or checkers (‘playing with a board of sixty-four squares or one hundred squares’), ghost stories, and unseemly wrangling in regard to belief (“I am orthodox, you are heterodox”), earning a living by prognostication, by taking omens ‘from a mirror’ or otherwise, by quack medicines, and by ‘pretending to understand the language of beasts.’ It is gratifying to learn that the scented offenders described in the first-mentioned work were banished from the order. According to the regular procedure, they were first warned, then reminded, then charged; then the matter was laid before the congregation, and they were obliged to leave the order.