Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.14

c10.14

The band of disciples gathered round Buddha, out of which grew the Order and the Church, rested, as without doubt did also the other monastic orders of India so numerous in that age, on the forms, which under the older Brahmanical system governed the relation between the religious teacher and his religious disciples. The use of the same words, which in this case as as well as in that, constituted the solemn expression of this relationship, warrant our inferring the homogeneousness of the last-named system. The youth who desires to commit himself to the guidance of a Brahmanical teacher to learn the Veda, steps before him and says: "I am come for the Brahmacarya (spiritual discipleship). I desire to be a Brahmacârin (spiritual disciple).” And the teacher “ties the girdle round him, gives him the staff into his hand and explains him the Brahmacarya, by saying: ‘Thou art a Brahmacârin; drink water; perform service; sleep not by day; study the Veda obediently to thy teacher.’”* In the very same way, according to Buddhist tradition, the coming Buddha goes in the time of his quest of delivering knowledge to the spiritual teacher Uddaka and says: “I desire, O friend, according to thy teaching and thy direction, to walk in the Brahmacarya.” Uddaka receives him, and the relation thus established is indicated with the very expressions, which are those regularly adopted in the Brahmanical mode of speech, as that subsisting between Âcârya (teacher) and Antevâsin (scholar).† And in the same way later on, when Buddha himself as a teacher receives the first students of his gospel, tradition represents him as doing so in these words: “Come hither, O monk, the doctrine is duly preached; walk in the Brahmacârya, to put an end to all sorrow.”