Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.46

c10.46

The ceremony of initiation is completed in two grades: there is a lower, to a certain extent preparatory ordination, Pabbajjâ, i.e., the outgoing, and a higher Upasampadâ, i.e., the arrival. The Pabbajjâ is the going out from a prior state, from the lay-life or from a monastic sect holding another faith; the Upasampadâ is the entry into the circle of the Bhikkhus, the fully-accredited members of the Buddhist Order: just as in Buddha's own life, the departure from home is distinct from the Upasampadâ, the attainment of delivering knowledge, which coincides with the founding of the Order.∗ Between the two steps of initiation, if the postulant has not yet attained the age of twenty years, lies the noviciate, or if he has previously belonged to another monastic order, a probationary period extending over four months.† To outsiders, who look upon the Order as a whole, without considering the difference based on its internal relationship, he is during this term, as well as all his brethren, an "áscetic who follows the son of the Sakya house;"‡ but in the Order he is first treated as a Bhikkhu, a real member, when he has received the higher initiation. Where the grounds mentioned for separating the two steps of initiation did not exist, they appear to have been gone through, as a rule, at the same time.