Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.51

c10.51

We directed attention above (p. 336) to the analogy which prevails between the reception of a Buddhist believer into the Order and the reception of the young Brahman by his teacher. This is the place to institute a comparison between the first of the two steps in Buddhist initiation and another stage in the Brahmanical system, the entry of the Brahman into the state of a hermit or wandering beggar. “When the Brahman,” we read in Manu’s Institutes, “who is living in the state of a householder, sees his skin becoming wrinkled and his hair becoming grey, if he sees his son’s son, then let him go forth into the forest. Let him leave all food, such as one enjoys in the village, and all household furniture behind him; to his sons let him commit his wife, and let him go to the forest, or let him go forth with his wife. Let the Brahman make the Prajâpati-offering and give all his possessions as remuneration of sacrifice; his holy fire let him take up in his own body, and thus let him go forth from his house.* For the Brahman, who leaves his home and becomes a homeless ascetic, his own act of outgoing only is necessary; and Pabbajjâ, i.e., “the outgoing” is therefore used by the Buddhists of the first step of initiation, by which the change of a layman into an ascetic takes place, “outgoing from home into homelessness” (agârasmâ anagâriyam pabbajjâ).