Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.s1.t2.29

c8.s1.t2.29

These are the most prominent figures in the band of Buddha’s disciples; but disciples in deed and in truth those alone are who give up all that is earthly to, as the formula puts it, “walk in holiness, to put an end to all suffering:” monks and nuns, with the Indian designations, “bhikkhu” (beggar, *m.*) and “bhikkhunî” (beggar, *f.*). But, as in the history of Jesus, Lazarus and Nicodemus, Mary and Martha, stand side by side with Peter and John, so Buddhism also, side by side with the male and female mendicants recognize male and female votaries (upâsaka, *m.*; upâsika, *f.*) of Buddha and his law, believers, who honour Buddha as the holy preacher of deliverance and his word as the word of truth, but who remain in their worldly position, in wedlock, in the possession of their property, and make themselves useful to the Church, as far as they can, by gifts and charities of every kind. Yet the monks alone, not the lay-adherents, are exclusively members of the Church.*