Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.s1.t2.30

c8.s1.t2.30

The formation of this wider circle of worldly believers has been regarded as an inconsistent relaxation of original Buddhism, as a concession on the part of clear and rigorous thought to practicability and the weakness of human nature. It has also been supposed that in the oldest texts the distinction to be found is only between professed believers, *i.e.*, monks, and non-believers, *i.e.*, the laity, but not that of believing monks and believing laity. This is wholly erroneous. The oldest traditions which we possess speak of the laity, who profess to be friends and votaries of Buddha and the order, and the nature of the case compels us to attach credit to those traditions. There must in fact, since ever there were mendicant monks in India, have also been pious laymen, who gave something to these religious beggars, and there must also soon have grown up, whether with or without recognized forms and names, it is quite immaterial, a certain relationship between definite monks or monastic orders and a definite laity, who felt themselves bound to each other, the one class to receive spiritual instruction, the other to obtain the little that they needed for their maintenance. And more than a connection of this class, the relation which subsisted between Buddha’s order and the lay-believers has not been.