The History of Buddhist Thought c15.33

c15.33

There is no implication here that caste is indifferent. It is admitted that the four divisions are the normal state of society, and the warrior caste is made the chief. It was natural that a movement originating in opposition to brahminism should emphasize its own pretensions and in particular the descent of its founder as a member of the warrior caste. His ancestry is traced back to Mahāsammata, and the legend says that the founders of his clan, the sons of king Okkāka, who became the Sakyas, were so jealous of their purity of blood that they married their own sisters. But caste is put on a moral basis. A man of whatever caste, if he does wrong in deed, word, or thought, will after death go to hell or to some unhappy state; if he does right, to happiness and the world of heaven. For those who abandon the world caste disappears. Out of these four groups is formed the group of ascetics (*samaṇa*). “Anyone in these four castes who becomes a monk, an arahat, who has destroyed the āsavas, who has done what had to be done, who has laid down the burden, who has accomplished his purpose, who has destroyed the fetter of coming to be and is emancipated by full knowledge, he is declared to be chief among these (four) through his dhamma (his prescribed course of action),² not through that which is not.” The idea of the true brahmin is finally entirely moralized. The name brahmin is used over and over again for the perfected disciple, the arahat.