Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c21.13

c21.13

**Monachism not a monopoly of Buddhism.** Thus Monachism was not the exclusive characteristic of Buddhism or its special contribution to Indian religious life. Different forms of religious, ascetic and monastic life had already grown up in close conformity to the speculations regarding the Universal One and deliverance referred to above. The Doctrine of the Ātman dominating the entire range of Indian thought produced a scheme of life under which " man must live as though he lived not ", divesting himself of all earthly ties in a thoroughgoing spirit of a world-disclaiming abstraction. The great Upanishadic utterance rang through the country as a summons to self-sacrifice at the altar of Truth: "The intelligent and wise desire not posterity: what are descendants to us, whose home is the Ātman? They relinquish the desire for children, the struggle for wealth, the pursuit of worldly weal, and go forth as mendicants."