Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c22.5

c22.5

**Initiation.** The ceremony of initiation into the Buddhist Order and the Church follows closely the lines of the Brahmanical initiation of studentship as described above. Under the Brahmanical system the youth has to find his teacher to whom he has to formally apply for admission to studentship in the following words: "I am come for the *Brahmacharya*. I desire to be a Brahmachārin." Then the teacher "ties the girdle round him, gives him the staff into his hand, and explains to him the Brahmacharya (the rules of conduct of a religious student), by saying: 'Thou art a Brahmachārin; drink water; perform service; sleep not by day; study the Veda obediently to thy teacher' " [*Āśvalāyana Gṛ. Sū.*, i, 22; *Pāraskara*, ii, 2, 3; *Śat. Br.*, xi, 5, 4 seq.]. The Bodhisattva himself is represented in tradition to say to Uddaka, the Brahman teacher, whom he approached for instruction in saving knowledge: "I desire, O friend, according to thy teaching and thy direction, to walk in the Brahmacharya." And, as the Buddha, he inaugurates his Order by admitting his first disciples in the following words: "Come hither, O monk, the doctrine is duly preached; walk in the Brahmacharya, to put an end to all sorrow." Thus the Buddhist monastic order began as a union of the master and his disciples after the Brahmanical model. The finding of a teacher was a condition of ordination as laid down in the text: "Let no one, O Bhikkhus, who has no *Upājjhāya*, receive the *Upasampadā* ordination." The teacher must be an individual person and not a fictitious one like the Saṁgha as a corporate body. The text does not permit such a fraud on the system: "*Let no one receive the Upasampadā ordination with the Saṁgha as Upājjhyāya*" [*Mahāvagga*, i, 69]. The idea of the individual responsibility of the teacher for his pupil's training and conduct was thus rightly emphasized.