Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c22.8

c22.8

**Resemblance with Brahmanical System.** It may also be noted that the *Pabbajjā*, this "going out" of home into the Order, is akin to the Brahmanical system of studentship under which the young disciple has to go out of his own home, the care and company of his parents and relations, to live with his chosen preceptor as an *antevāsī* in his hermitage or Āśrama in a new home and environment under rigorous conditions of discipline and training. Under the Buddhist system, too, the layman admitted to the Order is placed under the discipline of a preceptor who is to control his conduct. As in the Brahmanical system, a minimum age limit was fixed for initiation, viz. eight years, and children below that age were not accepted by the Order. Again, the minimum period of studentship in the Brahmanical system was twelve years; the same is the period of the Buddhist novitiate. Corresponding to the epithet *Brahmachārī* conferred upon a youth after his Upanayana is the Buddhist epithet *Sāmaṇera* applied to the youth who is a *pabbajita*, i.e. has become a homeless one on his performing the ceremony of initial or preliminary ordination (*pabbajjā*).