Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/367

Rh three gods of the Rig-Veda were recognized, but they were not supreme. Brahma, the Supreme Deity of the Upanishads, was recognized, but was not supreme. For they, too, were struggling through repeated births, to attain to that holy life, that Nirvana, which alone was supreme.

With regard to the caste-system, Gautama respected a Brahman as he respected a Buddhist Sraman, but he respected him for his virtue and learning, not for his caste, which he ignored. When two Brahman youths, Vasishtha and Bharadvaja, began to quarrel on the question, "How does one become a Brahman?" and came to Gautama for his opinion, Gautama delivered to them a discourse in which he emphatically ignored caste, and held that a man's distinguishing mark was his work, not his birth.

At another time Gautama explained to his followers, "As the great streams, O disciples, however many they may be, lose their old name and their old descent when they reach the great ocean, and bear only the one name of ocean, so also do Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras." A touching story is also told in the Theragatha, which enables us to comprehend how Buddhism came like a salvation to the lowly in India, and how they eagerly embraced it as a refuge from caste. In this tale Sunita, the thera, or elder, says, "I came of a humble family, I was poor and needy. The work which I performed was lowly, sweeping the withered flowers. I was despised of men, looked down upon and lightly esteemed. With submissive mien I showed