Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume VIII.djvu/30



the duties laid down by Âpastamba and Manu as common to Kshatriyas and Vaisyas are the very duties which make those castes dependent to a very great extent on the Brâhmanas. Lastly, it is not altogether unworthy of note, that in the elaborate specification of the best of every species which we find in chapter X, the Brâhmana is not mentioned as the best of the castes, there is nothing to indicate the notion contained in the well-known later verse, 'The Brâhmana is the head of the castes.' On the contrary, the ruler of men is specified as the highest among men, indicating, perhaps, a state of society such as that described at the beginning of the extract from Professor Tiele's work quoted above.

We come now to another point. What is the position of the Gîtâ in regard to the great reform of Sâkya Muni, The question is one of much interest, having regard particularly to the remarkable coincidences between Buddhistic doctrines and the doctrines of the Gîtâ to which we have drawn attention in the foot-notes to our translation. But the materials for deciding the question are unhappily not forthcoming. Professor Wilson, indeed, thought that there was an allusion to Buddhism in the Gîtâ. But his idea was based on a confusion between the Buddhists and the Kârvâkas or materialists. Failing that allusion, we have nothing very tangible but the unsatisfactory 'negative argument' based on mere non-mention of Buddhism in the Gîtâ. That argument is not quite satisfactory to my own mind, although, as I have elsewhere pointed out, some of the ground occupied by the Gîtâ is common to it with Buddhism, and although various previous thinkers Are alluded to directly or indirectly in the Gîtâ. There is, however, one view of the facts of this question, which appears to me to corroborate the conclusion deducible by means of the negative argument here referred to. The