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“ And your teacher too, the Brahman Pokkharasādi, has told you this saying: “Who are these shavelings, sham friars, menial black fellows, the offscouring of our kinsman’s heels, that they should claim converse with Brahmans versed in the threefold Vedic lore!” —he himself not having even fulfilled any one even of these lesser duties (which lead men to neglect the higher ones) . See, Ambaṭṭha, how deeply your teacher, the Brahman Pokkharasādi, has herein done you wrong.’ [59]
6. ‘And the Brahman Pokkharasādi, Ambaṭṭha, is in the enjoyment of a grant from Pasenadi, the king of Kosala. ”

“ It is where the talk is of marrying, or of giving in marriage, that reference is made to such things as that. For whosoever, Ambaṭṭha, are in bondage to the notions of birth or of lineage, or to the pride of social position, or of connection by marriage, they are far from the best wisdom and righteousness. ”

“ Do we not daily see Brahman women with child and bearing sons just like other folk? How can they then say that they are born of God? And as to their origin, when the evolution of the world began, beings were at first immaterial, feeding on joy, giving light from themselves, passing through the air. ”

“ I also, Ambaṭṭha, say:
"The Kshatriya is the best of those among this folk who put their trust in lineage. [49]
But he who is perfect in wisdom and righteousness, he is the best among gods and men."’
Here ends the First Portion for Recitation [50]
Chapter II [\q 123/]
1. ‘But what, Gotama, is the righteousness, and what the wisdom spoken of in that verse?’
‘In the supreme perfection in wisdom and righteousness, Ambaṭṭha, there is no reference to the question either of birth, or of lineage, or of the pride which says: “You are held as worthy as I,” or “You are not. ”

“ In the Vāseṭṭha Sutta of the Sutta Nipāta (several verses of which have been inserted also in the Dhammapada) the question, as in the Soṇadaṇḍa Sutta, translated below, is as to what makes a man a Brahman. As his answer the Buddha reminds his questioners of the fact that whereas, in the case of plants (large or small) , insects, quadrupeds, serpents, fish, and birds, there are many species and marks (due to the species) by which they can be distinguished-in the case of man there are no such species, and no such marks. ”

“ He goes on to draw the conclusion that distinctions made between different men are mere matters of prejudice and custom; that it is wisdom and goodness that make the only valid distinction, that make a man a Brahman ”

“ He, by himself, thoroughly knows and sees, as it were, face to face this universe,ñincluding the worlds above of the gods, the Brahmas, and the Māras, and the world below with its recluses and Brahman, its princes and peoples,ñand having known it, he makes his knowledge known to others. The truth, lovely in its origin, lovely in its progress, lovely in its consummation, doth he proclaim, both in the spirit and in the letter, the higher life doth he make known, in all its fullness and in all its purity. ”

“ What we find then, in the Buddha’s time, is caste in the making. The great mass of the people were distinguished quite roughly into four classes-social strata-of which the boundary lines were vague and uncertain. At the one end of the scale certain outlying tribes, and certain hereditary crafts of a dirty or despised kind, were already, probably, castes. At the other end of the scale Brahman by birth were putting forward caste claims that were not yet universally admitted. ”

“ Right well they hold their own (paramasakyā) !” [31]
‘That is the reason, Ambaṭṭha, why they are known as Sākyas. Now Okkāka had a slave girl called Disā. She gave birth to a black baby. And no sooner was it born than the little black thing said, “Wash me, mother. Bathe me, mother. Set me free, mother, of this dirt. So shall I be of use to you.”
‘Now just as now, Ambaṭṭha, people- call devils “devils,” so then they called devils “black fellows” (kaṇhe) . And they said: “This fellow spoke as soon as he was born. ‘Tis a black thing (kaṇha) that is born, a devil has been born!” ”

“ Even without the fact of the existence, now, of such restrictions among the modern successors of the ancient Aryans in India, it would have been almost certain that they also were addicted to similar customs. It is certain that the notion of such usages was familiar enough to some at least of the tribes that preceded the Aryans in India. It is quite a mistake to look upon all these tribes as far below the Aryans in culture. Both the Kolarians and the Dravidians were probably quite the equals of the Aryans in social organisation. ”

“ It is in them that we have Ṭhe key to the origin of caste.
At any moment in the history of a nation such customs seem, to a superficial observer, to be fixed and immutable. As a matter of fact they are never quite the same in successive centuries, or even generations. A man’s visible frame, though no change is at any moment perceptible, is really never the same for two consecutive moments, and the result of constant minute variations becomes clear after the lapse of time. ”

“ The low-born, however earnest in their search after truth, were no doubt excluded from any community of hermits or religious recluses in which Brahmans had the upper hand. But all the twice-born (the Dvijas, that is the Khattiyas, Brāhmaṇas, and Vessas) were certainly justified, by public opinion, in becoming Samaṇas. To what extent the Sūdras, and the tribes below the Sūdras, were accorded, in communities other than the Buddhist, a similar privilege, is at present doubtful. But the Buddha certainly adopted, and probably extended, the most rational view current at the time. ”

“ We find the Buddhist reply to that in the Aggañña Sutta of the Dīgha, in many respects one. of the most interesting and instructive of all the Dialogues] . [12] It is a kind [\q 106/] of Buddhist book of Genesis. In it the pretensions of the Brahman are put forward in the same terms as those just quoted above from the Madhura Sutta.
Gotama replies that they make these claims in forgetfulness of the past. The claims have no basis in fact. It is righteousness (dhamma) and not class distinction (vaṇṇa) that makes the real difference between man and man] . ”

“ Now regarding that venerable Gotama, such is the high reputation that has been noised abroad:ñThat Blessed One is an Arahat, a fully awakened one, abounding in wisdom and goodness, happy, with knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed as a guide to mortals willing to be led, a teacher for gods and men, a Blessed One, a Buddha. ”

“ If he dwells at home he will become a sovran of the world, a righteous king, bearing rule even to the shores of the four great oceans, a conqueror, the protector of his people, possessor of the seven royal treasures. ”

“ Who can doubt but that the history of ancient India, if we had only access to the necessary evidence, would be found to cover, in its two thousand five hundred years, and through its wide territory, a constant succession of similar variations ”

“ When the Dutch started cinnamon cultivation in Ceylon on a large scale, they wanted labourers. ‘The peasantry, who belonged almost exclusively to one caste, the Goigamas, regarded it as unworthy of a free man to work for hire. Some of them, however, in the struggle of motives, found the pressure of poverty too strong for them, and accepted service as coolies. The others, thinking this bad form, became averse to giving their daughters in marriage to such coolies. ”

“ And Ambaṭṭha went up to them, and said: ‘Where may the venerable Gotama be lodging now? We have come hither to call upon him.’
8. Then the brethren thought: ‘This young Brahman Ambaṭṭha is of distinguished family, and a pupil of the distinguished Brahman Pokkharasādi. The Blessed One will not find it difficult to hold conversation with such.’ And they said to Ambaṭṭha: ‘There, Ambaṭṭha, is his lodging, [22] where the door is shut, go quietly up and enter the porch gently, and give a cough, and knock on the cross-bar. The Blessed One will open the door for you.’
9. Then Ambaṭṭha did so. ”

“ Then Ambaṭṭha told the Brahman Pokkharasādi all the talk that he had had with the Blessed One.
15. When he had thus spoken, Pokkharasādi said to him: ‘Oh! you wiseacre! Oh! you dullard! Oh! you [\q 133/] expert, forsooth, in our threefold Vedic lore! A man, they say, who should carry out his business thus, must, on the dissolution of the body, after death, be reborn into some dismal state of misery and woe. What could the very points you pressed in your insolent words lead up to, if not to the very disclosures the venerable Gotama made? ”

“ Owing to the fact that the particular set of people who worked their way to the top based its claims on religious grounds, not on political power or wealth, the system has, no doubt, lasted longer in India than in Europe. ”

“ The knowledge of these thirty-two marks of a Great Being (Mahā-purusha) is one of the details in the often-recurring paragraph giving the points of Brahman wisdom, which we have just had a, Section 3. No such list has been found, so far as I know, in those portions of the pre-Buddhistic priestly literature that have survived. And the inference from both our passages is that the knowledge is scattered through the Brahman texts. Many of the details of the Buddhist list (see the note below on p. 106 of the text) are very obscure ”

“ INTRODUCTION TO THE AMBAṬṬHA SUTTA THIS is one of several Suttas (mentioned in the notes to the celebrated verse quoted at the end of Chapter I) which deal with the subject of caste.
It is sufficiently evident from the comparative frequency of the discussions on the matter of Brahman pretensions that this was a burning question at the time when the Dialogues were composed. No other social problem is referred to so often ”

“ It is proper to speak with a Brahman as one goes along only when the Brahman himself is walking, and standing to a Brahman who stands, and seated to a Brahman who has taken his seat, or reclining to a Brahman who reclines. ”

“ That is the origin of the Kaṇhāyanas, and that the ancestor to whom they trace themselves back.’
22. And when he had thus spoken the. young Brahman fell into tumult, and uproar, and turmoil; and said: ‘Low born, they say, is Ambaṭṭha the Brahman; his family, they say, is not of good standing; they say he is descended from a slave girl; and the Sākyas were his masters. ”

“ Angirasa, Bhāradvaja, Vāseṭṭha, Kassapa, and Bhagu [60] — though you can say: “I, as a pupil, know by heart their verses,” that you should on that account be a Rishi, or have attained to the state of a Rishi — such a condition of things has no existence!’
9. ‘Now what think you, Ambaṭṭha? ”

“ Outside these classes there were others, resembling in many points the modern low castes, and always when mentioned in the Piṭakas following after the above four. Thus in Aṅguttara I, 162 [1] the argument is that just as there is no real difference in oxen, in spite of the fact that they can be arranged in classes by difference of colour (vaṇṇa) , and the strong, active, well-trained ox is selected by preference, without regard to his colour (vaṇṇa) ”