PORTRAIT OF MR. GAURĪ-ṠAṄKAR UDAY-ṠAṄKAR, C.S.I., NOW SVĀMĪ ṠRĪ SAĆĆIDĀNANDA-SARASVATĪ.
Seated, as a Brāhman Sannyāsī, in meditation (described at [p. xiii] of the Preface).
His usual mode of designating his monks was by the old term Bhikshu (Pāli Bhikkhu), ‘living by alms,’ to indicate their poverty. They were also called Ṡrāmaṇera and Ṡramaṇa (Pāli Sāmaṇera, Samaṇa), as subject to monastic discipline[37]. Those who entered the stream leading to Arhatship ([p. 132]) were called Ārya.
The term Ṡrāvaka, ‘hearers,’ seems to have been used in the Hīna-yāna system to denote great disciples only, and especially those ‘great disciples’ ([p. 47]) of Gautama who heard the Law from his own lips, and were afterwards called Sthaviras and became Arhats ([p. 133]). They had also the title Āyushmat, ‘possessing life.’
We perceive again the close connexion between Brāhmanism and Buddhism; for clearly the Brahma-ćārī and Sannyāsī of the one became the Ṡrāmaṇera or junior monk, and Ṡramaṇa or senior monk of the other.
As to the name Ṡramaṇa (from root Ṡram, ‘to toil’), bear in mind that, although Buddhism has acquired the credit of being the easiest religious system in the world, and its monks are among the idlest of men—as having no laborious ceremonies and no work to do for a livelihood—yet in reality the carrying out of the great object of extinguishing lusts, and so getting rid of the burden of repeated existences, was no sinecure if earnestly undertaken. Nor was it possible for men to lead sedentary lives, whose only mode of avoiding starvation was by house to house itinerancy.
As to the form of admission, there was no great strictness in early times, when all applicants were admitted without inquiry. It was only when the Order increased that murderers, robbers, debtors, soldiers and others in the King’s service, lepers, cripples, blind, one-eyed, deaf and dumb, and consumptive persons, and all subject to fits were rejected[38].
Originally it was enough for the Buddha to have said, ‘Come (ehi), follow me.’ This alone conferred discipleship. In time, however, he commissioned those he had himself admitted to admit others. Then the form of admission to the brotherhood was divided into two stages, marked by two ceremonies, which have been very unsuitably compared to our ordination services for deacon and priest. At any rate the term ‘ordination’ is wholly misleading, if any idea of a priestly commission or gift of spiritual powers be implied.
The youthful layman who desired admission to the first degree, or that of a novice, had to be at least fifteen years old[39] (Mahā-v° I. 50); and such novices had to be at least twenty (from conception) before the second rite or admission to the full monkhood.