=The Monks.=--To escape so many dangers and maintain purity, it is
better to leave the world. Often a Brahman when he has attained to a
considerable age withdraws to the desert, fasts, watches, refrains
from speech, exposes himself naked to the rain, holds himself erect
between four fires under the burning sun. After some years, the
solitary becomes "penitent"; then his only subsistence is from
almsgiving; for whole days he lifts an arm in the air uttering not a
word, holding his breath; or perchance, he gashes himself with
razor-blades; or he may even keep his thumbs closed until the nails
pierce the hands. By these mortifications he destroys passion,
releases himself from this life, and by contemplation rises to Brahma.
And yet, this way of salvation is open only to the Brahman; and even
he has the right to withdraw to the desert only in old age, after
having studied the Vedas all his life, practised all the rites, and
established a family.


BUDDHISM

=Buddha.=--Millions of men who were not Brahmans, suffered by this
life of minutiæ and anguish. A man then appeared who brought a
doctrine of deliverance. He was not a Brahman, but of the caste of the
Kchatrias, son of a king of the north. To the age of twenty-nine he
had lived in the palace of his father. One day he met an old man with
bald head, of wrinkled features, and trembling limbs; a second time he
met an incurable invalid, covered with ulcers, without a home; again
he fell in with a decaying corpse devoured by worms. And so, thought
he, youth, health, and life are nothing for they offer no resistance
to old age, to sickness, and to death. He had compassion on men and