Texts from the Buddhist canon : commonly known as Dhammapada

i63 )
SECTION. XXXV.
THE BKAHMAChIeIN.
In days of old, in a certain mountain (called Sse-yaucliu-to)
in the country of Saketa (Sse-ho-teh), there were
resident some 500 Brahmans who pretended to have
arrived at final release (Nirv§,na), in consideration of their
miraculous powers (irrdhi). Now at this time Buddha,
having just arrived at complete enlightenment, and hegin-
ning to sound the drum of the law, and open the doors of
immortality, was induced, on account of these Brahma-
charins, to come into their neighbourhood, and sitting
beneath a tree, to reveal the splendour of his person,
iifter some conversation with them, he repeated these
verses
:
" Stem the stream and pass over, without desixe
as a Brahman !
Understanding the end of all that
is made (or, of all modes of conduct), this is t^ruly
named (the life of a) Brahmachirin.^ In (or, by
means of) the two laws of nothingness,^ pure and-
spotless passing over the gulf, casting off all the
bonds of desire, this is to be a Brahmachdrin (in-
deed). It is not by his clan, or his platted hair,
that a man is called a Brahman, but he who walks
truthfully and righteously, he is indeed rightly
called a good man (Bhadra), What avails the
1 The reader will observe the similarity of the P&li version, vers. 383; &o.
2 The sense appears to be " regarding both this world ^nd the other as
nothing." Compare the Pali o«-apdm.