On the whole, therefore, the Gainas were outfitted very much like their Brahmanic models, the Samnyâsins or Bhikshus.
'Let him eat food, given without asking, regarding which nothing has been settled beforehand, and which has reached him accidentally, so much only as is sufficient to sustain life.'[1] The reader will find on perusing the Gaina 'rules for begging'[2] that only that food is considered pure and acceptable' which has been obtained under exactly the same circumstances as have been laid down in the above rule of Baudhâyana for Brahmanic ascetics. The Buddhists are not so strict in this regard, as they accept invitations for dinner, of course, prepared especially for them.
From the comparison which we have just instituted between the rules for the Brahmanic ascetic and those for the Gaina monk, it will be apparent that the latter is but a copy of the former. But now the question may be raised whether the Nirgrantha is a direct copy of the Samnyâsin, or an indirect one. For it might be assumed that the Nirgrantha copied the Buddhist Bhikkhu, who himself was but a copy of the Samnyâsin. As I have hinted above, this suggestion is not a probable one, for there being a model of higher antiquity and authority, the Gainas would probably have conformed rather to it than to the less respected and second-hand model of their rivals, the Buddhists. But besides this prima facie argument against the assumption in question, the adoption of certain Brahmanic rules, noticed above, by the Ginas, which were not followed by the Buddhists, proves that the latter were not the model of the former.
There remains another possibility, but a still more improbable one, viz. that the Brahmanic ascetic copied the Buddhist Bhikkhu or Gaina monk. I say still more improbable, because, firstly, the Samnyâsin makes part of the system of the four stages, or Âsramas, which if not so old as Brahmanism itself, is at least much older than both Buddhism and Gainism; secondly, the Brahmanic ascetics were scattered all over India, while the Buddhists were
