52 Buddhism in India
defined in terms of action and not birth), and the words ‘samana’
and ‘Brahman’ are both used almost as equivalent to ‘arahat,’ as
people who have achieved self-control and compassionate, righteous
living. At the same time, asceticism, as well as priestly ritualism,
was criticised; in this sense, the Bhikku Sangha was a form of
organisation that saw itself, as an alternative both to the ascetic
tradition and to the Brahmanic householders. Later Buddhists, for
instance the Chinese traveller Hsuan Tsang classified Jains (the
main surviving group of the samana tradition in his time) along
with ‘pashupatis’ and worshippers of Brahmanic deities as ‘people
of other religions’.^8
The samana and Brahmanic traditions thus provided the back-
ground for the emergence of the Buddhist Dhamma as an independent
philosophical–religious and social force.
(^8) This is the term used at one point in Beal’s translation; otherwise he uses the word
‘heretic’. As Roebuck (p.c.) has pointed out, these translations often had the biases
of Christian views of other religions.