204 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
and incited and gladdened Kutadanta the Brahman with religious discourse; and then arose from his seat and departed thence.
KUTADANTA SUTTA IS ENDED
V
Thirdly Buddha denounceed the caste system. The Caste System in its present form was not then existing. The bar against inter-dining and inter-marriage had not then become operative. Things were flexible and not rigid as they are now. But the principle of inequality which is the basis of the caste system had become well established and it was against this principle that Buddha carried on a determined and a bitter fight. How strongly was he opposed to the pretensions of the Brahmins for superiority over the other classes and how convincing were the grounds of his opposition are to be found in many of his dialogues. The most important one of these is known as the Ambattha Sutta.
AMBATTHA SUTTA
(A young Brahman’s rudeness and an old one’s faith).
- Thus have I heard. The Blessed One when once on a tour through the Kosala country with a great company of the brethren, with about five hundred brethern, arrived at a Brahman village in Kosala named Ikkhanankala; and while there he stayed in the Ikkhanankala Wood.
Now at that time the Brahman Pokkharsadi was dwelling at Ukkattha, a spot teeming with life, with much grassland and woodland and corn, on a royal domain, granted him by King Pasenadi of Kosala as royal gift, with power over it as if he were the king.
- Now the Brahman Pokkharasadi heard the news: ‘They say that the Samana Gotama, of the Sakya clan, who went out from a Sakya family to adopt the religious life, has now arrived, with a great company of the brethren of his Order, at Ikkhanankala, and is staying there in the Ikkhanankala Wood. Now regarding that venerable Gotama, such is the high reputation that has been noised abroad: The Blessed One is an Arahat, a fully awakened one, abounding in wisdom and goodness, happy, with knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed as a guide to mortals willing to be led, a teacher for gods and men, a Blessed One, a Buddha. He, by himself, thoroughly knows and sees, as it were, face to face this universe, including the worlds above of the gods, the Brahmans, and the Maras, and the world below with its recluses and Brahmans, its princes and peoples, and having known it,