446 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
conduct, to detachment, to purification from lusts, to quitude, to tranquilisation of heart, to real knowledge, to the insight of the higher stages of the Path and to Nirwana. Therefore is it, Potthapada that I have put forward a statement as to that.’
That language is different but the meaning is the same. If for misery one reads exploitation Buddha is not away from Marx.
On the question of private property the following extract from a dialogue between Buddha and Ananda is very illuminating. In reply to a question by Ananda the Buddha said :
“I have said that avarice is because of possession. Now in what way that is so, Ananda, is to be understood after this manner. Where there is no possession of any sort or kind whatever by any one or anything, then there being no possession whatever, would there, owing to this cessation of possession, be any appearance of avarice?”
‘There would not, Lord’.
‘Wherefore, Ananda, just that is the ground, the basis, the genesis, the cause of avarice, to wit, possession.
- ‘I have said that tenacity is the cause possession. Now in what way that is so, Ananda, is to be understood after this manner. Were there no tenacity of any sort or kind whatever shown by any one with respect to any thing, then there being whatever, would there owing to this cessation of tenacity, be any appearance of possession?’
‘There would not, Lord.’
‘Wherefore, Ananda, just that is the ground, the basis, the genesis, the cause of possession, to wit tenacity.’
On the fourth point no evidence is necessary. The rules of the Bhikshu Sangh will serve as the best testimony on the subject.
According to the rules a Bhikku can have private property only in the following eight articles and no more. These eight articles are :—
1.
2. Three robes or pieces of cloth for daily wear.
3.
4. a girdle for the loins.
5. an alms-bowl.
6. a razor.
7. a needle.
8. a water strainer.
Further a Bhikku was completely forbidden to receive gold or silver for fear that with gold or silver he might buy some thing beside the eight things he is permitted to have.