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THE CONVERSION OF THE PARIVRAJAKAS
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satisfaction, unworthy, unprofitable and the habitual practice thereof, and on the other hand, of asceticism or self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy and unprofitable.
“There is a middle path which avoids both these extremes. Know ye, that, this is the path which I preach.”
The five Parivrajakas listened to him with attention. Not knowing what to say in reply to the Buddha’s middle path, they asked him what he was doing after they had left him. Then the Buddha told them how he left for Gaya, how he sat in contemplation under the Banyan Tree and how after four weeks of contemplation he obtained enlightenment as a result of which he was able to discover a new path of life.
On hearing this, the Parivrajakas became extremely impatient to know what the path was and requested the Buddha to expound it to them.
The Buddha agreed.
He began by saying that his path which is his Dhamma (religion) had nothing to do with God and Soul. His Dhamma had nothing to do with life after death. Nor has his Dhamma any concern with rituals and ceremonies.
The centre of his Dhamma is man and the relation of man to man in his life on earth.
This he said was his first postulate.
His second postulate was that men are living in sorrow, in misery and poverty. The world is full of suffering and that how to remove this suffering from the world is the only purpose of Dhamma. Nothing else is Dhamma.
The recognition of the existence of suffering and to show the way to remove suffering is the foundation and basis of his Dhamma.
This can be the only foundation and justification for Dhamma. A religion which fails to recognise this is no religion at all.
“Verily, Parivrajakas! whatsoever recluses or Brahmins (i.e., preachers of religion) understand not, as it really is, that the misery in the world and the
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