up of caste-occupation is meritorious if the occupation in itself is iniquitous, but it hedges on the question to the extent of saying that, no matter whether the occupation be sinful or not, if it is an inherited occupation a man does not do wrong to adhere to it.  This is liberal Brahmanism.  The rule reads as follows:  “Actors, liquor-dealers, butchers, and other such sinners are not justified in following such occupations, if they are not born to the profession (i.e., if they are born to it they are justified in following their inherited occupation).  Yet if one has inherited such a profession it is a noble thing to renounce it."[58]

The marks of Buddhistic influence on which we would lay greater stress are found not in the fact that Mudgala refuses heaven (iii. 261. 43), or other incidents that may be due as well to Brahmanism as to Buddhism, but in such passages of the pseudo-epical Book of Peace as for example the dharmyas panth[=a]s of xii. 322. 10-13; the conversation of the female beggar, bhikshuk[=i], with the king in 321. 7, 168; the buddha of 289. 45; the Buddhistic phraseology of 167. 46; the remark of the harlot Pingal[=a] in 174. 60:  pratibuddh[=a] ’smi j[=a]g[r.]mi (I am ‘awakened’ to a sense of sin and knowledge of holiness), and the like phrase in 177. 22:  pratibuddho ’smi.[59] Of especial importance is the shibboleth Nirv[=a]na which is often used in the epic.  There seems, indeed, to be a subtile connection between Civaism and Buddhism.  Buddhism rejects pantheism, Civaism is essentially monotheism.  Both were really religions of the lower classes.  It is true that the latter was affected and practiced by those of high rank, but its strength lay with the masses.  Thus while Vishnuism appealed to the contemplative and philosophical (R[=a]maism), as well as to the easy-going middle classes (Krishinaism), Civaism with its dirty asceticism, its orgies and Bacchanalian revels, its devils and horrors generally, although combined with a more ancient philosophy, appealed chiefly to the magic-monger and the vulgar.  So it is that one finds, as one of his titles in the thirteenth book, that Civa is ‘the giver of Nirv[=a]na,’ (xiii. 16. 15).  But if one examines the use of this word in other parts of the epic he will see that it has not the true Buddhistic sense except in its literal physical application as when the nirv[=a][n.]a (extinguishing) of a lamp, iv. 22. 22, is spoken of; or the nirv[=a][n.]a of duties (in the Pancar[=a]tra ‘Upanishad,’ xii. 340. 67).  On the other hand, in sections where the context shows that this must be the case, Nirv[=a]na is the equivalent of ’highest bliss’ or ‘highest brahma,’ the same with the felicity thus named in older works.  This, for instance, is the case in xii. 21. 17; 26. 16, where Nirv[=a]na cannot mean extinction but absorption, i.e., the ‘blowing out’ of the individual flame (spirit) of life, only that it may