(5) master and servant, (6) laity and clergy.  The precepts which follow show how much common sense and good feeling Gotama could bring to bear on the affairs of every-day life when he gave them his attention and the whole classification of reciprocal obligations recalls the five relationships of Chinese morality, three of which are identical with Gotama’s divisions, namely parents and children, husband and wife, and friends.  But national characteristics make themselves obvious in the differences.  Gotama says nothing about politics or loyalty; the Chinese list, which opens with the mutual duties of sovereigns and subjects, is silent respecting the church and clergy.

The Sangha is an Indian institution and invites comparison with that remarkable feature of Indian social life, the Brahman caste.  At first sight the two seem mutually opposed, for the one is a hereditary though intellectual aristocracy, claiming the possession of incommunicable knowledge and power, the other a corporation open to all who choose to renounce the world and lead a good life.  And this antithesis contains historical truth:  the Sangha, like the similar orders of the Jains and other Kshatriya sects, was in its origin a protest against the exclusiveness and ritualism of the Brahmans.  Yet compared with anything to be found in other countries the two bodies have something in common.  For instance it is a meritorious act to feed either Brahmans or Bhikkhus.  Europeans are inclined to call both of them priests, but this is inaccurate for a Bhikkhu rarely deserves the title [549] and nowadays Brahmans are not necessarily priests nor priests Brahmans.  But in India there is an old and widespread idea that he who devotes himself to a religious and intellectual life (and the two spheres, though they do not coincide, overlap more than in Europe) should be not only respected but supported by the rest of the world.  He is not a professional man in the sense that lawyers, doctors and clergymen are, but rather an aristocrat.  Though from the earliest times the nobles of India have had a full share of pride and self-confidence, the average Hindu has always believed in another kind of upper class, entered in some sects by birth, in others by merit, but in general a well-defined body, the conduct of whose members does not fail to command respect.  The do ut des principle is certainly not wanting, but the holy man is honoured not so much because he will make an immediate return by imparting some instruction or performing some ceremony but because to honour him is a good act which, like other good acts, will sooner or later find its reward.  The Buddha is not represented as blaming the respect paid to Brahmans but as saying that Brahmans must deserve it.  Birth and plaited hair do not make a true Brahman any more than a shaven head makes a Bhikkhu, but he who has renounced the world, who is pure in thought, word and deed, who follows the eight-fold path, and perfects himself in knowledge, he is the true Brahman[550].  Men of such aspirations are commoner in India than elsewhere and more than elsewhere they form a class, which is defined by each sect for itself.  But in all sects it is an essential part of piety to offer respect and gifts to this religious aristocracy.