264. Cf. Imitatio Christi, bk. I, chap. xvii: "The habit and the shaven crown do little profit: but change of manners, and perfect mortification of passions make a true religious man."

Samano, before Gautama's day, meant "ascetic," being derived from the root "sram"--to work hard, to do penance. He gave a new derivation and a new significance to the word--sam, meaning "calm."

264-9. These stanzas contain a play on the words: Gautama is giving new definitions of current terms. It is hardly possible to render these in English: perhaps in 264-5 the use of the word "religious" as both noun and adjective is a fair analogy from Christian monasticism. The pun in 270 is only to be permitted as illustrating the spirit of the section.

268-9. So Asoka says of impiety and piety: "The one course avails me for the present life, the other avails me also for the life to come." (Pillar Edict, III); and Thomas

a Kempis, quoting Phil. iii, 8: "He is truly prudent, that regards all earthly things as dung, that he may gain Christ."

270. Meekness is the true heroism: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth"; "Fight the good fight." As in mediaeval Europe, so in ancient India, all "nobles" (Aryans) were, warriors. Gautama gives a new definition of the true knight. (Cf. the history of the words "chivalry," "gentle," and "generous," under Christian influences.)

273. The four truths: suffering: its cause: its cure: the eightfold path of escape.

The seer: cakkhuma, the man who has the eye for truth: the man of insight.

274. The "seeing of Purity." The phrase may mean equally well the "purification of vision." The man of insight is the pure man; to one who ventured to dispute Gautama's judgment he exclaimed: "Shall he whose mind is dominated by passion surpass the Blessed One in wisdom?" (Cf. Christ's words: "My judgment is just, because I seek not Mine own will.")

276. Blessed Ones: Tathagata, "those who have arrived," or reached Nirvana.

277-9. "All is passing": one of the leading tenets of Heraclitus and the Orphists, who belong to the same century as the Buddha (sixth century B.C). Their teaching, so far as it has survived, has many points of similarity with his.

"All is passing... all is sorrow... all is unreal." The words ring out again and again like the solemn tolling of some cloister bell, summoning men away from the pursuit of shadows, to that only worthy object "the path of Purity"--Nirvana.

283. Vanam means either "lust" or a "forest": English cannot reproduce the play upon words.

284. Even married love is regarded by Buddhism as an "entanglement" of this kind.