We can trace, I imagine, the influence of Agnosticism also in the doctrine of the Buddha about the Nirvana, as it is stated in Pali books. Professor Oldenberg was the first to draw attention to the decisive passages which prove beyond the possibility of doubt that the Buddha declined answering the question whether the Tathagata (i.e. the liberated soul, or rather principle of individuality) is after death or not. If the public of his time had not been accustomed to be told that some things, and those of the greatest interest, were beyond the ken of the human mind, and had not acquiesced in such answers, it certainly would not have lent a willing ear to a religious reformer who declined to speak out on what in Brahmanical philosophy is considered the end and goal of all speculations. As it is, Agnosticism seems to have prepared the way for the Buddhist doctrine of the Nirvana . It is worthy of note

that in a dialogue between king Pasenadi and the nun Khema, told in the Samyutta Nikaya, and translated by Oldenberg, the king puts his questions about the existence or non-existence of the Tathagata after death in the same formulas which Sangaya is made to use in the passage translated above from the Samannaphala Sutta.

In support of my assumption that the Buddha was influenced by contemporary Agnosticism, I may adduce a tradition incorporated in the Mahavagga I, 23 and 24. There we are told that the most distinguished pair of his disciples, Sariputta and Moggalana, had, previously to their conversion, been adherents of Sangaya, and had brought over to Buddha 250 disciples of their former teacher. This happened not long after Buddha's reaching Bodhi, i.e. at the very beginning of the new sect, when its founder must have been willing, in order to win pupils, to treat prevalent opinions with all due consideration.

The greatest influence on the development of Mahavira's doctrines must, I believe, be ascribed to Gosala, the son of Makkhali. A history of his life, contained in the Bhagavati XV, I, has been briefly translated by Hoernle in the Appendix to his translation of the Uvasaga Dasao. It is there recorded that Gosala lived six years together with Mahavira as his disciple, practising asceticism, but afterwards separated from him, started a Law of his own, and set up as a Gina, the leader of the Agivikas. The Buddhist records, however, speak of him as the successor of Nanda Vakkha and Kisa Samkikka, and of his sect, the akelaka paribbagakas, as a long-established order of monks. We have no reason to doubt the statement of the Gainas, that Mahavira and Gosala for some time practised austerities together; but the relation between them probably was different from what the Gainas would have us believe. I suppose, and shall now bring forward some arguments in favour of my opinion, that Mahavira and Gosala associated