Note 310 — Chapter II · SĪLAVAGGA.

Literally Samaṇa-Brāhmans, the Samaṇas, or Self-conquering Ones, being those who have given up the world, and devoted themselves to lives of self-renunciation and of peace. Real superiority of caste—true Brāmanship—is the result, not of birth, but of self-culture and self-control. The Samaṇas are therefore the true Brāhmans, ‘Brāhmans by saintliness of life.’ The Samaṇas were not necessarily Buddhists, though they disregarded the rites and ceremonies inculcated by the Brāhmans. It would not have answered the king’s purpose to send Brāhmans: who are distinguished throughout the Jātakas, not by holiness of life, but by birth; and who would be represented as likely to talk, not of righteousness, but of ritual. I cannot render the compound, therefore, by ‘Samaṇas AND Brāhmans,’ and I very much doubt whether it ever has that meaning (but see Childers contra, under Samaṇa). It certainly never has the sense of ‘Samaṇas OR Brāhmans.’ It was an early Buddhist idea that the only true Samaṇas were those members of the Order who had entered the Noble Path, and the only true Brāhmans those who had reached to the goal of the Noble Path, that is, to Nirvāna. See Mahā Parinibbana Sutta, p. 58.