Note H — Chapter III

In the course of this work the word Rahan is often used. It is of the greatest importance that the reader should firmly seize the meaning that it is designed to convey. We find it employed to designate, in general, the religious belonging either to the Buddhistic or Brahminical sects. When Buddhists happen to mention their brethren of the opposite creed, who have renounced the world and devoted themselves to the practice of religious duties, they invariably call them Rahans. When they speak of Pounhas or Brahmins, who are living in the world, leading an ordinary secular mode of life, they never style them Rahans. Thence we may safely infer that the individuals to whom this denomination was applied formed a class of devotees quite distinct from the laymen.

That class, it appears, comprised all the individuals who lived either in community under the superintendence and guidance of a spiritual superior, or privately in forests under the protecting shade of trees, and in lonely and solitary places. The latter religious are, however, generally designated by the appellation of Ascetics and Rathees. They were the forefathers of those fanatics who up to our days have appeared through the breadth and length of the Indian Peninsula, practising penitential deeds of the most cruel and revolting description. They are described by Buddhists as wearing curled and twisted hair, clad in the skins of wild beasts, and not unfrequently quite destitute of any sort of clothing, and in a state of complete nakedness.

The former, who lived in community, did not lead the same course of life. We find some communities, the three, for instance, under the guidance of the three Kathabas, in the Ouroowela forest, not far from Radzagio, whose inmates are called either Rahans or Rathees. This indicates that their mode of life partook both of the common and hermitical life, resembling, to a certain extent, that which was observed by the Christian communities of cenobites established in the desert of Upper Egypt during the first ages of our era.

Those communities appear to have been the centres in which principles were established, opinions discussed, and theories elaborated. The chiefs enjoyed high reputation for learning. Persons desirous to acquire proficiency in science resorted to their abode, and, under their tuition, strove to acquire wisdom. The following pages of this work will afford several striking illustrations of the view just sketched out.