Brahmana as a normative term

There are frequent positive references to the brahmanas as possessors of spirituality and not all the references to them in the Buddhist texts are negative. The compound term samana-brahmana not only represented two distinct and opposing categories but also possessed a unity in relation to the ordinary mass of people to whom they are jointly opposed. The term appears in this sense in the Pali canon, in Jaina literature, in Megasthenes’ Indica, and in the Ashokan inscriptions. It refers to a respected group who were possessors of knowledge and merit that distinguished them from the common people. The wider society is shown to treat brahmanas and samanas ideally as possessors of spiritual merit for whom the norms are different from those for ordinary people. The people as well as the dissident sects recognized the fact that the brahmanas represented the traditional and established religious category in society. The titthiyas are aware of the brahmanas potential for a ‘higher life’ and they noticed the image of the brahmanas in the existing Indian mind. This accounts for their special status in the Pali and Jaina texts. The same metaphor has been used by both to express this idea. The God Sakka (Indra) comes in both traditions in the form of a brahmana to bless the respective sects in the presence of a wide audience.^[1]

The Buddha accepted the term brahmana as a conceptual category although he rejected that the brahmanas had any inherent qualities that were superior to others. It was used by the Buddha in the sense of an ideal value to represent acquired spiritual merit which was open to everyone. In the Jaina literature^[2], the appearance is in the same sense. The term was even used as an epithet by the Buddha, for himself and a whole section of the Dhammapada^[3] contains a compilation of verses in which the term is used to describe a person who has acquired a spiritual status. Sometimes it appears as a synonym for arahant, a person who has achieved the goal of the higher life. No contradiction could be seen between the brahmana and the samanas in this ideal sense, as both would then be part of a similar tradition of people striving to attain salvation through their own effort.