Vol. 11 · pages 76–80

57 RENUNCIATION FOR EVER I 12. After informing Gautama of what had happened at Kapilavatsu, the Parivrajakas said, “There is now no need for you to continue to be a Parivrajaka. Why don’t you go home and join your family ?” 13. Siddharth said : “I am happy to have this good news. It is a triumph for me. But I will not go back to my home. I must not. I must continue to be a Parivrajaka.” 14. Gautama asked the five Parivrajakas, what their programme was. They replied, “We have decided to do tapasya. Why don’t you join us ?” Siddharth said, “By and by ; I must examine other ways first.” 15. The five Parivrajakas then left. § 6. The Problem in a New Perspective 1. The news brought by the five Parivrajakas that the Koliyas and Sakyas had made peace, made Gautama very uneasy. 2. Left alone, he began to reflect on his own position and to make sure if any reason was left for him to continue his Parivraja. 3. He had left his people for what?, he asked himself. 4. He had left his home because he was opposed to war. “Now that the war is over is there any problem left to me ? Does my problem end because war has ended ?” 5. On a deep reflection he thought not. 6. “The problem of war is essentially a problem of conflict. It is only a part of a larger problem. 7. “This conflict is going on not only between kings and nations but between nobles and Brahmins, between householders, between mother and son, between son and mother, between father and son, between sister and brother, between companion and companion. 8. “The conflict between nations is occasional. But the conflict between classes is constant and

58 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES I perpetual. It is this which is the root of all sorrow and suffering in the world. 9. “True, I left home on account of war. But I cannot go back home although the war between the Sakyas and Koliyas has ended. I see now that my problem has become wider. I have to find a solution for this problem of social conflict. 10. “How far do the old-established philosophies offer a solution of this problem ?” 11. Can he accept any one of the social philosophies ? 12. He was determined to examine everything for himself.

PART III In Search of New Light 1. Halt at Brighu’s Ashram. 2. Study of Sankhya. 3. Training in Samadhi Marga. 4. Trial of Asceticism. 5. Abandonment of Asceticism.

61 IN SEARCH OF NEW LIGHT I § 1. Halt at Brighu’s Ashram 1. With the desire to pursue other ways, Gautama left Rajagraha to meet Arada Kalam. 2. On his way he beheld the hermitage of Brighu and entered it out of curiosity. 3. The Brahmin inmates of the Ashram who had gone outside for the sake of fuel, having just come back with their hands full of fuel, flowers, and kusa grass, pre-eminent as they were in penances, and proficient in wisdom, went just to see him, and went not to their cells. 4. Then he being duly honoured by those dwellers of the hermitage paid his homage to the Elders of the Ashram. 5. He, the wise one, longing for liberation, traversed that hermitage, filled with the holy company desirous of heaven,—gazing at their strange penances. 6. He, the gentle one, saw for the first time the different kinds of penances practised by the ascetics in that sacred grove. 7. Then the Brahmin Brighu, well-versed in the technique of penance, told Gautama all the various kinds of penances and the fruits thereof. 8. “Uncooked food, growing out of water, and roots and fruits,—this is the fare of the saints according to the sacred texts ; but the different alternatives of penance vary. 9. “Some live like the birds on gleaned corn, others graze on grass like the deer, others live on air like the snakes, as if turned into ant-hills. 10. “Others win their nourishment with great effort from stones, others eat corn ground with their own teeth ; some, having boiled for others, keep for themselves what may chance to be left. 11. “Others, with their tufts of matted hair continually wet with water, twice offer oblations to Agni with hymns ; others, plunging like fishes into the water, dwell there with their bodies scratched by tortoises. 12. “By such penances endured for a time,—by