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202 INDIA AS DESCRIBED IN EARLY TEXTS
Brahmins by birth, are broadly distinguished as Ekadaņņikas and Todaņņikas. The „Samaņas were typified by the followers of the six teachers known to the Buddhists as six titthiyas. But to this class belonged also the Sakyaputtiyas or followers of Buddha Gautama.
In the opinion of Hopkins 1, Vedic religion or Brahmanism was confined to a small section of the people of India. It was rather an island in the sea, the majority of the people following their own religions which consisted in beliefs in spells, incantations, charms and spirits. This acute observation of Hopkins is true only in so far as it appears that the Brahmins as a class including even those who were householders and followed different callings, belonged to a distinct religious order. According to the Brahmanio doctrine, the fulfilment of the religious ideal was to proceed by stages, three or four, called brahman oarya, gārhasthya and vānaprastha, the third culminating in the life of the Parivräjaka, Yati, Bhikṣu or Sannyasin. This is well borne out by the Buddha's description of the five types of Brahmins in the Anguttara Nikāya. But if Brahmanism was based upon the Vedas as it professed to be, in no stage of its history, it was free from the belief in the efficacy of spells, incantations, charms and the like. As a matter
Religions of Indra, Chap. IX.
