LECTURE V. GOTAMA'S ORDER. Among the points of Buddhist history most instruc- tive from a comparative point of view, there is probably none more important than the fate of Gotama's Sag gha, the Community or Society of those who had given up the world to carry out the new ideas. For, as in the case of his ethical system, so also in the practical organization of this body of his more earnest and devoted adherents, he made use of already existing ideas and customs. The valley of the Ganges in the sixth century before the Christian era was a land which did not contain a single book or a single church. There were no preachers in it, no editors, nothing like what we should call a university. There were the Brahman schools of ritual; and, as part of the ritual was the repetition of sacred words, grammar and recitation Were taught there as accessories to correct learning hy