=Charity.=--The Brahmans also considered life as a place of suffering and annihilation as felicity. Buddha came not with a new doctrine, but with new sentiments.
The religion of the Brahmans was egoistic. Buddha had compassion on men, he loved them, and preached love to his disciples. It was just this word of sympathy of which despairing souls were in need. He bade to love even those who do us ill. Purna, one of his disciples, went forth to preach to the barbarians. Buddha said to him to try him, "There are cruel, passionate, furious men; if they address angry words to you, what would you think?" "If they addressed angry words to me," said Purna, "I should think these are good men, these are gentle men, these men who attack me with wicked words but who strike me neither with the hand nor with stones." "But if they strike you, what would you think?" "I should think that those were good men who did not strike me with their staves or with their swords." "But if they did strike you with staff and sword, what would you think then?" "That those are good men who strike me with staff and sword, but do not take my life." "But if they should take your life?" "I should think them good men who delivered me with so little pain from this body filled as it is with pollution." "Well, well, Purna! You may dwell in the country of the barbarians. Go, proceed on the way to complete Nirvana and bring others to the same goal."
=Fraternity.=--The Brahmans, proud of their caste, assert that they are purer than the others. Buddha loves all men equally, he calls all to salvation even the pariahs, even the barbarians--all he declares are equal. "The Brahman," said he, "just like the pariah, is born of woman; why should he be noble and the other vile?" He receives as disciples street-sweepers, beggars, cripples, girls who sleep on dung-hills, even murderers and thieves; he fears no contamination in touching them. He preaches to them in the street in language simple with parables.
=Tolerance.=--The Brahmans passed their lives in the practice of minute rites, regarding as criminal whoever did not observe them. Buddha demanded neither rites nor exertions. To secure salvation it was enough to be charitable, chaste, and beneficent. "Benevolence," says he, "is the first of virtues. Doing a little good avails more than the fulfilment of the most arduous religious tasks. The perfect man is nothing unless he diffuses himself in benefits over creatures, unless he comforts the afflicted. My doctrine is a doctrine of mercy; this is why the fortunate in the world find it difficult."