Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2009
I, Ashu Gosha, first invoking Manja Ghosha, the Guru of the world, with all my soul and all my strength, proceed to compose the book called Vajra Suchi, in accordance with the Shastras (Hindu or Brahmanical Sastras).
Allow then that your Vedas and Smrittis, and works involving both Dharma and Artha, are good and valid, and that discourses at variance with them are invalid, still what you say, that the Brahman is the highest of the four castes, cannot be proved from those books.
page 161 note * The Buddha Charitra Kávya, and the Nandi-Mukhasughosha Avadàn, and other works.
page 163 note * Perhaps it should rather be translated learning. The word in the original is jnyana.
page 168 note * The word in the original is Tapas, which we are accustomed to translate “penance,” and I have followed the usage, though “ascetism” would be a better word. The proud Tapasyi, whom the very gods regard with dread, never dreams of contrition and repentance.