134 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XV, 
this that Gosala maintains that everything happens according 
to the unalterable laws of nature, that is to say, he banishes 
chance from the whole of experience. He seeks to explain 
things asa biologist in the light of these three principles :—(1) 
Fate, (2) Species, and (3) Nature. 
The pleasure and pain which living beings experience depend 
partly upon past deeds and partly upon their birth and inherent 
nature ethncge noapic Samafifiaphala Sutta, 
Sutrakritanga Sutra). Gosala’s is a theory of evolution of 
individual things by natural transformation (parinama implied 
in Parinato). e Samafifaphala Sutta states his main thesis 
vitva samsaritva dukkhassantam karissanti). His doctrine is 
that all forms of life, all living substances, attain perfection 
—_— es gradually passed —— and higher through differ- 
types of existence which are fixed, and after having ex- 
tion Gosala classifies the living things in various ways an 
arranges them in an ascending order and he s to give a 
two-fold classification, payshelogioal and physiological. But it 
is implied in his expressions that organic development pro- 
yas 
ages, which had seen the birth of the religious p cctnoanttan of 
Mahavira and Buddha. Gosiala’s biological speculations posit 
his worthy successors with ample food for thought, wit 
ments which are put by them mainly to a moral, social ie in 
short, to a practical use. One illustration will suffice. In the 
Basetta Sutta of the Suttanipata Buddha opposes the caste 
system on grounds drawn from Biology. The theory of caste 
or yati is episnobyy as it introduces a species within a species. 
Buddha gives a list of species of various animals, insects and 
plants and ee that such a variety of species is not to be found 
