Collision and antagonism between sects in India was neither so sharp nor so fierce as in Palestine, and Buddha ministered in conditions much more favourable to the propagation of his system than did Jesus Christ. The Sadducean opponents of Christ represented a powerful hierarchy, the Pharisees a popular democracy, and the Scribes an influential Sanhedrim, with power of inflicting a sentence of death. The Essenes never mingle in the scenes of the Gospel, and it is questionable if they are ever referred to in them. Over all and dominating all was a most jealous and vigilant Roman despotism, ever ready to turn even a religious quarrel to its own account, so that it was the most natural of things that an opposition thus represented should nip, as it were, Christianity in the very bud by crucifying its Founder. In Magadha, however, it was otherwise. The broad distinction was between Brahmans and Sramans,[130] the latter a general title covering many secessions from Brahmanism, and the popular favour was equally bestowed on both. The Brahmans, though dominant, had not the power, and to their credit do not seem to have had the will, to persecute. It was not from them, but from the scholastic and conceited Teviggi and from the ascetic sects that Buddha encountered most formidable opposition; and yet even in these cases opposition was not rigid. It was a war not of blows, but of words, in which an appeal to the secular arm or to force was out of the question. A new sect, therefore, especially one that had donned the yellow robes and alms-bowl of the mendicant, protesting against the debasing belief in the efficacy of Brahmanic rites, or the virtue gained by extravagant Yogi austerities, would obtain from the people at large more favour than resistance or disdain.