And this Order of monks was not a hierarchy. It had no ecclesiastical organization under any centralized authority. Its first Head, Gautama, appointed no successor. It was not the depository of theological learning. Nor was it a mediatorial caste of priests, claiming to mediate between earth and heaven. It ought not to be called a Church, and it had no rite of ordination in the true sense. It was a brotherhood, in which all were under certain obligations of celibacy, moral restraint, fasting, poverty, itineration and confession to each other—all were dominated by one idea, and pledged to the propagation of the one doctrine, that all life was in itself misery, and to be got rid of by a long course of discipline, as not worth living, whether on earth or in heaven, whether in present or future bodies. The founding of a monastic brotherhood of this kind which made personal extinction its final aim, and might be co-extensive with the whole world, was the Buddha’s principal object. In point of fact, the so-called enlightenment of mind which entitled him to Buddhahood, led him at the early stage of his career into no abstruse or transcendental region of thought, but took a very practical direction. It led him to see that an association of monks offering equality of condition to high and low, rich and poor, and a haven of refuge to all oppressed by the troubles of life, would soon become popular. His Order started with first ten, then fifty, then sixty original members (see p. 45), but its growth soon surpassed all anticipations, and its ramifications extended to distant countries, where, like the branches of the Indian fig-tree, they sent down roots to form vigorous independent plants, even after the decay of the parent stem. On this account it was called the fraternity of the four quarters (Ćātuddisa, Mahā-vagga VIII. 27. 5) of the globe. In brief, a carefully regulated monastic brotherhood, which opened its arms to all comers of all ranks, and enforced on its members the duty of extending its boundaries by itinerancy, and by constantly rolling onward the wheel of the true doctrine (Law), constituted in its earliest days the very essence, the very backbone of Buddhism, without which it could never have been propagated, nor even have held its own. But we repeat that in this, his main design, Gautama was after all no innovator; no introducer of novel ideas.