Dasa

[Jonathan Silk]

One note about -daasa as a suffix. Apte no doubt bases himself on the
Dharmazaastras, which do prescribe this as a caste-specific suffix.
But as with so many of these schemes, it seems to really be a
retrospective imposition of order upon a much more complex reality.
There are, by the way, a number of datable inscriptional references
to Buddhists (monks and otherwise) with names in -daasa (as well as
other suffixes), although in these cases it is hard to know what the
pre-Buddhist castes or names were (if we assume that Buddhists upon
ordination or initiation took different names, which seems likely but
is not, as far as I know, actually attested.)
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Jonathan Silk

jonathan.silk at yale.edu

Dept. of Religious Studies
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Yale University
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