non-sacerdotal

Updated: May 8, 2025

It therefore seems probable, though not proven, that the origin of these ideas is to be sought not in the early Brahmanic schools but in the intellectual atmosphere non-theistic, non-sacerdotal, but audaciously speculative which prevailed in the central and eastern part of northern India in the sixth century B.C. The Sâṅkhya recognizes no merit in sacrifices or indeed in good works of any kind, even as a preliminary discipline, and in many details is un-Brahmanic.

Sir Charles Eliot - Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 2

Obviously knowledge in the sense of philosophical speculation commended itself to religiously disposed persons in the non-sacerdotal castes for the same reason as asceticism.

Sir Charles Eliot - Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1