[Buddha-l] A candid question

[Joy Vriens]

Dear friends,

If I interpret it reasonably well, the Paramahamsa-Parivrajaka Upanishad seems to say that the renunciation status of a Parahamsa monk is reserved for Brahmins. To those who are not entitled to be a Parahamsa monk, the upanishad generously offers to seek liberation "in the path of the brave (by courting death in battle field) or fast (unto death as a discipline), or enter into water (to rise no more) or enter fire or undertake the great journey (in which they collapse by exhaustion)" in other words to get killed, drowned, burnt or to march oneself to death (marche et crève). I don't know from when dates this upanishad, but its lack of concessions makes me think that at least the idea behind it must date from before the time Buddhism and Jainism became successful and and thereby threatening (although the battle field idea sounds pretty Bhagavatgitaish to me). I don't know where exactly one can find information about the Buddha's near death through starvation and what would be!
  its approximate dates, but the legend seems to be pretty clear about the outcome of the Buddha's practice, hadn't he stopped this "practice".  It seems to me that what the Buddha was trying to "practice" was simply to fast to death. If the Buddha weren't a man but a movement, I would say that an important motivation of that movement was to give access to more inspiring paths of liberation to all varnas, but particularly Kshatriyas, and at earlier stages of life. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Buddhism was initially a soft reformist movement within Brahmanism, that, confronted with the usual reception given to "heretics", grew harder in time. Any evidence for any of this somewhere? 

Joy