The paper presents findings of a research project aimed at a reconstruction of the dynamics of biographical experiences of some of those categories of the Polish society’s members whose educational and professional careers have been shaped by the systemic transformation after 1989. The text is an attempt to delineate analytical guidelines for grasping how some components of three types of social order, conceived in terms of premodernity, modernity and postmodernity, interpenetrating each other in the contemporary life of the society, impact its members’ biographical experiences on the level of work, social ties and identity.

Early Buddhism was a predominantly spiritual movement which should ideally culminate in Enlightenment. Yet, it was embedded in the specific social environment of ancient India which included a hereditary caste system. Using the Buddhist Pāli texts and non-Buddhist literature from up until the last centuries BCE the article examines the four main hereditary categories (vaṇṇa, jāti, gotta, and kula) and how Early Buddhism related to them. We conclude that the Buddha and Early Buddhism did not oppose but rather confirmed the hereditary systems in society as well as its designations within the monastic community. The Buddha hereby followed the customs of earlier ascetic movements and imposed no specific rules on the monastics to eradicate their former social identity.