The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c6.9

c6.9

These three points agreed, all becomes perfectly clear. We admit fully henceforth that Çâkya-Muni, like all others, must have traversed a long series of successive rebirths. We understand, also, why he accomplished on the way so many good actions, displayed so many virtues, realized so many superhuman perfections : nothing less was required to enable him to acquire merits capable of conveying him to the supreme dignity of Buddha. Nor could we get our information concerning his past lives from a better source, since — if we believe the tradition — it is from the mouth of the Master himself that the story had been gathered before being consigned in writing to the works which have come down to us and which it would be useless to-day to enumerate and criticize. If we proceed to make use of the Pâli collection, it is not that I am under any illusion as to the antiquity of the prose commentary on the versified, the only canonical, part (¹) : the reason for this choice is simply that, as containing nearly five hundred and fifty narratives, that collection is by far the most considerable of all.