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A History of Pali Literature v2.c17: Conclusion

A History of Pāli Literature v2.c17

Language
English

Contents

Conclusion

v2.c17.1.1

In the foregoing pages an attempt has been made to give a general survey of canonical and non-canonical Pāli literature. Some distinct types of literature came to be developed within a growing collection of texts of traditional authority. This collection came indeed to be closed at a certain date which is undoubtedly pre-Christian. The origin and development of even just one recension of the early corpus of Buddhist literature covered a pretty long period of about five centuries, which is very imperfectly known or understood by the meagre evidence of Sanskrit literature. The Pāli piṭakas coupled with the Jain āgama texts and some of the Sanskrit treatises like Pāṇini’s grammar, Kātyāyana’s Vārtika, Patañjali’s Mahābhāṣya, and the contemporary inscriptions and coin-legends fill up a very important gap in the history of ancient Indian humanity. The particular literature with which we are concerned developed under ægis of religion which was destined to be a great civilising influence in the East, highly ethical in tone, dignified in the forms of expression, dramatic in setting, direct in narration, methodical in argument, and mechanical in arrangement. This wealth of literary output was shown forth in its perspicuity and grandeur in the garb of a new literary idiom having a place midway between the Vedic Sanskrit on one hand and classical Sanskrit and Ardhamāgadhi on the other.

v2.c17.1.2

In between the closing of the Pāli canon and the beginning of the great commentaries and chronicles we had to take note of an imperfectly known period of transition which became remarkable by the production of so great a work of literary merit and doctrinal importance as the Milinda Pañha occupying, as it does, the foremost place for its lucid, elegant, and rhythmical prose style in the whole range of Sanskrit and Sanskritic literature. The Pāli commentaries, as we have them, were produced at a period far beyond the Mauryan and Śuṅga, the Kāṇva and the Kuṣāṇa. The Augustan period of Pāli literature began with these commentaries and closed with the earlier epic chronicles of Ceylon. The period which followed was a decadent one, and it became noted only for the compilation of some useful manuals, some books of grammar and lexicography chiefly in imitation of some Sanskrit works of India, and a few metrical compositions exhibiting the wealth of Ceylonese poetical imagination and plagiarism. Pāli literature would have been as dead but for its rejuvination in Burma, the Buddhist country, which has produced enormous literature of considerable importance during the last three or four centuries. From the geographical allusions it may be deduced that the main bulk of the Pāli canon developed within the territorial limits of the Middle Country and some parts of Western India, notably Mathurā and Ujjain.

v2.c17.1.3

The Milinda Pañha is full of associations reminiscent of the life, manners, and customs of the north-western region of India, which became the meeting place of Indo-Aryan and Graeco-Bactrian civilisation. The commentaries clearly point to Kāñcipura, Kāveripaṭṭana, Madurā, and Anurādhapura as notable centres of Pāli Buddhism. Along with South India one has got to take Sirikhetta (modern Prome) in Burma as the centre of Pāli Abhidhamma culture. There is reason to believe that Pāli literature developed in one shape or another in Lower Burma giving rise to Pāli law codes, compiled more or less on the model of Manu's code. The inscriptions and sculptures are not without their important bearings on the history of Pāli literature. We can say that the lower limit of the evolution of Pāli literature is represented by the Kalyāṇī stone inscriptions of King Dhammaceti of Pegu. In dealing effectively with Pāli literature, one has got to consider the history of literary development in India, Ceylon, Burma, and Siam. It still remains a problem for modern historian and philologist to find out how far Pāli literature has influenced the vernaculars of these four countries. There is sufficient evidence to prove that Sinhalese developed as a vernacular with its wealth of literature as early as the 2nd century B.C.

v2.c17.2

Pāli literature is incomplete by itself. It is wanting in many works of secular interest, such as those on mathematics, astronomy, astrology, medicine, logic, and royal polity. The few such works that we have are of recent origin and as such, they do not fall within the scope of our present investigation. Even as a pure literature, it has just one work, the Jinacarita, which deserves the name of a Kāvya. The Jinacarita itself is chiefly based upon the Jātaka Nidāna-kathā which latter may be regarded as a Kāvya in prose, or in prose and verse.

v2.c17.3

There is hardly a drama or a novel, strictly so called. But there are a great many suttas, particularly those contained in the Dīgha Nikāya, the Brahmajāla, the Sāmaññaphala, the Sakkapañha, the Mahāparinibbāna, which have a dramatic setting. The literary art employed in the Sāmaññaphala Sutta has been extensively developed in the Milinda Pañha. In reading the suttas of the Sagātha-vagga of the Saṃyutta Nikāya one is apt to feel as though there is a stage-action in which one devaputta appears to test the knowledge of the Buddha and retires to make room for the next man waiting. In short, Pāli literature abounds in dramatic elements without having a single book of drama. The literary art employed in the historical narrative of the Mahāparinibbāna Suttanta and in those of the Milinda Pañha, the Udenavatthu and the Visākhā-vatthu is a novelty.

v2.c17.4

There are several legendary and historical accounts of the life and career of the Buddha and his disciples and followers—Theras, Therīs, Upāsakas, and Upāsikās which are interesting biographical sketches without a rigorous biographical treatment.

v2.c17.5

Even if it be assumed that there are no biographies in the modern sense, there is no getting away from the fact that the Buddhist teachers successfully tried to conceive and develop a universal science of biography in the Jātaka Nidāna-kathā.

v2.c17.6

There is just one story of creation in the Pāli Aggañña Suttanta. The way in which it has been introduced goes to show that it was rather a citation for some purpose than an original production.

v2.c17.7

The early Buddhist attitude towards ornate poetry or imaginative literature was far from appreciative. Such poetry was viewed with disfavour, the superabundance of it being dreaded as a great future danger of the good faith (anāgata-bhaya) uptill the time of Asoka. The development of ornate poetry was sought to be accounted for in early Buddhism by an extraneous influence. A highly imaginative literature developed nevertheless within the four corners of Pāli Buddhism with its wealth of gāthās and akkhānas, highly ethical or spiritual in tone. We come across an example of song in the Sakkapañha Suttanta, which is said to have been sung by Pañcasikha, the heavenly minstrel. Other pieces described as songs in some of the Birth-stories and Buddhist legends are hardly distinguishable from the main body of gāthās. Some of the Psalms of the Early Brethren and Sisters, which are musings of emancipated hearts, e.g., the Tālapuṭa-thera-gāthā and the Ambapālī-gāthā, are truly musical in tone. One can say that Pāli literature is sufficiently rich in the wealth of lyrics and reflective poetry. The Dhammapada stands out as a remarkable literature in the field of didactic poetry.

v2.c17.8

Its richness consists also in the wealth of similes and parables deserving a separate and careful study as elements that apparently influenced the later Kāvya poetry of India and have their parallels in the early Gospels of Christianity.

v2.c17.9

To counteract the influence of the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, particularly that of the former, the Buddhists began to develop the Jātakas, supplying thereby so many interesting themes for artistic delineation and materials for Indian dramas and kāvyas.

v2.c17.10

So far as the epic and historical chronicles go, the position of Pāli literature is almost unique, the mediæval Kashmere chronicle, Rājataranginī, being the only notable Sanskrit work of their kind.

v2.c17.11

Pāli literature has no book on logic, but in the Kathāvatthu we have a great book of controversy, which lies at the immediate background of the entire Nyāya literature. Strictly speaking, there is no medical treatise in Pāli, but in the Buddhist study of the 32 parts of the human organism we have something which is of paramount interest to a student of medical science. Prior to the compilation of the Law codes, we meet with in Pāli the definitions of karma, murder, theft, and the rest which anticipate many points in modern jurisprudence. There may not be a Buddhacarita or a Kumārasambhava in Pāli, but there is certainly the Vatthugāthā of the Nālakasutta in the Sutta Nipāta to serve as a clear model of them. The manuals of psychological ethics must always be considered as notable contributions to Indian culture.

v2.c17.12

These and other points of interest and importance are left for future study and investigation. In spite of the fruitful labours of great many scholars, we are still on the threshold of the study of Pāli literature, to evaluate and appreciate which one has to look at it in different aspects, just as one looks at a gem by its facet.

v2.c17.13

It has still its immense possibilities as a means of developing modern literature, both in the East and the West. The Amitābha, the Jagajjyoti, the Buddhadevacarita, the Aśoka, the Ajātaśatru, and the Kinnarī are but the few works produced yet in modern Bengali utilising the materials of Pāli and Sanskrit Buddhist literature. As regards old Bengali literature, Pāli literature has its legacy in the plot of Vidyāsundara set forth in the story of the Mahā-ummagga-Jātaka and the song composed in praise of the princess Pañcālacaṇḍī. The creation of literary types is indeed the most distinctive feature of the literature, a bird's eye view of which is given in the present work.

Cites (19)