The History of Indian Literature c9.415

Language: English

c9.415.1

Now those data in the Sútras which have hitherto been taken as valid for Buddha's time, but which we can only consider as valid, primarily, for the time when the Sútras were composed, are chiefly of a kind bearing upon the history of the Indian religion. For just as Buddha recognised the existence of caste, so, too, he naturally recognised the then existing Hindú Pantheon.‡ But it must not by any means be imagined that in Buddha's time this Pantheon had attained to that phase of development which we here find in the Sútras, assuming that we follow the Southern chronology and place Buddha in the sixth century b.c., that is, doubtless, in the period of the Bráhmaṇas,—works in which a totally different Pantheon prevails. But if, on the other hand, he did not teach until the fourth century b.c., as must be the case if the assertion of the Tibetans and Chinese be correct, to the effect that the third council took place under Kanishka (who lived a.d. 40), four hundred years after Buddha's death—and this view is favoured by the circumstance that of the names of teachers who are mentioned as contemporaries of Buddha, such as reappear in the Brahmanical writings all belong to the literature of the Vedic Sútras, not to that of the Bráhmaṇas—there would at least be a greater possibility, *à priori*, that the Pantheon found in the Buddhistic Sútras, together with similar data, might have some validity for the time of Buddha, which on this supposition would be much nearer to them.

c9.415.2

The details of the subject are briefly these. The Yakshas, Garuḍas, Kinnaras,³⁵² so often mentioned in these Sútras, are still quite unknown in the Bráhmaṇas: the name Dánava, too, occurs but seldom (once as an epithet of Vṛitra, a second time as an epithet of Śushṇa), and never in the plural to designate the Asuras generally;³⁵³ nor are the gods ever styled Suras there.³⁵⁴ The names of the Nágas and Mahoragas are never mentioned,∗ although serpent-worship itself (*sarpa-vidyá*) is repeatedly referred to;† the Kumbháṇ- das,[*] too, are absent. This lack of allusion in the Bráhmaṇas to any of these *genii* might be explained by supposing them to have been principally the divinities of the inferior classes of the people, to which classes Buddha specially addressed himself, and to whose conceptions and range of ideas he was therefore obliged to have particular regard. In this there may be a great deal of truth, but the remaining cycle of deities, also, which appears in the Buddhistic Sútras, is completely that belonging to the epic poetry. In the Bráhmaṇas, on the contrary, the name of Kuvera, for instance, is only mentioned once [†] (and that in the Bráhmaṇa of the White Yajus); ³⁵⁵ Śiva and Śaṃkara only occur along with other appellative epithets of Rudra, and are never employed alone as proper names to denote him; the name of Náráyaṇa, again, is of extremely rare occurrence, whilst Śakra,³⁵⁶ Vásava,³⁵⁷ Hari, Upendra, Janárdana, Pitámaha, are totally unknown.

c9.415.3

We thus perceive that the Buddhistic Sútras, in all of which these names are prevalent, represent precisely the same stage as the Epic literature.[‡] The non-mention of Kṛishṇa³⁵⁸ proves nothing to the contrary, the worship of Kṛishṇa as a divinity being of altogether uncertain date:³⁵⁹ besides, it is still a question whether we have not really to understand him by the Asura Kṛishṇa who is repeatedly referred to in these Sútras (see p. 148). —Although—to notice other points besides the Pantheon—the lunar asterisms in the Sútras begin with *Kṛittiká*, that is to say, still retain their old order, we cannot adduce this as proof that a comparatively high antiquity ought to be assigned to these writings, for the new order of the asterisms probably only dates from the fourth or fifth century A.D.; all that results from this is, that the particular passages are earlier than this last-mentioned date. As an indication, on the contrary, of a date not specially ancient, we must certainly regard the mention of the planets, as also the occurrence of the word *dínára* (from *denarius*), which Burnouf (p. 424, n.) has twice met with in the *older* Sútras (see Lassen, *I. AK.*, ii. 348).