A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s1.75

v2.c19.s1.75

[^1): The term "Northern Buddhist" as applied to the Sanskrit Buddhist literature as well as to the Buddhist literatures of Tibet, China and Japan which are based upon it, is even more unsuitable than the term "Southern Buddhist" for the Pāli literature: for by this term the texts of entirely different sects, such as Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna, are all lumped together. [^2): See Vol. I, English edition, p. 48. [^3): For comparisons of this kind we are especially indebted to *E. Windisch*, Māra und Buddha (ASGW XV, 4), Leipzig, 1895, and Buddhas Geburt (ASGW XXVI, 2), Leipzig, 1908, and M. *Anesaki* in OC XIII Hamburg 1902, p. 61, and *Le Muséon*, N. S. VI, 1905 *23ff*., VII, 1906, *33ff*., who shows that even Pāli quotations occur in the Mahāyāna texts. *E. Waldschmidt*, Bruchstücke des Bhikṣuṇī-Prātimokṣa der Sarvāstivādins, Leipzig 1926, has come to the conclusion, after a careful and unbiassed comparison of the Bhikṣuṇī-Prātimokṣa in the eminently good."¹) There is indeed neither a canon nor any Buddhist text which has come down from such early times as the Pāli Canon which was written down in the first century B.C., in which there is as yet not even a single word of mention of the great Buddhist King Aśoka.²) In language, style and contents the Pāli texts are most closely connected with the Upaniṣads, while the Buddhist Sanskrit literature reminds us far more of the Purāṇas. Finally, the fact that in these texts, written down and transmitted in Ceylon, there are no references of any kind to Ceylon, again confirms the view that they are not a "canon of the Buddhists of Ceylon," but a canon of that Buddhist sect of India which, as a matter of fact, has preserved the most of ancient Buddhism and might, with some justification, call its doctrine "Theravāda," the doctrine of the first disciples of Buddha.