A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t1.113

v2.c19.s3.t1.113

One of the most beautiful speeches in the "Section of three" (III, 35) is that of the three messengers of the gods,² about whom King Yama asks the evil-doer in the nether world—old age, disease, death—whereupon he hands them over to the guardians of hell for punishment; ideas of hell are probably earlier than Buddhism. However, the number of passages of literary value in the Aṅguttaranikāya is not great. There are numerous monotonous and endlessly tedious sermons, which are by no means improved by the dry-as-dust tone of the enumeration. Thus, in the entire "Section of one" there is hardly anything to be found that is beautiful and edifying. It is remarkable that besides so many Suttas which refer to all departments of Buddhist ethics and psychology and sometimes also to the discipline of the Order (vinaya), there are also some Suttas which have nothing to do with the religion of Buddha, and are only inserted on account of the numerical principle. Yet such passages are sometimes not devoid of a certain humour, which is evoked by the enumeration of very heterogeneous things in one series. Thus, for example, it says in the "Section of eight" (VIII, 27):