A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s6.t3.156

v2.c19.s6.t3.156

The Divyāvadāna ("The Heavenly Avadānas"),² is a later collection than the Avadāna-Śataka, but it also includes some very old texts. Though it begins with the Mahāyānistic benediction "Om, honour to all the exalted Buddhas and Bodhisattvas," and contains just a few obviously later additions in the spirit of the Mahāyāna,³ as a whole it decidedly belongs to the Hīnayāna school. The Sanskrit Canon and single canonical texts such as Dīrghāgama, Udāna, Sthavira-Gāthā, and so on, are frequently quoted.⁴ Some narratives begin and end exactly as in the Avadāna-Śataka, and a number of the stereotyped phrases and descriptions so characteristic of this book, also recur literally in the Divyāvadāna. They are probably derived from the Vinayapiṭaka of the Mūla- Sarvāstivāda school, from which, as S. Lévi¹ has shown, more than one-half of the stories is borrowed.