A History of Indian Literature v2.c23.11

v2.c23.11

The significance of the Bairat Edict should neither be overrated nor yet under-estimated. It is overrating it to conceive of it, as *Barua*, l. c. has done, “as a rare historical document, which conclusively proves the existence of the Buddhist Canon in the third century B.C., in the same form, and with almost the same titles to its different passages, as we have now.” On the other hand, it is under-estimating it, when *Barth* (RHR 5, 1882, 239 f. = Oeuvres, I, p. 342) declares that the titles do not prove that there was a Canon in existence in those days, but that on the contrary they show that though Buddhism had a literature, it had not yet a Canon. Similarly *La Vallée Poussin*, Bouddhisme, Études et Matériaux (Mémoires Acad. Belgique, 55, 1898), p. 32 f., says that the titles prove nothing for the antiquity of the Pāli Canon ; according to him they prove merely the antiquity of Sūtras and Vinayas which are related to the Pāli texts, and that Aśoka does not allude to a definite Canon. The very words of the edict : “ Whatever has been uttered by the Lord Buddha, all that is well said,”¹ make it appear probable that there was something in the nature of a Canon in existence, wherein that which was regarded as having been uttered by Buddha, was collected, and which, therefore, to the minds of believers, bore the stamp of genuineness. When Aśoka says that, though everything which the Lord uttered is good, he especially recommends a few selected texts not only to the monks and nuns, but also to the lay adherents of both sexes, it seems as though he must have been acquainted with a considerable number of such texts. We shall therefore not be unduly bold in arguing from the Edict that, at the time when it was written, there was a canonical collection of Sutta and Vinaya texts in the Māgadhī language. As the texts enumerated by Aśoka appear in various books of the Pāli Canon, it is, to say the least of it, very probable indeed, that the Pāli Canon, as far as the Sutta and Vinaya-Piṭaka are concerned, was very closely related to the Māgadhī Canon. The exaggerated scepticism of *Minayeff*, Recherches, p. 84 ff., has already been confuted by *Oldenberg*, ZDMG 52, 1898, 634 ff.